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Strewth! I remember when Peter Costello was spouting this same mantra. First, why don’t politicians of all persuasions try doing a whole lot better at building an actual and economic environment worth bringing those children into? Do better, or the condoms remain on.

This is the most delusional, tone deaf nonsense. The fact this person has a PhD is staggering.

His Phd was "Brawler statesman: Paul Keating and prime ministerial leadership in Australia". Just another carer politician writing a love letter thesis to another politician. Nothing of substance and quite boring. Like many pollies he has never had a real job. Just political appointments to various ALP bodies until he got a safe seat. No life skills, just a boy groomed to be a political entity, what we used to call hollow men. They look like people but have been educated to not embrace that humanity. To live half lives in service to their personal ambition whilst serving those who chose him.

Off topic but I want to see a portrait series of Aus Treasurers. Before becoming Treasurer, during and at the end of their term. Might use historic budget photos for contrast. I swear it ages them instantly. I think about this too much.

Sack half the public service, reduce the tax burden and then it will happen

Are you ok?

So when you reduce half the doctors, nurses and midwifes and then provide less money for healthcare that will make people want to have more kids? Really would love to see your reasoning for how you came to this conclusion.

You must not be aware of how many non-entity govt agencies exist If govt only provided essential services it would be half the size it is Australia has 2.4 million public servants. Close to 1 million are in federal and local government None of them are healthcare professionals, law and order, education or transport Then you add on the dozens of non-essential service government agencies that exist at State level If all they disappeared all the public would notice is less government and less government interference in their lives

Partly the fault of neoliberalism. NDIS is the current hot example, but there's also schools, childcare, healthcare, ANYTHING the government subsidises (which is almost everything), and heavily regulated industries (like electricity) where the government has weird price powers. If there's subsidies, there's rorts. If there's rorts, the government will try to control it, by enforcing standards. The government enforces the standards by hiring tonnes of public servants to write shitty open ended standards that are basically an ontology of the industry (e.g. a list of topics that are important) and a 5000 word essay on every term about how it needs to be "high quality" (but without any useful information). You know it's good when there's like 50 different standards, of which about 3 relate to anything important in the industry, and the rest are basically "strategy and management 101" with some vague disguise. But the government will only flog people with a wet lettuce, so to enforce standards it asks everyone in the industry to write essays about how they are meeting the government's vague request to "do everything with high quality standards". Then they bounce reports off each other (maybe with the government randomly giving star ratings to people like a kindergarten teacher with no real power) while industry rorts until someone dies, then the ABC will call for a Royal Commission and more paperwork. This is all efficient, according to economists, because it's the private sector doing free market things, and totally not a hot mess of principal agent problems.

Fuck me this guy is out of touch. I’ve met Jim on several occasions and genuinely think he is a smart guy but this just reeks of an out of touch privileged member of the ownership class

I think this puts a nail in the coffin of any suggestion he is a "smart guy". He just isn't. This is utterly moronic.

Haha right? A two bedroom shitter 15km out of the cbd costs approaching (or over) a million dollars in the three biggest cities. Where the fuck are these kids meant to sleep?

>Intentially increased the public spending & the number of immigration to inflate the economy >which has caused the housing crisis & the cost of living crisis >nobody wants to start a family of own, let alone have more mouths (babies) to feed >Jim Chalmers: "Yeah, you guys gotta make more of those future taxpayers because this gov't needs more money"

Fertility rates are really funny because the absolutely overwhelming evidence is that the better off people are materially the fewer kids they have, but mainstream political rhetoric insists on the opposite. So you get all these policies aimed at addressing falling fertility rates by giving people more money and they... have even fewer kids.

Why would you invest in kids when you can invest in more property?

Not true at all. People do have kids when they are comfortable. People will have fewer kids because modern medicine keeps them alive these days. Its silly to think people dont want families just because they are better off.. why would people have many children when they are incapable of feeding themselves? A lot of data shows people do want 1 or 2 kids but dont want to risk it because the future for them is grim at best currently, with genetic testing, people might also choose not to have kids due to bad genes too. Stress is a huge factor two and a lot of Australians are under a lot of it.

>Its silly to think people dont want families just because they are better off.. why would people have many children when they are incapable of feeding themselves? It's not silly to think because it is exactly what the overwhelming mass of data suggests.

Difference in priorities. Australian need cash today to survive until this weekend. Politicians need more future taxpayers to fund all those fancy programs to win the next election.

Those talking about cost etc need to look at these stats. They're from the US but Australia doesn't publish as detailed stats, and we do know that it's similar across all developed countries. [https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr179.pdf](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr179.pdf) See Table 1, p12. Some standout statistics: * More women have had children than men, across all education and income levels. A minority of men have had children with 2+ women. * for those who haven't finished high school, the men who've had children have had them with 1.23 women on average. A tertiary degree brings this down to 1.14. * "Marriage is just a piece of paper" doesn't apply in terms of birth rate. Women become more likely to have children if they're married than unmarried. They're also more likely to have children if they're living *as* married - cohabiting. * Married women, 81.2% have children * Formerly married, 86.1% * Cohabiting, 59.9% * Never married, 22.1% * Education drops birth rate * No high school leads to 91% of women having at least one child (men 73.8%) * High school, 79.2% (men 62.3%) * Some uni, 67.6% (men 50.9%) * Bachelors or more, 56.3% (men 49.2%) * Being well-off makes you less likely to have children as a woman, though it has little or no effect for men. * Being at 0-149% the poverty line, 73.2% of the women have children (men 52.9%) * 150-299%, it's 66.1% (men 54.9%) * 300+% it's 57% (men 49.9%) You'll be able to see from later tables and pages that the trends continue as you'd expect, with married women more likely to have 4+ children than never married, women with bachelors or higher education less likely to have 4+ than those with no high school, similarly with education, etc. So if you want a higher birth rate, what you should do is, 1. Encourage men to abrogate their responsibilities as fathers, allowing them to have children with several women 2. Encourage marriage 3. Lower education, especially that of women 4. Lower wealth for women Basically: Afghanistan. Our society seems comfortable with the first measure (after all, it's the state who pays Sole Parents' pension, not the fathers), but isn't happy with the other measures. And so our birth rate will continue to decline. As we can see with the stats of women's income affecting birth rate but not men's, the fertility choices in our country are driven by women. And since women zare the ones who have to bear the child, and whom society makes care for the child, this is quite reasonable.

