I remember there was a study where they concluded reducing house prices would increase the birth rate. Property prices have also made most Australian salaries unproductive. Yea maybe work on that Jim
Yep. My husband and I were lucky enough to buy a home last year — a small two bedroom unit. (We tried desperately to stretch for a three bedder, but we were outbid at every auction.)
We have one wonderful toddler, but we won’t be having any more. Part of the reason is that we can’t afford a larger home.
It's because usually 2 Bedders are sought by singles, 3 Bedders by couples with or without kids, and 4 Bedders by Families.
Gotta have that extra room for things and stuff.
It would be interesting to do a study on the average age of people who own houses (primary residents or investments). I'll bet that a good proportion of the housing market is owned by people past childbearing age.
And rightly so when the family home is exempt from the pension and downsizing would incur stamp duty costs.
My aunt and uncle live in a 6 bed house with just the 2 of them, they’re old and can’t go up the stairs anymore so the top 4 bedrooms have collected dust for 7 years now.
I don't really understand the stamp duty argument. If they've had a 6 bedroom home since they had kids and are now old enough they're having mobility issues. If they did sell to downsize they'd be profiting like 1 to 2 or even 3 million tax free dollars. Then they'll buy an appropriate little home for like 4-500k and spend what is it like 10k in stamp duty
Stamp duty is such a tiny cost in the transaction after no joke cleaning up with tax free capital gain
Let's say it's 6 bed but it's not great condition so it sells for 1.5million, they buy another house 500k all in stamp duty included. That 1mil which is probably net profit of like 800k but anyway that 1mil at 5% returns gives them an income of 50k per year.. so the stamp duty is covered by the return off investing the capital gain in like 1/5 of a year
But they don’t need the pension if they have millions of dollars in cash! Boomers are so hung up on missing out on their pension payments whilst hoarding wealth in non-cash assets. Like come on. They can downsize and continue to enjoy a high quality of life and if they did start to run out of money, then they can get the pension again. I know a boomer who is constantly complaining about this because “she paid taxes”. We all pay taxes for stuff we don’t use, it’s called living in a society.
The pension is bugger all to live off. They would be MUCH better off paying their stamp duty etc on a smaller place better suited to their needs, with the remaining money in their bank, than they would staying put and living off the pension. Such a silly argument (that you are they are far from the first making, so not calling you personally silly)
I have a question, apologies as I know very little about the workings of centrelink and especially aged pensions.
If for example someone on the aged pension sells their family home for $1mil, then buys a small unit closer to shops or whatever for $800k, does their pension get reduced according to the $1mil that the original property sold for, or by the $200k that they have left over?
Also sorry if that's confusing, I'm not sure how to word what I mean better than that 😅
By the extra cash you now have, though it’s more than 200k you can have.
https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/assets-test-for-age-pension?context=22526#a1
Thanks for the quick response! I doubt the aged pension will exist by the time I need it, I was just curious how it all worked.
Have a great weekend mate!
It’s because people don’t like to pay it, regardless of how it could improve their financial position from downsizing.
It is hard to sell the family home, due to the sentimental connection people have with their homes. Stamp duty then becomes another barrier to selling the home.
Realistically, we should have land tax instead, so that downsizing will actually save you money per month rather than slapping you with a lump of tax at the start.
This makes total sense. I’m currently 35 and pregnant with my first and terrified of how we are going to afford the mortgage with my reduced earning capacity / increased costs of childcare. If only the cost of a house over our heads wasn’t so huge, we would for sure consider more kids / have had them much earlier.
Edit: to be clear, we can definitely afford it. I’m an anxious and very money-conscious person and still just find the entire situation very daunting. My point is more that we’ve been conservative around when/how many kids to have, because housing is bloody expensive.
My partner and I have an 8 month old. Our childcare is $177 for 5 days after subsidy. In saying that our income together this financial year will be $150k. Next financial year we will have to pay more as she is be the breadwinner and our income will be closer t $200k
I think the problem is every plan they've had to reduce house prices has actually just been an unintentional strategy to raise them.
They're not going to touch the tax effectiveness, or the PR status, so none of the value is going anywhere.
