Another simplistic article from a Liberal with training wheels on.

Why should people be tempted to have babies to collect the one off $4176 baby bonus when the baby is going to cost money for the next 21 years. The federal government funds each private school pupil to the tune $4700 per annum, leaving state schools to be funded by state governments.

Yes there are more elderly people than there are tax payers, but it costs money to raise children, think of all the schools and teachers society has to provide to educate our young. How many older people are self funded retirees who don't sup at the public.

Many of our young people are engaged in meaningless low paid work like shop assistants, coffee house waiting staff, call centre etc and if there is a shortage of labour these jobs can disappear with no real damage to our economy.

Australians can retire at 55 and enjoy an active retirement until they are frail. When they are frail they will need assistance to live. Will they need assistance for 3 months or 5 years?

We know that children need assistance for 5 years then schooling for another 13 years be able to be independent members of our community.

I do like children but vilifying the elderly is poorly thought through, emotive and wrong.

Its good to see that fathers got a mention in the article, although it was in brackets as “(or fathers)”.

In the age of gender equality and choice, it is also good to see that there is equal emphasis on paternity leave for fathers, and not just maternity leave for mothers.

Or is there, with the previous sex discrimination commissioner saying that Australia can't afford paternity leave for fathers, and the baby bonus being paid to the mothers only.

davo, the choice not to have children is not based on self-centredness or selfishness. It's a choice about whether you even want to bring a child into this quite often unpleasant and unkind world. Or it maybe a choice about whether at a particular age whether you could be a vibrant and energetic parent for your child and in my case it was going to be unfair to the child to be an "old" parent when they are just starting their life.

Billie, many of us have started our working lives scrubbing dishes, working in packing sheds, picking fruit etc doing so called dead end jobs, but we didn't care - it was work and that is what mattered. We knew if we worked hard we would eventually get a good job. Young ones these days cannot afford to be picky. They need to realise that you can 't get it all straight away, that we all started from somewhere and that this is life.

I'm amazed at the financial assistance that parents get from the government: baby bonus, Family Tax Benefit, Child Care Support, various tax breaks etc etc etc and parent's think they are hard done by. Good grief.

Zahira, There are no more tax breaks than the ones that you specifically mentioned (eg family tax benefit) for families. Childcare rebate used to be a tax break, designed to help working parents, but the "its not fair" brigade got that changed so that all parents working or not get additional childcare support, and its no longer a tax break.

HRS, the baby bonus (or maternity payment) is paid to the carer of the child. Usually its the mother that fills out the paperwork, but the father is entitled to if he is going to be the carer, as are grandparents and those who adopt children. Also in most cases the leave to look after a baby is referred to as parental leave, and covers either mother or father.

Billie, self-funded retirees get plenty of tax-breaks, which is the equivalent to supping at the public teat. Think of all those pensions the over 60's now get tax-free. I dont disagree with you viewpoint entirely, but make sure you look at the big picture first.

runner, a stoppage with looking at motherhood as a profession is that marriages are now so unstable. Its a big risk for both the mother and her kids for her to not be reasonably self-supporting. I could get enough tax-free money from Centrelink to support myself and kids with hubby's income as well, and be a full-time mum, but the risk that things will go wrong... it would remove a lot of my ability to stand my ground on a moral issue or a child-raising issue. At the moment I would rather work and have more choices open to me and my kids, than be bound by circumstance and leaning on the public purse for support.

Liberty, if you think Felicity is socialist, then what on earth would you consider, oh, I don't know, the Norwegian government?
You're talking about someone who thinks the ABC should be privatised, and that WorkChoices doesn't go far enough.

Over populated is when the countries resources cannot meet the population needs for particularly those items of the natural environment for which there is no alternative is proposed by economists.
Land, water, being two.
The productive capacity of Australian lands is declining as is the actual area available for production.
Water is also declining at east to the Southern part of Australia, the wheat belt, Goyder’s line will run just West of the dividing range to Queensland border, in the South around Adelaide latitude, and in the West an equal West move of the Line running N-S, the implication of Global warming. Though maybe the energy cost can be born for supplying people ‘s needs and coping with the pollution such cannot be said for the needs of Agriculture. The north seems problematical for broad acre crops.
Sure we can gain money by export of minerals for a time and buy what is needed, even water? At present we ‘help’ the world in land by producing food crops and this is likely to decline. So what as mineral exports or payment as nuclear dump can makeup a shortfall of money from exports. Realist Foreign policy would argue we cannot worry about others, yet many including Keelty see coming shortages as producing pressure on our defences since we say who comes here.
Mary White in I think 1999 produced a book, ’Listen My Country is Crying’ detailing some of the hurt we have inflicted on our environment, sure this is not the coast. However if Global warming is correct and science says it is this too will cry or at least drown.
Can we have a sustainable economy, Natural capital and the Australian Natural Edge would like to try.