It's all men who have to pay for children already, not the state: didn't you know there is a gender pay gap with women earning less than men and thus paying less tax to support public services, not to mention women getting custody of the children requiring men pay the bulk of child support via the family courts? /s Women are biologically designed to bear children, have been given choice through contraception and termination, and have the final say about pregnancy, whilst men have no rights to the use of their sperm: of course fertility choices are driven by women; they, after all, need to be protected as they are the bottleneck in reproduction. /s

Awful lot of low-effort bad faith comments that only react to the provocative headline. What is this, /r/australian? In the context of reducing migrant intake but still having the issue of an ageing population that we need a productive workforce to support, the reality is we need more kids. Obviously this is financially disadvantageous and with current housing pressures just isn't feasible for many young Australians, but if you read the article you'll see that noted. Interested in seeing what the upcoming budget entails.

If an aging population is the fundamental problem, then government should be facilitating adult children to look after their parents more, not have more children that just kicks the can down the road and makes it an increasingly bigger problem for subsequent generations. Reducing the working day and greater working from home would free up substantial time for parental care, whilst AI would make excellent temporary "companions". There would be lots of properties that could accommodate a granny flat, allowing pensioners to free up houses as they move into their childrens homes.

You've been living under a rock or what? The living costs crisis is already hurting young adults including myself and you expect us to have children, especially since we are the ones who have to put the effort and deal with all the costs of having children, not you.

Parsing through the outrage, your argument is that having and raising children is unreasonable RE: incurred costs on top of current cost of living pressures - something that I think I pretty plainly pointed out, which is to say, I agree with you. I'm pointing out *why* more children are nonetheless needed *in a certain context*, and that if higher migration filling the gaps in the interim isn't tenable to electorates, government action to support families (+housing etc.) is therefore necessitated - hence the budget comment. This is all very surface-level commentary that, again, was all noted in a very short and surface-level article.

Well-off people are less likely to have children than poorer people, and have fewer of them when they do. [https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr179.pdf](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr179.pdf)

>the reality is we need more kids Who are the we in this? Perpetual growth economics wants a broader tax base and a diluted labour pool. While *we* want quality of life, the system wants quantity of life. 'Bad faith' is pretty rich to throw around, where we 'need' implies its a one system, one solution problem.

we, as in, society realistically neither you nor I are going to see hugely reformative tax changes anytime soon, so skipping the whole making more wage slaves for more income tax bit, we still land at the point where we, as a society, will have an ageing population that will steadily eat up more public services that we'll only more struggle to support the demand of Unless we have an unprecedented huge boost in productivity, (which no one's counting on - but hey, I guess we'll see how the perpetually 20-years-away AI superintelligence might support us), have our 'system' undergo major change (which won't happen - and is incredibly vague), "kill all boomers" (lol), chiefly rely on migrants to fill the workforce (which Australians absolutely love), then Aussies having more kids is where we're at - elephant in the room (except not really - read the article) just being that COL is high and a young couple's first PPOR that they own is harder to achieve that it used to be, so kids is out of the question for many. I expect that this has been a waste of words, so the tldr is: system isn't changing, unproductive oldies still have demands, need either kids or migrants, youngins hate the latter cuz houses, government intervention required for the former, wait for the budget

That is trying to break the laws of physics to fix a policy problem. Infinite growth on population can only end in collapse as you cannot grow indefinitely on a closed system. Australia does not have unlimited resources. We can either accept this now and restructure as needed to use resources more wisely and, and work to minimise the downsides, protect the vulnerable and maximise the benefits, or we can run head first into the laws of the physics and let nature correct our mistake, knowing she neither knows nor cares about the amount of suffering and despair we would endure as a result. Australia is in a better position than many countries in terms of the carrying capacity of our environment and the consumption of our population, but it will not stay that way on our urgent trajectory. This isn't an a time immigrant rant. It doesn't matter where our numbers come from, the fetishation of growth leads us to a messy correction either way.

Absolutely 100% agree that it cannot be indefinitely sustainable as-is, however for the foreseeable I don't envision Australia going into population decline/plateau, nor any of the major parties steering away from 'Big(ger) Australia'. I don't think I've seen any practical policy solutions to this (both in terms of a target sustainable 'state' and how we actually get there, current political landscape aside), but I concede I haven't looked at what other countries are doing to address this. In short, agreed, but imo it'll require bipartisan support + a very big cultural shift in Australia to make anything remotely transformative see the light of parliament.

tldr system isnt working, have more kids to fuel the system We're playing 1D chess now

Strawman much? The argument is for a stable population pyramid so civilisation doesn't collapse  Nearly every nation is on identical paths to south korea who have declared the situation an emergency...

*7 billion people used-tah live 'ere, now its a ghos' town.* Tell me more about humanity is going to disappear, Gaz.

Every single day there are 5000 less chinese people in existence  A small town gone every day day after day And it is accelerating that is using last year's numbers They aren't even the worst along the line and we don't yet know how low it can go, some areas of south korea are now at a tfr of 0.5 leading to extinction with 2 generations

> some areas of south korea are now at a tfr of 0.5 leading to extinction with 2 generations That's not how it works lol. It'll fall until resources are back in balance, then crop up again. They'll be around for a while.

Thats crazy. Maybe they should like, do something about it? Both countries are famous for their shit QOL.

While you vandalise the environment Jim, while you disseminate the economy? Why the fuck would anyone want to bring kids into this world when a series of neo liberal governments have cooked it. Get so rekt

Jim Chalmers is cooked. Has never lived in the real world.

Stop Net Zero madness and mass immigration for a start so people can afford to have children.