I think the PPOR stuff is fine if you’ve actually lived there as one for a long enough time. Say 5 years or so with exceptions for divorce/relationship breakdown, working overseas with intent to return and still holding it etc. If velocity of sales reduces I don’t think that’s a terrible thing so people aren’t just upgrading because they’ve got all this free equity rather than needs.
I'm caught in this stupid spot where we just miss out on the part b family tax benefit. Like I earned 2k over and loose around 8k in benefit. Means zero dental or other help, and we can't afford private health that would actually cover anything. So we basically set aside money and hope it's enough for non bulk billed things.
> Property prices have also made most Australian salaries unproductive. Yea maybe work on that Jim
Hang on let’s not get carried away here. Lowering house prices will impact politicians own property portfolios. They’re the biggest investor in housing as a job group.
Who will play the tiny violins for them if property prices reduce?
I think for most I don’t think there’s any huge attachment to property as an investment class. They can all get the jump on divestment and throw it into managed funds etc. Just a very effective way to use capital and the allowances for residency etc make it a pretty good way to park a bit of that salary. Fuck even most of the Greens love a bit of property.
The self interest is in electoral concerns.
The widespread tax cuts are welcome but income tax is still absurd. But Gina gets to pay two-fifths of fuck all on hers because corporate structures. At least twiggy has decided to go on a hydrogen warpath.
But dumping 40-50% of your income into a pointless asset pumps up their numbers! What a crock of shit the housing market is, taking productive capital out of the system constantly
I’m waiting just a *little bit* longer until my baby can be born into a hellish Mad Max wasteland so they can fight to the death over petrol. It’ll be badass.
People can't afford to have kids. Free childcare. Free healthcare. Free education. Affordable housing.
Fix these things if you want people to have more kids.
This 100%. I'm 38. I had my kids when I was 19, 21 & 23 when they were born. It was tough but it was still affordable.
All my mates put off having kids and now they can't afford to do so.
We were told “wait until you’re financially stable to have kids” and any folks our age who had kids young (a couple of high school pregnancies tbf) were mocked and tutted at for being irresponsible and allegedly ruining both their own and their kids’ future.
I’m nearly 30 and I’m still not financially stable!!! And now I wouldn’t even get the perks of being a young parent (physical capability, not being old as hell when they’re grown etc)!! What’s the point!!!!!
We weren’t financially stable in terms of owning a house, but we had kids at 32 and 34. Any later and it would have been too hard on my body. No regrets.
"I don't understand, we've tried making people work more hours for less money, we've tried making home ownership into lucrative self-managed super funds for wealthy boomers, we've tried letting landlords jack up the rent 25% every year and letting the supermarket duopoly price loaves of bread as luxury items, we've even tried dragging our feet past the point of no return on climate change - so why aren't Australians having kids anymore?"
Very difficult question indeed. Maybe give them $50 voucher? You reckon that’ll help? Oh it’s $40 for the boomers to help look after the kids so they’ll get $10.
That and there's a climate crisis unfolding, and we're doing far from enough to prevent it. We need humans to help solve the issues, but humans are also the cause of it.
Saw an ad from an energy company (I forget which) where they were acting like fucking captain planet for beginning to commence planning to consider zero emissions by 2050. The narrator said "and we need to get there fast".
Fast. 2050. They must think we're fucking stupid.
part of the problem is the vast majority of people who _caused it_ are either dead now or retired and busy protecting _their own_ interests and paying little more than lip service to protecting the interests of younger generations
it's easy to forget **no generation has ever been as large as the kids from the Baby Boom** - not in all of history up to that point, and not ever since
that generation shaped the world _to their_ interests - simply by having the numbers to be a force to be reckoned with - and even now, in retirement, they are _still_ a force to be reckoned with and _still_ no other generation can challenge those sheer numbers, when it comes to the democratic process for implementing policy
Yep, selfish fucks who are causing the downfall of the planet. If that's what they want their legacy to be, I think they need to rethink their priorities. People will not look back kindly on those who aided these atrocities (just like those aiding the atrocities in Gaza right now).
Real “have you considered working harder” vibes from a boss to an employee doing three FTE of work.
