Sharkfin you missed the point. Again.

The baby bonus is a one-off prize.

It is NOT an ongoing assistance to help pay those bills and help with all that work that we are not paid to do. It does not help us plan.

And yes, mate, I do hours of vuluntary work for my community and I feel satisfaction that I am helping those less fortunate than me. You sound like your mantra is "me-me-me".

Don't lecture me about on how to raise children mate.

I would never plan a child for a baby bonus. That is unethical, that was my point.

I would never plan a child for a war as cannon fodder, that is inhuman and I can't believe you see children as cannon fodder.

I remember at the age of 6, my psychotic primary school teachers used to bark at us to march in time as we had a war to look forward to. The principal told all boys to solute the flag and pledge not only that "I love God and my country" but also "I will die for my contry in war". If we didn't, they slapped our legs with a stick.

They explained that by the time we were 19, we should prepare to die for Australia fightining communism.

Now don't lecture me that you want to oppress yet another generation with this crap with conscription for something that is totally meaningless. Just like last time!

I will never forget that abuse for the rest of my life. It was a school in the poorest area in Melbourne and we were moulded for one purpose. War. They were not preparing us for life, didn't bother to teach us to spell, it was for obedience and death.

Now I ask you, what war do you plan on raising these children for? Whose ass do you expect them to die for? Yours?

Have you ever been in the army? Have you smelt the stench of death? Have you ever sent your children to war?

Saintfletcher-:

When war comes it will be beyond your and my control to stop it. Because Australia has a shortage of young fit fighting personnel there WILL be conscription just as there was in World War 2 .

When our enemies finally match our weaponary which they are working on at this moment (look how they’ve come up with a bomb to blow up our previously impenetrable tanks) then victory may well come down to how many young fit fighting males we have. Given that our enemies have millions of young fit fighting men. America can barely hold control of Iraq at the moment because they do not have enough men at arms. Fifty to seventy year olds can certainly play their part I’d take up arms and go myself to spare my children but a fifty to seventy year old army will be no match for all the young fit males in other countries.

I did not have children to have them killed in wars but I’m a realist and I know that if war comes the government will force them to go. That was just one example of how you need young people in the community around you as you age and become slower and less able. We don’t need doddery old people running hospitals and they certainly cant do some heavy tradesmens jobs as they reach up round 60 and over. Now I know there will always be the exceptions with good genetics but they are in the minority. A lot of old people just kid themselves that they have the agility and stamina of young people. They are probably all right for desk jobs but not for the punishing shift work of nurses.
That’s why we have this shortage of tradesmen at the moment because all the babyboomers cant do the heavy work anymore and have droped out with noone to replace this large demographic.
The lack of children has insured the handing over of this country to foreign workers.

LUDWIG-: “A considerable hatred of those who don’t have kids.”

You were the one who objected to financial help for mothers Ludwig. You made an attack on help for mothers that’s why I defended them. I’m tired of all the negativity towards mothers in our society and I WILL defend motherhood. Someones got to do it womens liberation never did. And don’t assume I was always a stay at home mother. I’ve done my share of fulltime and parttime and volunteer work too. I still give a lot of my time to help the community. The drought will break. We’ll adapt to having no oil, The West needs more sons and daughters, its other countries in the world who need to control their populations instead of wanting to overrun other peoples countries now they’ve overrun their own.

-:“I’ve been trying to prevent a scenario of civil disruption between different ethnic groups from ever developing. So what have you been doing about it.”

I admire you for doing something positive about this Ludwig you do sound like a very can do person. My prime reason for getting on the internet was to counteract some of the misconceptions and blinkered ideas about how standing around and talking love and peace brothers could stop wars. The pen can be mightier than the sword.
You could say I’m one of you passionate people on OLO.

Who are our enemies sharkfin? This ranting is sounding pathologically paranoid.

Define who the enemies are. You claim "they" are making weapons already. I guess "they" want Australia. Why Australia? There is no water here to begin with.

Surely New Zealand would be a better alternative.

This whole story is so hypothetical and absurd, it is hardly worth building a budget around.

Christ! there are serious climate challenges and you are fighting windmills mate. I mean, the Vietnam war took us back retrograde by 20 years, but this also had an enemy that the troops found confusing to define. Have you ever heard the Vietnam war vets talk about drinking with the enemy, and how it drove them insane?

Are the neo-cons going stark raving mad or are they expecting us to take the bait?

Even if our population doubles, if your connotations lead a war to defend Australia from say, (I sigh) Islam (?), `\o/` Forget it.

It cannot be won on munitions, battle in war as we know it, and cannon fodder. It begins and ends with media. You want peace for your children, you tell Ruphurt Murdock.

Making noises to provoke countries that never had any interest at all before the Howard Government only tempts them into Howard's desired effect. His need for fear and war.

Conscription will make little difference to defend our land, it only keeps a generation busy and cuts back on a baby boom created to be cut back.

I thought the budget was supposed to be a realistic plan to build in the future. I didn't know that all it stood for was preparing for a war, a division of class, and the betrayal of ordinary people.

What are these windmills Dan Quixotte?

I like the way you praise those that agree with you. Some of my favourite posters on OLO are the ones that disagree with me the most. Their personalities grow larger than their opinions. Love us or hate us, we are Australians. We don't always agree.

Why on earth has this thread descended into such flaming attacks on people. Oh that's it, its because we are talking about welfare!

The baby bonus was never meant to encourage people to have more kids for the sake of it, nor was it ever suggested that it was to help with the costs of raising kids. The FAO website (link on my last post) says that it is to provide some assistance to families (note NOT JUST MOTHERS), for the intitial costs of having a new baby, many of which are significant. I would suggest that for most people the availability of the bonus doesnt affect their decision whether to have a child or not. For a few disillusioned it might be the lucky lottery that you like referring to saintfletcher. For a few others the availability of a few extra thousand dollars at a time when income is very low anyway might just be enough that they CAN afford to have a child (or another one). I do fall into this last category. My husbands income is so impacted by the drought (as it was when my first child was born), that the baby bonus means that we can manage financially during that time.

“You were the one who objected to financial help for mothers Ludwig.”

No sharkfin! You misunderstand me.

I am not against some financial assistance for mothers / parents, of the type that we have had within our tax system for decades.

Neither am I against the concept of motherhood or parenthood. And I wouldn’t be even in a scenario of chronic overpopulation and a very high birthrate.

And thirdly, I am not against large families, for as long as the average family size is below, at, or slightly above replacement level.

So I am not in the slightest bit ‘anti-mother’ or anti-family or anti-support for mothers or babies. And I certainly did not make an attack on help for mothers, as you put it.

What I am vehemently against is the baby-buying lump-sum payment, which is specifically designed to boost our fertility rate, when we most definitely don’t need it to be increased at all. It isn’t designed to help mothers or babies. That is incidental. It is designed specifically to boost our population….oh and to buy votes for Howard and Costello. It is essentially a blatant vote-buying utter bribe of a policy, which is absolutely at odds with the sort of population policy that we should be implementing in this country.

I don’t think I could be more strongly opposed to anything!

I hope this has clarified any misconceptions.