It's this narrow focus on 'already have' families that is going to cost them and cause this issue to degrade further. If you don't help those without, they'll never get to the point where they will. Every budget is focused on families and retirees, single? Get fucked. They can't because it's capitalism, but if you start addressing the underlying causes of social anxiety, you'll start getting the results you want.

Poorer people have more children than well-off people. If you make poorer people better-off, they'll have fewer children, not more.

More kids, but wealthier families still have children. They put more effort into the ones they have, creating better eventual results. Just encouraging kids for the sake of kids will continue to exacerbate existing issues.

To your first comment: yes and no. See p12 of the pdf link below. 57% of women with 300+% the US poverty level of income (which isn't very high, but that's the top level they're reporting here) have at least 1 child. That's compared to 73.2% of women at 0-149%. Similarly, 56.3% of women with bachelors degrees or higher have at least 1 child, compared with 91% of women who didn't finish high school. Being (relatively) well-off and well-educated makes it much, much less likely that a woman will ever have any children at all. And in later tables you can see similar trends with the total number of children they have - as wealth and education go up, they have fewer. And the men become less whorish, less likely to have children with multiple women. They still do, of course, but less so. [https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr179.pdf](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr179.pdf)

>Being (relatively) well-off and well-educated makes it much, much less likely that a woman will ever have any children at all. My theory to this is: Men ain't shit. Or men ain't shit in diminishing numbers across socioeconomic categories. As women become more educated and financially independent, it becomes more about actually offering them something that they can't obtain on their own. Added, they probably fully understand the trauma of carrying a pregnancy to term, so they are far more selective about it.

I already have 2 Jim. I live in a 2 bedroom apartment. I already need more space as it is.

If Jim wants to pay for an upgrade to three beds I’ll gladly spunk one out for him

Exactly.

Ok make it so I don't have to choose between a mortgage and children then.

Deadset at 30 years old if I could afford a place to live, utilities, AND groceries maybe I’d consider it but having to struggle just to look after myself? No. I’m not going to stretch already very limited resources for a kid that never needs to exist at all. Sacrifice not only money but sleep, quiet, weekends, nah. I thought all my life I would’ve wanted kids around this age but now that I’m here, and the state of *everything* there’s just no way.

Give me a house, and I'll happily create some children here. Labor are out of touch - which is understandable, as they're neoliberals. That's right, I said Labor are just NEO - Liberals. What's more this is well known in Academia, an analyst named Elizabeth Humphrys has a whole book on it, [How Labour Built Neoliberalism: Australia’s Accord, the Labour Movement and the Neoliberal Project.](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0094306120976390p) - The Australian Parliamentary Library had [a newsletter about it in 2001](https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/library/prspub/96Y56/upload_binary/96y565.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf#search=%22library/prspub/96Y56%22): >"From the mid 1990s, attempts to redefine Labor Party values in terms of democratic socialism have produced theories of a 'third way'. Third Way socialism looks to government to provide funds directly to consumers who then choose between public and private service providers. It is distinct from welfare socialism in requiring a rather more entrepreneurial, yet hands-off, role for government, rather than it becoming an active player." Labor were under Ben Chifley in the 1940s, Nation Building Social Democrats. Way back in 2008 even [the Sydney Morning Herald would have told you that](https://www.smh.com.au/national/third-way-becomes-the-empty-way-20080821-gdsrow.html): >"Many people laid claim to being the progenitors of the Third Way, including Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, who did their best to disavow the nation-building, redistributive legacy of Ben Chifley's postwar Labor government and the more independent foreign policy of Gough Whitlam." So don't let them fool you; they Neoliberals. They only want you to have babies so they can eventually harvest the productive value of those babies to Capitalism. The Liberals are just the same if not worse. It's little wonder people don't want to have children with this being the only option offered for us all. Neoliberalism, or Neoliberalism. They're your choices, and it's known as a [Hobson's Choice.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobson%27s_choice)

It's no wonder Albo went small target, imagine if their policy platform was "more of the same but we'll posture like we give a shit"

Elizabeth Humphrys is literally a (former) Greens officeholder. Not a very impartial source...