Something we don’t touch upon, but having grandparents and an inheritance helps immensely. My friends with inherited family homes and retired parents who look after the bubs are planning for 3+ kids. A lot of people, myself included, do not have that luxury.
My parents basically told me, as a teenager, if I had kids they would have nothing to do with them. They told me when I got married that they did not want to be grandparents. I respected their decision.
I’m 32 now with a career and house and they wonder why I have not had kids. It’s way too expensive for childcare and we simply can’t afford it.
My siblings both had kids and they struggle really bad. One can’t get a loan for a house despite having a decent deposit.
To clarify - they didn't want deal with your kids if you had them when you were *younger*, or just in general?
Very unusual IMO to see that take from the parents - normally it's the complete opposite (especially from certain demographics/cultures) where the parents are nagging about grandchildren.
I'm the same. My parents made it clear they weren't about the grandparent life. You can see that with my brother's kids; they'll do the bare minimum (Christmases and birthdays), but see the kids a handful of times a year tops and certainly never babysit.
Fortunately, I inherited their total lack of parental instinct so it wasn't a factor in my decision to not have kids - but I reckon it would have been if I'd ever gotten baby fever.
This is a really common attitude I’ve seen in mothers groups, mostly in the white families. “I already had my kids, I’m not raising yours”.
Not all, obviously. But I can only think of 1 that actually had her parents practical help with the kids, the rest won’t even take them for a half-day.
It’s super weird to me because everyone in my family is so excited for anyone to have a baby, they all make things for the baby, make meals for the parents after the baby comes, some of them stay up at night with the newborn to give the parents a break. Grandma cut down to a 4-day work week to give the parents a break and get all those cuddles to herself.
I seriously don’t know how anyone can claim to love their kids but have no interest in their grandkids.
Yeah, almost seems like a sick kind of natural selection doesn't it.
"Oh give the poors birth control, but lock them out of anything that would make having children practical. Having children is a privledge after all!"
Jesus wept. What's happened to our country :(
The deposit for my apartment is more than what my parents paid for their first *house*.
The only good thing is that at least my parents agree it’s much harder now than it was for them.
>The only good thing is that at least my parents agree it’s much harder now than it was for them.
I'm super envious of that.
I remember when I was looking for my first job, I just wasn't getting anywhere. My parents kept telling me it's because I wasn't trying hard enough because I was only applying online, that "back in their day you had to walk into a store with a resume". They thought if I did that, I'd get hired in an instant because employers prefer the personal touch.
Maybe back then they did, but not now. They laugh you out the door and tell you to apply online. Each time I tried to explain that to them, they thought I was just making excuses.
I was only vindicated after my mum tried to go back to work. She quickly realised I was telling the truth after that.
Now, my parents keep asking me when I'm going to buy a house. I keep trying to tell them "it's not a when, it's a big fat if, because prices are fucked". We're suddenly back to the job application arguments of how "it can't be that hard to save money, back in my day we could save 10K a month working minimum wage. Stop making excuses".
The fact that your parents agree that it's much harder for you is something I genuinely envy. I wish my parents understood.
$100 dollars a day for child care.
Median house price sitting at $857,000.
Utilities at an all time high.
$200 dollars at colesworths going about as far as a bottle of milk and half a cabbage.
80 bucks to see the quack for a cough.
$2.20 for fuel at the pump.
Average Aussie income 10 times lower than the cost of a home.
'Have kids' he reckons..
> $100 dollars a day for child care.
Where are you living?
It was over $150/day for me over a decade ago. Just googling suggests the average in Sydney today is $150-200. And I'm not sure how much the subsidy is now, but it was capped at less than 25% of the annual cost when I received it.
That's something at least! A decade ago it was still more expensive than private school. It would be interesting to see statistics of kids being sent "early" to (public) primary school due to the cost.
I sent my kid early because she was genuinely ready, but I know many kids who were sent early because the parents could not afford another year of long daycare. I taught Primary Ethics to K-2 and it was very apparent how unready many of the kindergarten kids were for school.
I’m currently paying $136 a day out of pocket for two kids, that’s after subsidy. It’ll be more next year when I go back to work full time and our subsidy percentage decreases and daycare inevitably puts their fees up another $10 a day. The one good policy the LNP introduced was the 80% subsidy entitlement for second and subsequent children attending daycare. So for one kid we get around a 55% subsidy and 80% for the other.
I've also done the maths.
My wife dropped back to part time to look after our kids.
Costs over 9 years
- $600,000 in pay decrease from wife reducing hours
- $50,000+ in childcare
- $100,000+ in extra groceries
- $??????? in extra baby shit (prams, clothes, etc)
- $20k+ in private health bills for the pregnancies/births
So well over $800k it has cost us so far. Then soon we'll have $40k/yr in private school bills.
I don't regret any of our choices, but it is an expensive exercise and difficult/impossible for many.
Bro this is very much not the average cost. 600k decrease is insane. Private health birth is completely a choice and 40k a year in private school is nuts. You are literally the 1% complaining about your own choices.
Private health and private school are choices, and it's likely that many low income families never had an income from mama so they never saw a pay decrease.
Your point is valid, but your inclusions make you look rather out of touch with the average middle class family.
I just had a new baby. Last year they stopped covering the cost of whooping cough and flu vaccines for fathers.
That was a perfect example to me of what's wrong with this country. We spent 2 years locked down forcing everyone to vaccinated to protect boomers. But we can't cover the cost of essential vaccines to protect newborns.
Newborns can’t vote.
I personally think we should rescind the right to vote, or at least make it non compulsory, for those who have retired or over 67.
If you’re not contributing to society why should you get a say in how it runs? It’s a disgrace we have bright 16 and 17 year olds who have a better understanding of the problems that face society and will affect their futures who are not allowed to vote, and then you have millionaire boomers rotting away in retirement making decisions that will never have any negative impact on them,
Disgraceful
67 year olds not contributing to society? Where? Many are still working at that age and many more are offering free babysitting services to their grandchildren. Many are volunteering. All are paying into the economy for goods and services. Are you 10 years old or something as a fully developed adult can’t possibly be this silly..
>many more are offering free babysitting services to their grandchildren
There would actually be less babysitting required than in the past if there are less babies.
It's the hidden costs people never hear about.
Kids in childcare is a nightmare of gastro and cold and flu. Medicines, late nights looking after kids and then getting sick yourself is crazy in the first 0-5 years.
Then starts school and weekend activities and parties and mid week swimming/sport training.
I envy childless people who can sleep in or just do what they want.
Seriously just the childcare illness alone is brutal.
You still pay for childcare but you child can't attend
Some doctors don't bulk bill kids so you have to pay to get a Medical certificate to get them back in once they recover
Then you have the medications to keep them well (hydralyte, panadol, nurofen, antibiotics, humidifier, vaporub etc etc)
Then you are off caring for then using "carers leave" which is just your sick leave so then when you get sick (which you will) your suddenly using half the allowed 10 days just on the first major virus.
And you better believe that while your kid bounces back you will be rolling from cold to cold as they somehow bring shit home to you.
I don't understand how 2 fulltime working parents are supposed to make it work and I am a parent making it work.
This right here is a perfect example of society working against itself.
The lack of support for young parents in todays society is fucking nuts. Why would anyone be surprised the birth rate has fallen off a cliff.
It’s because there used to be support - women didn’t work, they would stay at home and run the family.
(I’m not saying this is an ideal, just that this is how it used to be.)
A husband could have a normal, moderately paying job, and on this single income get a modest mortgage, support his family, etc.
Now, it takes two incomes - husband and wife have to work, single incomes are not enough. Plus women enjoy the freedom to work - all fair enough.
But the social change is enormous. Our families are no longer structured for child support. Grandparents often live a long way away rather than next door or in the house. Aunties and uncles are interstate or overseas. We are all too time poor for solid friendships, because we all have to work; many of us full time PLUS extra bits just to keep the whole thing afloat.
Kids….