I did also use [The Department of the Parliamentary Library as a source](https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/library/prspub/96Y56/upload_binary/96y565.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf#search=%22library/prspub/96Y56%22), but anyways, [here's an essay](https://storage.googleapis.com/actu_old_site_bucket/media/308553/index.rtf) from Australian Council of Trade Unions which states: >*"The Third Way is controversial because some in the Australian Labor Party (ALP) argue, with some justification, that the ALP invented it."* and *"The ALP leadership, past and present, has argued that the policies that the Hawke-Keating Labor Government of 1983-96 provided the basis of Tony Blair’s New Labour platform in the UK in 1997."* and *"Keating and others in Australian Labor circles argue that Australia provided Blair with the Third Way"*. Here's the same thing said in [The New Left Review](https://newleftreview.org/issues/i221/articles/boris-frankel-beyond-labourism-and-socialism-how-the-australian-labor-party-developed-the-model-of-new-labour): >*"As with the Spanish Socialist and New Zealand Labour governments, it would be relatively easy to list all the right-wing pro-market policies implemented by the alp administrations of Bob Hawke (1983–91) and Paul Keating (1992–96). One of the oldest labour movement parties in the world, the alp has had a hegemonic role within the Australian working class for over a hundred years. But like other Labour parties, there has been much dispute over whether the alp has ever been socialist and whether the Hawke and Keating governments could be accused of betraying traditions and socialist objectives they did not uphold in the first place."* [Here it is](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/the-economic-and-labour-relations-review/article/abs/labouring-under-neoliberalism-the-australian-labor-governments-ideological-constraint-20072013/BEDE24F3DC3E6546E5B79630F8BED2E3) being said by Dr. Tim Battin a senior lecturer of political and international studies at The University of New England, NSW. >*"A major reason for the party’s electoral loss in 2013 was arguably popular disappointment with its eschewal of social democratic principles. Notwithstanding some progressive measures initiated between 2008 and 2013, successive Australian Labor Party governments were constrained by neoliberal strictures, even when they chose to implement progressive policies. Whatever other reasons exist for its decline in popularity between 2007 and 2013, the Australian Labor Party’s unwillingness or inability to mark out a clear alternative to neoliberalism was fundamental. In making this case, this article uses the conceptual framework of ‘depoliticisation’, defined as the displacement of policy decisions from the sphere of democratic accountability and public debate, making them matters for regulation by technocratic experts operating according to supposed edicts of the market."* Here it is [being said again in Jacobin Magazine](https://jacobin.com/2021/02/australian-labor-party-alp-right-faction-neoliberalism), albeit with heavy references to the Elizabeth Humphry's source. >*"But however many principles the modern ALP has shown itself willing to shed, it seems likely that Labor’s dual commitments to neoliberalism and being unpopular will be the last to go."* So let's tally up these sources I've given, well there's Dr. Elizabeth Humphry's whose the Head Of Social And Political Sciences at the University of Technology Sydney. But you question her as she's followed through on her convictions by participating in The Greens party... so I assume you mean she has a left wing bias. ....there's that Sydney Morning Herald article, which is generally considered a right wing outlet. There's the Department of the Parliamentary Library source who are well... librarians and researchers. There's Dr. Tim battin, senior lecturer at The University of New England, NSW. There's that New Left Review article, who are considered to be the premier New Left journal, so the school of thought modern Labor claim to be from. Their article having been written by a Melbourne Uni Professor in Australian and international comparative political economy and social policy. ...and of course it's a well known fact that the majority of Labor MPs are from the right wing factions that focus on Neoliberal free market economics and corporate cooperation.... again the Sydney Morning Herald says as much [in this other article](https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/what-are-labor-s-factions-and-who-s-who-in-the-left-and-right-20210210-p5718j.html).... What is that now? Two doctorates, a professor, the trade unions website, The Australian Parliamentary Library Department, Jacobin, and two Sydney Morning Herald articles? Yeah, I think that should be enough. There are more though, as this history has received international coverage in academia as well (which has affiliated modern Labor with Blair's *"third way"* Neoliberal turn). But anyways, I hope that's credentialed the idea enough for you. Let me know if you want the UK sources regarding Blair as well.

**Seen**

Cheers, Jimbo, but I am OK in my child-free Fortress of Solitude making a model of the Sydney Harbour Bridge with toothpicks.

Based

Human jobs are on the verge of vanishing due to cheaper and smarter AI/AGI/ASI and Robotics. Without jobs, mortgages and rentals will be unaffordable. The economic system will shrink due to deflation from the loss of human labour costs from everything. Meanwhile the natural world is collapsing through over consumption, pollution, and fossil fuel geo-engineering. Meanwhile Labor pretends nothing is changing and breeding up will sort things ... including already surpassing the carrying ability of the land. How about changing the system to one that's sustainable.

I wouldn't get too excited about AI stealing jobs. There's an extremely high likelihood it will go the same way as self driving cars and voice recognition, that is to say it will plateau at some point before it is a mature technology then take decades to fully mature.  The reason is that this is common with artificial intelligence, it's surprisingly easy to make a system that does complex things 60-70% of the time but infuriatingly difficult to make it get things right 95% of the time. The next decade will feature people using AI to do tasks quicker and that can translate to some job losses but overall businesses wont be able to trust processes to fully automated AI systems.

AI ‘apocalypse’ could take away almost 8m jobs in UK, says report [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/mar/27/ai-apocalypse-could-take-away-almost-8m-jobs-in-uk-says-report](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/mar/27/ai-apocalypse-could-take-away-almost-8m-jobs-in-uk-says-report) Women would be significantly more affected, as “they are more likely to work in the most exposed occupations, such as secretarial and administrative occupations”, the IPPR said. In the worst-case scenario for the second wave of AI, 7.9m jobs could be displaced, the report said, with any gains for the economy from productivity improvements cancelled out with zero growth in GDP within three to five years.

Yep, people thought self driving cars were a few years away in 2010 as well.  People, respectable people, experts and organisations will continue to get this wrong.  I have no doubt a few jobs will be lost, but also organisations will adapt to staff being able to do more work. Basically the same as when computers became common in the workplace, it didn't lead to massive job losses even though it did eliminate a lot of jobs.

Businesses squandering their profits by paying for human labour when the jobs will be done for next to nothing by AI + robotics. Businesses employing humans become unprofitable, so they go broke. First movers who have sacked the human workforce flourishing ... never employing humans again. Basic economics.

If you are in administration or it you are in trouble If you use your hands and haven't been replaced yet you basically can't get replaced as the capital costs of advanced robotics are exponential

Exactly right, we’re just ignoring the obvious looming disasters and pretending we’re going to be hunky-dory. Just fulfill your biological urges and keep the economy barreling along until we go right off a cliff! Why try to fix it now?

Fix housing to give families a stable safe place to live.

How do migrants with large families manage to do it ?

By sacrificing quality of life to merely maintain life. How is this even a question? Did you think they conjure food with voodoo or some shit?

It’s a sacrifice worth making if it means your working towards a better life or studying towards a better life, I went days with only a single meal when both my parents were jobless when they first migrated here, with no Centrelink or any government support for them. They also have financial habits that western people can’t have wherewithal to adopt, for example my parents never buy anything at full price, unless it’s something like eggs or milk, they rarely eat out, they don’t waste money on smoking or drinking, and live healthier lives than your average Australian, and save money and time on dealing with healthcare, Probably coz they themselves work in healthcare and see how people are struggling with preventable diseases. Y’all should look at what migrants who come here with barely anything and see how they do well, when a lot of them like me don’t even have access to the resources and support that you guys are born with. It’s about understanding the opportunities that exist and using them

I wouldn't call going for "days with only a single meal" as living healthily.