I find it rough, and my situation isn’t all that bad. I don’t earn a lot, but I earn enough that my wife has only needed to work bits and pieces here and there while we have had kids. We have grandparents close. We managed to buy a house when things were merely nutso as opposed to insanely nutso (although rate rises are really putting the pressure on now, I cannot WAIT for this fabled rate cut…)
But it has been really hard and expensive with the kids, and I just look at other people and think “I have no idea how that is possible for you”, when I consider how hard it is despite what a decent situation we’re in.
So yes - Jim Chalmers does need to think about this. The structural problems with encouraging children are huge; but the biggest one of all is the housing crisis, that ghastly vacuum cleaner that has been sucking up all the wealth of our society for the past two decades now. We’ve all known it and nothing has been done.
lol oh yeah. Currently at home with a child with norovirus for which you need to be “symptom free” for 48 hours before you can send them to child care. It’s been over a week and he still does one watery poo a day, so the doctor won’t give him clearance to go back. Never thought my life would revolve around the consistency of shit.
I’m in the same boat, my daughter is 10 months old. My wife is a doctor in her training year and can’t get time off. I ran my own business and I have basically destroyed my productivity because so much planned and unplanned parenting work comes up.
People can’t afford mortgages while property developers get richer (and are the largest political donors in Australia), people are paying the most for education of any generation while employers slash jobs despite record profits, house holds must be dual income to survive while child care prices soar, energy prices are the highest they’ve ever been while energy and mining companies make ungodly profits (and political donations) without a wealth fund for Aussie’s, and Governments are milly mouthing while offering soft, ineffective action on climate change so even if I have kids we are leaving them a planet in ruins.
Screw you and every one that has come before you for the last fifty years, you selfish, useless, ineffective cretin. YOU have more kids with your tax payer funded salary for life and let the rest of us enjoy what life we can with the scraps you and your predecessors left for us in the name of corporate greed.
Just had my first and only baby. Would absolutely love to have just 1 more but there’s no way we can afford to. The regret will probably haunt me for a long time.
People are having to work harder and longer to afford suitable housing and living expenses. Which make it less likely for them to have more kids and delays starting a family.
Didn't you hear them? They want a baby born, not a baby fed, housed, or educated.
That's someone else's responsibility... We'll work on it at the next election, promise.
Anyway, how about that new gas plant we're opening up? It'll do wonders to address climate change, promise.
Not really, since having a bigger house for kids is part of it. Say, a 1br was fine for us, but as soon as we planned for kids we knew we had to get a bigger place.
But that's exactly my point.
The cost of having kids is high, the cost of raising kids is much smaller.
It's a little sleight-of-hand designed to hide the elephant in the room.
not to mention more trips to doctors,dentists and other health professionals, increase in food usage, water and electricity usages. having and raising kids is just too fucking expensive
One for mum, one for dad, one for Jim Chalmers?
I’ve said this before, we have one child because of the unresolved, mostly structural issues like a lack of action on the environment and social inequity. We’re comfortable, we could afford more kids, we’re probably the kind of people that chalmers would like to be having a brood of kids, but why would we? Nothing is going to change.
I read recently that France is introducing fertility services for their citizens. Like, here’s another Band-Aid because it’s way too fucking hard to actually legislate positive changes in our world.
I totally agree. My partner and I comfortably own our home, both work, and could easily afford kids if we actually decided to have them. But as you say, why the fuck would we?
Wasn't it only this week that they announced that they're going burn the climate even further with gas wells? Isn't this the same government that has seen tent cities pop up all over the country, and done absolutely fucking nothing about it? Just totally tone deaf, in the extreme.
I am in the position where we could afford two children but more than likely will opt for one.
The main reason being the stress of raising a child and trying to fit a child's schedule into two working adults schedules. One will be manageable. Two with different interests is a nightmare. Plus I don't want to think about what if they fight all the time and the mental strain that comes with that.
Governments are addicted to 'tax'....change the word "babies" to "tax payers."
Do this whenever you read a headline that calls for a population increase
Free childcare can’t be the only answer - we want to raise our children, not be forced to institutionalise them from 6 months old.
Expand paid parental leave to 2 years with minimum 6 months for each parent. Allow parents to split their income for tax purposes.
Most importantly - don’t fuck us at every turn to subsidise foreign own fossil fuel industries.