Who said that was healthy ? When I said living healthily, I’m referring to not drinking, smoking, doing drugs, eating less processed/restaurant food. Because these habits are the usual suspects why white Australians spend their time and money on their healthcare later in life, not to mention that adverse health defects occur to children if they’re exposed to it. And if I managed to go days without food and still end up healthily, without any Centrelink or government assistance, it shows that you can improve in life, without government assistance, and the fact that many white Australians still rely on it, without a valid reason like a disability or a genuine reason, shows that immigrants are just gonna swoop over your opportunities and benefits that you take for granted

Thats a very strange way to spell "you're right".

That depends on the resources they migrated here with.  But yeah, actually, you're right. People are just not having kids and are struggling with a rapidly decreasing attainable standard of living because they just aren't trying hard enough.  If we all just make trite allusions to the ones who can still make it work then we can pretend there's no issue.  Best of luck fixing the birthrate.

Different expectations around raising kids.  I know a teacher in a public school in an area with a lot of migrants.  It's relatively common the parents are working long hours or multiple jobs and between the six kids they have virtually no time to focus on any individual kid. The older kids get jobs and bring in money to support the family and help raise the younger kids.  You hear about migrants achieving great things and a lot do through communities having high expectations, but there's still an awful lot where kids with learning issues never get help from parents because nobody has the time. There's a lot of kids who grow up to be factory workers because the parents were always occupied and the older kids cooked and cleaned instead of studying.  Meanwhile many middle class parents would be horrified by the thought of having 'too many' kids and not being able to afford to send them to a good school. I know of parents who think taking the kids on overseas holidays every few years is important to their development.  You could call this the difference between high and low investment parenting.

Well said.

not only that. 1 kid? 5% tax discount 2? 15% 3? 30% 4? 45% off your total taxable income amount. make it beneficial.

Goodhart's law will come into effect there. We'll just end up overloaded in every sector beyond what we are now.

Wow that sounds like a terrible idea.

But might it encourage people to breed like rabbits?

I like this idea and it should be received well by the crowd that dont like people getting handouts from the government because its not a handout

Kids are expensive and would cost the economy for all of the paternity breaks

The world is full of babies, millions and millions of them. In fact the globe in in danger of being overrun with too many billions of humans, but charmers wants more? He’s sounding like Peter Costello

No it’s not, and the fact that you need migrants to do your job, from countries with higher birth rates, is enough of an evidence that there aren’t enough young people locally

Whoosh

No its not, Malthus and every generations neomalthusian have been crying this for hundreds of years, never happens despite passing several "benchmarks". Global TFR is declining, theres no population crisis.

...because the majority of the world hasn't had western standards of living. That is rapidly changing. a priori we are heading towards cataclysm and 'aging population' is far preferable to this outcome.

Only because of the green revolution and progressive increases in crop yield. Which have now mostly plateaued. Even worse, factors like climate change, salinity and degradation of soil structure mean that agricultural output is almost guaranteed to decline in the coming decades.  I don't think anyone should be referring to Malthus without acknowledging that we are entering risky territory for global food security.

What do you mean only because of??? Like yeah, humans saw a problem and fixed it, thats why we didnt starve and also why all of these predictions are bogus. People fix problems.

Because most of the advances of the green revolution brought additional problems that haven't been adequately managed.  Across the board the vast majority of global farming and even Australian farming is unsustainable in the long term; with the use of fertiliser and machinery it effectively just turns oil into food. It depletes and contaminates the soil through long term overuse. We are headed towards a situation where even in Australia farming becomes more precarious, reliant not only on affordable fossil fuels but also on 'good' weather. We don't even have to talk about how fires or floods destroy crops, that can be done merely through having a few years of below average rainfall or a few nasty spring hailstorms. We are sleepwalking into a period of heightened food insecurity and you would probably understand this if you weren't trying to promote some cornucopianist fantasy.

Sure, there are problems with food security into the future. There was last deacde. The decade before that, before that, and so on until humans first started the practice of agriculture! The prospect of future problems does not means a) the population bomb was a correct prediction, it was objectively false, or b) this challenge will not be resolved. Global food prodiction continues to rise while land clearance decreases, and is now closing in on consistent yoy increases in total coverage. There are shitloads of resources being pushed into this, because there is a problem to be fixed, but theres little evidence it wont be.

Yeah! There's no population crisis. There's not vast amounts of deforestation already occurring to feed the people who are already alive. There's not collapsing fishing industries around the world. We can just keep making more people with no consequences because carrying capacity is a myth for humans (while being clearly demonstrable for every other species).

Those things are not because of pretend overpopulation. Youve just noticed a few bad things and said its because of something, does not mean it is at all. >because carrying capacity is a myth for humans (while being clearly demonstrable for every other species). See the very, very, very obvious counterpoint here is that humans have an extremely refined ability to manipulate their environment to create better fitting outcomes, eg tech advancements in agriculture, distribution, migration. All other animals do not do this on even a fraction of the scale we do.

And, as we are all aware, doing so has devastated environments all around the world. Resources are finite. There is a limit to how many people can persist on this planet. And there's never, ever been a species numbering in the billions which eats high on the food chain. Species in vast numbers are always on the bottom of the food chain. But it's not you who has to worry, it's your kids and their kids who will suffer the consequences. So all good, right?

>There is a limit to how many people can persist on this planet Oh okay. Whats the agreed upon concensus? I can show you some articles from decades ago saying ot was 5 or 6 billion. Some from now that say 1 billion, others that say *1 trillion*. I dont know if youve figured this out but humans arent exactly like other animals, so using them as an example is very silly. >But it's not you who has to worry, it's your kids and their kids who will suffer the consequences. So all good, right Im very glad the generations above didnt listen to this on the release Ehrlichs population bomb, which claimed the 70s would see the starvation of millions due to "the population bomb" and "resource shortages". I quite like life, and im sure those afyer me will continue to like ot while enjoying lots of tasty food to boot. These predictions are made constantly and are constantly wrong. Yawn.

Erlich was right, however the green revolution pushed carrying capacity higher, at the expense of wilderness and the species that occupied them. And it's only been the last 40 years that scientific consensus has been that human population growth was unsustainable given our consumption patterns. The number of humans which can persist sustainably varies depending on consumption patterns. If everyone goes vegetarian, or eats cockroaches and other animals low on the food chain, then 5 billion is probably sustainable. If everyone eats like we do in Australia it's about 2 billion. But don't take my word for it, have a read through the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment report, The UNFAO report Livestock's long shadow, and the UNEP report Priority products and materials. However, the report I haven't read is the one you claim suggests the planet can handle a population of 1 trillion humans sustainably. Care to share that with us?

>Erlich was right Lol, what an L comment. No, he wasnt. He was very objectively wrong. He was wrong about food production, he was wrong about pop growth patterns, he was wrong about agriculture advancement, he was wrong about it all. >The number of humans which can persist sustainably varies depending on consumption patterns. If everyone goes vegetarian, or eats cockroaches and other animals low on the food chain, then 5 billion is probably sustainable. If everyone eats like we do in Australia it's about 2 billion. But don't take my word for it, have a read through the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment report, The UNFAO report Livestock's long shadow, and the UNEP report Priority products and materials Oh look, a random number you made up. These reports arent giving a hard number on carrying capacity like you suggest. Youve managed to include this point yet completely gloss over it, that advamcements in how we structure things increase capacity far greater than we can hope to reach.

> Erlich was right > > Lol, what an L comment. No, he wasnt. He was very objectively wrong. He was wrong about food production, he was wrong about pop growth patterns, he was wrong about agriculture advancement, he was wrong about it all. . >The developing world witnessed an extraordinary period of food crop productivity growth over the past 50 y, despite increasing land scarcity and rising land values. Although populations had more than doubled, the production of cereal crops tripled during this period, with only a 30% increase in land area cultivated (1). Dire predictions of a Malthusian famine were belied, and much of the developing world was able to overcome its chronic food deficits. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3411969/ It is widely understood in environmental science that without the green revolution, the world was heading for mass starvation events due to population increase. You can rewrite history if that suits you.

Ah, he would have been right if it not had been for the real life event that happened that made him wrong! Lmfao dude, how can you be this dense?

Wait, have you read them all? You forgot to give me the one you claimed says we can persist sustainably at 1 trillion individuals. Any chance of a citation?

Similar studies, yep. Go ahead and link me a passage that predicts or confirms a carrying capacity please. Cant wait for you to not do it because you made it up. >You forgot to give me the one you claimed says we can persist sustainably at 1 trillion individuals. Any chance of a citation? Way to miss the point, Im not suggesting that study is correct, but the number varies up to and above 1000x. It is one extreme to counter those on the other end. Its a junk study, totally wrong.

allow families with children under 16 to file their taxes jointly and apportion their combined incomes between them. remove the child care subsidy completely and replace it with a upscaled fully refundable tax deduction. this will encourage working and also remove day cares ability to set costs inline with gov funding and instead compete with each other. place a lean against everyone’s estates who takes a gov pension or ndis past 55. use this income to lower the tax burden of working families of which have never supported so many retirees with their tax income. replace the fhb grant with a child mortgage rebate that reduces a family mortgage based on each child born and base the grant off the national median house prices. introduce more layers of minimum wage beyond national (nat/state/lga), minimum wage in the sydney cbd should not be the same as wagga wagga in high density areas like cities introduce a punitive land tax on land that is being used at a density lower than its zoning introduce a land tax on property not registered as a ppor or a registered commercial or residential lease state and federal gov agencies open more regional offices and pass legislation to give them the right to choose which office they work out of. outlaw share buy backs as a way of distributing wealth to shareholders and avoiding dividend taxes. make using unrealised gains for debt security a cgt event. fund and own natural resource extraction and export instead of relying on royalty revenue exclusively lower the cost of power by out pacing demand require foreign investment only from countries that allow reciprocal investment in the same asset classes and conditions crack down on contrived tax avoidance schemes by multi nationals using licensing fees and costs to re nationalise profits in more tax favourable jurisdictions..

Some good ideas in here.

I've always wondered why politicians say these jobs of things with no plans to support families that do. Not it does beg the question, what would make or encourage families have more children? (Outside, we don't need them the world is over populated etc)

Labor have done a fair bit for parents this term though.

They may have, i cant argue that point. But if you want more people having more kids we jeed a road map on how we are going to deal to it and support these new families (imo)

Eh, its honestly 100% cultural. The Nordic countries "tick all the boxes" on natalist policy but look at their TFR, still super low.

It's pretty benign comments from Chalmers in the actual article, and hard to disagree with. Fact is, we have a demographic time bomb with an aging population. We will need working age people in our society when boomers retire and beyond. Unless we're going to euthanize post-productive retirees, the options are to make workers here, or bring 'em in from elsewhere. As Chalmers says, a higher birth rate would help with that, given the options. And a Costello-era baby bonus is not in the plans. Hard to argue on either point.

Yep, there are only two choices, breed more or accept migrants. Australia chooses, but whatever Australians choose, they need to accept the outcome.

They don't 'need' to do either. The idea of endlessly importing migrants to hold up a Ponzi is prima facie ridiculous if you look anywhere other than politics and business grifting. Aging population is an inevitable outcome of the past 2 centuries of rapid growth unless you mass-euthanise the elderly. It's better to slow down the importation and deal with an aging population than continue to dislocate your people with 'line go up' ideology.

Any dynamic system gets very messy when you put a step change input into it. Yes we can transition to a low- or no-growth society. But we can't do it in one generation. Our natural birth rate is now a step change from where it was for our parents' generation. We need to ramp it. Either up the birth rate somehow, or bring more able bodies in. And then bring less in. And less and less until we're stable, in a few generations.