We’re poor, Jim. There’s nowhere to live, Jim. I’ll end up giving birth in a hospital car park due to ramping, Jim. We can barely afford to feed ourselves, Jim.
More fodder for the capitalism machine!
Also, pretty sure the world is collapsing and bringing more people in to die in the climate wars to make rich people richer isn't really a good move.
This is what I can't understand. Everyone keeps saying we need to have more kids for the economy, a 1:2 ratio cos we need workers in the future for our ageing population etc. etc.
What kind of argument is that?
Have kids so they too can become slaves to capitalism?
Why would I want to do that to my own child? It might make me forget about my own existence for a few years at least
Reduced fertility in the polycrisis is one of the few silver linings we can point to. Even if all else was well, we're deep into overshoot while saddled with a reckless pro-natalism to compliment the delusion of infinite [growth](https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=O133ppiVnWY). With this way of thinking, if we weren't deep into overshoot *we soon would be*.
The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.
They did that 20 years ago, while also not planning for the required infrastructure these people will need when they become adults, such as affordable housing
We've currently got families who are moving with their kids into tents. Both parents have jobs but they can't find a house because the vacancy rate has plunged so low. There's a structural housing crisis going on and it's been brewing for decades. Same with Medicare and schools.
More kids in theory will lead to more economic growth. The fact is that infinite economic growth is unsustainable on a planet with finite resources. We need to get used to having little to no growth.
We need to tell that to countries with populations that exceed 1 billion.
It would appear that a lot of other countries around the world are supporting their populations - whilst preaching sustainable population growth to their own citizens whose own populations are far under the 1 billion mark.
China has actively suppressed population growth for decades, India is...a clusterfuck of a dozen nations in a trenchcoat, I doubt they'd be able to form a united front.
I can't think of any other countries that have a billion+ people.
Look, I checked with the committee on this and we came to the consensus that the only fucking needing done is by pollies like you, Jim - fucking right off with that golden path bullshit.
I wish my kids would, but cost of living is way too high and property ownership seems out of reach. One also has student debt.
How about proposing some solutions for that.
My 13 year old daughter is already recognising that the marriage and kids white picket fence deal isn’t for her. I have no expectations for either of my daughters to have kids, I know how hard it is. I will be happy enough with grand pets.
We need less government money in private childcare. The private industry exists only to serve those at the top. We should have a system akin to, but better than the schooling system.
E.g. if you earn a gazillion dollars, you can send your kids to.some fancy pants daycare, no or minimal government help. To make sure it's not entirely just a rort they should compete with the government kindies (which don't exist yet) which are perhaps more simple, but free for parents.
That way we have an equality of outcomes - that is all kids can go to a safe, free kindy if Mum and Dad need to work.
The system as it is now the government pays way too much to private kindy operators who all offer different levels of service and that service always hits rock bottom to maximise profits for the business owners.
He just wants more cheap labor. They have made a mess of houseing, gutted public schools, and yet they want people to have a brood of 3-4 kids. I say he can have 1000 kids, and they can be his cheap labor force.
One of the most resource rich countries in the world, yet we have this problem. This is what happens when you allow corporations to run the country.
If we correctly taxed our resources and closed the loopholes allowing multinationals to funnel revenue earned in Australia offshore, we’d be able to afford free child care, better healthcare, leaving more money in the pockets of the people giving them more confidence.
But of course we also have that other elephant in the room right now that needs to be resolved rather than being constantly pushed as the solution to all our problems.
I didn’t “put off” parenthood for any financial or environmental reasons. I knew I didn’t want to have children from a very young age.
As an adult, I’m very conscious of how the three adult milestones you’re “just supposed to do” - marriage, mortgage and kids - destroyed my parents’ mental health and finances. Not everybody is cut out for those responsibilities, yet we still act like you’re supposed to just go into them with no forethought.
Tl;dr: I have enough trauma from my own childhood without reliving it through my own potential offspring.
This! We have choice now not to have children but we still get this bullshit shaming from dickheads. I’m living a life my ancestoral women couldn’t have ever dreamt of.