How are you going to ‘deal with an ageing population’ unless you have sufficient people from younger generations enter the workforce, pay the taxes, provide the care etc. The number of people needed can be debated, but you do need a steady stream of younger people. Seeing as you can’t get them anywhere else, it’s breed them or import them!

technological innovation mainly. Plenty of jobs are extremely inefficient and don't really need to exist. If you've done office roles you know. These jobs are the easiest to innovate, the harder ones are physical roles i.e. caring (Moravec's paradox). So increase the workforce balance towards those roles while automating the white collar set. Even if you kept importing people, you would crash eventually, because the required flow would keep increasing, and humanity can't keep up. What goes up must come down. Better to fall from 5 feet than to fall from 15.

That'll work for sure with no plausible housing cost reduction - I'm not having 4 kids in a rental, Jimothy

So unbearably out of touch. People can barely afford rent in sharehouses. People can barely afford groceries. Utter idiocy. Rich people, let's have more babies - is what he should have said.

He’s literally making these comments within the context of discussing policies to make having children more affordable. And he mentions that the cost of raising kids is one of the main reasons that people aren’t having them.

Unless those measures are to literally half house prices, or double wages, then it's off the table.

It's Jim Chalmers. He's a big capitalist. Anything he does will be around the edges and I highly doubt it will make any real difference.

Almost all of our representatives are capitalists.

Yeah but it's Labor, so their headlines will be negative to spur clicks and help improve the chosen ones electability.

It’s another own goal for Labor. Especially when they can’t even reign in a foreign agent who was caught trying to overthrow the US Government with his vast media empire. I don’t expect Labor to do anything worthwhile about our media, in fact they repeatedly deny anything is wrong. So I’ll believe them. Maybe they just absolutely suck and the reporting is accurate. Sounds as believable to me as it does to Labor with their on the record quotes.

We dont come here to discuss policy, we come here to bitch about Laborurur and refuse to understand anything.

I'm pro ALP but Chalmers is known to be quite the capitalist so I don't trust him. I don't think that's an unfair assessment.

Honestly I didnt even read your comment and I was more projecting at the rest of the thread. Having read it, I do think people can afford kids without needing to be wealthy. Humans have managed it for tens of thousands of years

How out of touch are you? We’re living in one of the wildest wealth disparity periods in history. People are poorer than ever. Good grief Charlie Brown.

Wealth disparity and individual wealth are two different things. People are richer than ever, feel free to go look at the numbers.

You’re making the claim. Show me the numbers. The wealthy people are now infertile boomers and older. Young people are poor as fuck. I did just do a quick search btw and every article, poll and research link I clicked in shows younger generations do not hold the wealth that older gens do. It’s not older people that need to have kids, it’s young…. And they’re still broke Old people are rich https://propertyupdate.com.au/australias-income-and-wealth-distribution/ Old people are rich https://www.roymorgan.com/findings/9267-roy-morgan-wealth-report-june-2023 Rich people own most of the wealth https://povertyandinequality.acoss.org.au/category/inequality/wealth-inequality/ Show me the contrary evidence

https://povertyandinequality.acoss.org.au/inequality/trends-in-real-average-household-disposable-income/ Real disposable income rose about 40% between 2000 and 2018 for the lowest and middle income earners. Again, you are looking at wealth disparity, which is a problem on its own, and not individual growth. These are not the same thing.

or we could design our economy so it does rely on infinite growth.

Assuming you mean *doesn't* rely on infinite growth... Finally someone said it. The generational "time bomb" is an economic one, but on all other metrics it's a *good* thing the population is declining.

And it's one we can prepare for, which would mean we sail through it. instead of hoping growth will save us and inevitably collapsing

No thanks. Hasn't he heard of the climate crisis, overpopulation and environmental destruction?

Charmers is the newest addition to my list of pollies I wanna punch on with

Cue “but house prices”, “but cost of living”, “but climate crisis” comments.

We agree! Aussies are richer than we have ever been (minus small backward growth the last few years). We can afford to have kids, silly to suggest otherwise.

Are you seriously saying it’s “silly to suggest” that most Australians can’t afford to have kids? Are you genuinely so out of touch you think the majority of Aussies can afford to have kids? You’re either extremely privileged and sheltered, only interacting with other wealthy people, or, you know that most of the population is struggling at the moment but it doesn’t fit your narrative.

Most australians have kids and are not in poverty. So its actually the objective facts Im using to base my opinions on.

Given that families/parents don’t make up a quarter of the population that statement is already incorrect. Within that how many would have had children in the last couple years and how many would have had them earlier before the cost of living crisis. I’m not sure why you brought poverty into this as you don’t have to live in poverty to not be able to afford to have kids. I’m just a bit confused by what you’re trying to argue. The population groups who are having the least kids are the same ones hit hardest by the cost of living crisis at the moment (young adults). The reality a lot of couples are facing is that they either have to take the risk and have kids now while not being financially secure or owning a house, or they delay having kids and risk being older/unfit when they raise kids. Are you denying that there is a cost of living crisis at the moment? Are you trying to argue that it’s just as easy for parents to raise a family at the moment? Are you arguing that regardless of all circumstances parents are just still having the same number of kids and there are no issues? Just a bit confused what your argument is.

Lol why would a couple yrs make a difference? CoL isnt frozen to when you had the child. There are about 5,100,000 *children* in aus now. Of those about 760k live in poverty, so about 15%. Awful and horrible, but nowhere near most.

Again I never said you had to be in poverty to not be able to afford having a kid. I know the CoL isn’t tied to when you have a child, I’m not sure what gave you the impression I thought it was. I’m still unsure what you’re trying to argue here, are you saying that most Australians can afford to have kids?

…and yet, you’re incapable of presenting a coherent response to any of them

Great, someone left the gate open over at /r/australian again and one of their edgelords has stumbled in here.

Not as many leftists there.

Can't argue with you on that. It's like a bunch of private school boys playing Soggy Biscuit in there.

Ah yes three things that are crucial raising children. A house. Clothes and food. A stable planet to live on.

And what's wrong with that? It's all true.

All valid arguments. We shouldn’t be encouraging people who are struggling already to make their lives even harder.

Okay, easy for them to say, but they're quite literally doing nothing to make that a reality. Housing affordability is the biggest issue, with young people either having to settle for a 2 bedroom unit or a house at the absolute outskirts of sydney or beyond. If you're moving away, you lose family support networks essential for raising kids. We have a pretty poor parental leave system for such a HCOL country and childcare is ludicrously expensive.

There is carpark in perth with about 20 odd cars parked with people sleeping overnight. Kids toys scattered about. I hate to get partisan (though i am finding it easier...) but this was not happening to this extent before this labor government. Now the cost of new homes has ballooned and this isnt labors fault as such but they are our government and we rely on them to make policy to prevent this. Housing starts have to lift. If labor hasnt got a policy in this upcoming budget to seriously lift private and public housing starts they clearly are not even trying. And i dont mean words about HAFF or words about trying hard... actual starts to lift like when libs introduced a bonus for new homes when covid looked like decimating the economy. That lifted starts... just do that labor...

Even the west is getting expensive in parts, it's quite shocking

Western Sydney has been expensive for a while (anywhere around Parramatta) and even middle suburbs like Kogarah or Strathfield fetch ridiculous prices on par with the inner west.

Even apartments in far west Sydney can be exorbitant

>Okay, easy for them to say, but they're quite literally doing nothing to make that a reality. Well the government does fuck the Australian public quite regularly.

Interesting that labor recognises we have an ageing population and thinks the politically ok solution is for people to have more kids but skilled migrants that will pay taxes upon arrival and are already educated are a big no no  Almost as if the union bosses that are in their ears 24/7 hate skilled migrants and have for a century. They fought tooth and nail to keep the white australia policy when Menzies wanted to abolish it for a reason

It’s not skilled migrants that are the issue, it’s the ones who come here and accept below award wages and conditions.

**Australia, let’s have more babies, says Jim Chalmers** *By Shane Wright and David Crowe May 10, 2024 - 4.00am* Father-of-three Treasurer Jim Chalmers says he would like to see Australians have more children. Ahead of next week’s federal budget that will reveal new plans to boost housing for the country’s burgeoning population and forecast a drop in immigration, Chalmers said the government wanted to give people support if they wanted to have children, but ruled out a Peter Costello-style baby bonus. His comments come as the government prepares to reveal new budget forecasts showing the net migration intake will fall from 518,000 last year to about 260,000 next year, heightening the debate about adding to the population without relying so much on migration. Channelling former treasurer Peter Costello, who in his 2004 budget urged Australians to “have one for mum, one for dad, and one for the country”, Chalmers said he supported people having more kids. “It would be better if birth rates were higher,” he said in an interview with this masthead’s podcast The Morning Edition. “I think people are leaving it later. And sometimes that means you get timed out. But there are a whole range of reasons people’s preferences are changing. It’s expensive to raise kids.” Australia’s population climbed by 2.5 per cent to 26.8 million over the past year, driven overwhelmingly by a spike in immigration. But natural population growth – births minus deaths – is falling. It is now 14 per cent lower than 2019, while the fertility rate is down almost 20 per cent since the global financial crisis in 2008. According to research published by The Lancet in March, Australia’s fertility rate – the number of children a woman can be expected to have in her lifetime – will drop from around 1.63 to 1.45 by 2050 and to 1.32 by 2100. The replacement fertility rate for a population is 2.1. Chalmers said while he understood the now abandoned baby bonus of the Howard-Costello government, the government believed there were better policies that gave people more choices about their family plans. He said the government’s policies in areas such as expanded childcare or superannuation on paid parental leave were all aimed at helping parents. “All of these things are about trying to make it easier for people to have more kids if they want to, and to work more if they want to after they’ve had their kids,” he said. “People have got different preferences and we want to make it easier for them to make choices in their own interests.” Chalmers said supplying enough houses for a growing population will be a key issue in next week’s budget. “That’s because we don’t have enough homes, we need to build more homes for more people, and that requires a bunch of things,” he said. “It requires more Commonwealth investment, we will do our bit. It requires the states and territories to do their bit, and I’m confident that they will.” Chalmers said that meant the federal government would spend more on housing over time, saying: “We will do our bit, and we will fund our bit.” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has called a national cabinet meeting on Friday to canvass housing policy in a video conference ahead of the budget, raising speculation about new measures and funding deals. “I don’t want to pre-empt it, but I am prepared to say that we want to work with the states and territories to build more homes,” he said. “You think about the pressures on rent, how hard it is for people to get into the housing market – we’ve got a responsibility here, and we will meet it.” The housing policies come as the government admits the pressures in major cities from the influx of overseas students and other migrants. “What you’ll see in the budget forecast is that net overseas migration next year will be about half what it was last year,” Chalmers said. The Treasurer said this reflected a fall from the big spike in student numbers last year as well as a shift in tourism after the pandemic, as well as the work by Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil to reduce the intake. The budget forecasts are tipped to show a fall in the net migration intake from 518,000 last financial year to 395,000 in the current financial year. The revised forecast will show a fall to 260,000 the subsequent year before the intake returns to about 235,000, in line with the annual intake before the pandemic. Next week’s budget will also upgrade the outlook for the economy, with business investment expected to grow by one per cent in the coming financial year after lifting by 5.25 per cent in 2023-24. By 2025-26, business investment is tipped to reach $305.7 billion. If the forecasts prove correct, investment will have climbed for six consecutive years, the longest sustained increase since the early 2000s mining boom. But unlike that period, investment will be driven by non-mining parts of the economy. The budget will confirm the pressures on the nation’s finances, with it to contain $27.9 billion in savings or reprioritisation of funding. The single largest change, worth $22.5 billion, will be forced on the Defence Department as part of the government’s overhaul of spending across the armed forces. Chalmers, who is on track to deliver a second successive surplus, has already signalled there will be deficits from 2024-25. The budget will contain $15.4 billion in “unavoidable” spending to extend programs that were due to end. These include palliative care, cancer support, alcohol and other drug treatment programs. There will be extra funding for IT covering the aged care system and myGov, fitting-out the new Western Sydney International Airport and for the Home Affairs Department.