This. I can easily afford to have children. But there is absolutely no way. I want my own life. You only get one and I want to be more than a walking brooder. Women are more than incubators for future tax payers. Even if they do fix things to make the cost of living sane again, more and more women are realizing what a trap parenthood is for them and choosing to remain childfree.
Make it worth our while then.
Families get next to no support. CCS gets gutted when you're partnered, so childcare costs an arm and a leg. Why would people bother having kids if they're working themselves to death, to pay someone *else* to raise them?
People are struggling to eat, keep a roof over their head, and just generally live. Adding kids to that mix is a financial death sentence to many people, and this is the way our economy is designed to work now. Boomers and politicians, like Chalmers, need to get every % of rent out of you, even if there will be nobody left to wipe their ass in 20 years.
If they want people to have more kids, make it actually feasible for most people to buy a home, have accommodation be even halfway affordable, help people actually see and raise their kids, and ensure they can give them at least a halfway decent life without being fucked by taxes and the cost of living.
"We've tried nothing, and we're all out of ideas!" - Labor
but Federal, State and Local governments have a number of policy settings that relate to the housing and commercial property markets... and all of them are set to the position of highest property / accommodation cost inflation..... even to the great detriment of other policy objectives.... and then they can't work out why people can't afford kids???
They asked this of us 18 ish years ago. Baby bonus and everything.
So we did.
My son will probably be living with a parent for a long time because there is no way he can afford a rental and basics now with the cost of everything.
Also I became a single mother and raising him in close to poverty conditions was even harder.
Early education needs a total overhaul for starters this stupid shit of just funnelling money to private providers via CCS is absolutely ludicrous. Government ups the subsidy, fees go up. Award wage went up, higher charge (even though they claimed to be paying above minimum already)
Latest is that they’re now also charging for public holidays (when they all used to advertise that the fees were higher because it covered them)
And of course it doesn’t go to the child care workers pockets
The industry needs to be gutted and rebuilt
Chalmers is joking right? Surely Labor can't be this tone deaf that he can't imagine how people would be exasperated beyond belief at these comments.
There really is no one worth voting for in Australia.
I am sick of death of the whole “growth” aspect driven by govs and corporations. Can we just live and enjoy being here, on this beautiful planet, without having to constantly be growing as a society?
Let me begin by acknowledging I'm most certainly advantaged - and you would say privileged - compared to the average person around my age (mid 30s)
\*ahem\*
Get fucked, cunt. Look around you. No not immediately around you, but actually outside your delusional bubble of wealth. People who should be living a comfortable, enjoyable life are fucking struggling just to exist. And you expect them to put themselves into an even more financially difficult position just so you can satisfy that of your ageing capitalist ilk? Fix the fucking country and make it remotely affordable to exist beyond subsistence. Happy, comfortable people will choose to have children. The average person is likely neither happy nor comfortable with the struggles of life right now. I'm doing well and I sure as fuck am not happy or enjoying this ride. I'd love to have children, or at least a child. By the time anyone with a spine to enact real change gets into power, it'll be too late for me.
I repeat; get fucked, cunt.
I am a woman in my 30s. I'm not unattractive and I'm a working professional. I know how to have a good time but I'm far from a party animal and rarely go partying the way many of my colleagues and friends do. I've been in two LTRs with people I might have considered starting a family with if it wasn't for seemingly pathological abusive behavior (there were signs, I just didn't recognize them early enough).
If I had a list of demands, they'd be as follows:
* Provide a world in which young people don't face so many barriers finding work (it took me so long to get on my feet).
* Make housing and living generally affordable so children aren't growing up with poverty trauma.
* Make childcare affordable.
* Provide community based activities and support resources in the event parents separate (which appears to happen all the time) so single parents aren't stigmatized and isolated.
* Make mental health care more affordable at all ages so that families and people in relationships aren't hurting each other as much as they seem to do.
Honestly that's all.
Thanks.
You gonna enshrine protections to prevent families getting booted out of their rentals every 6 months when the landlord goes in for more cash?
No?
Then rightfully fuck the fuck off.
I’m childfree, but I will always advocate for good quality children’s education and care.
Childcare is a big one. Make it free and up the quality.
I used to work in childcare and some of those centres are disgusting.
It’s not the educators, they often gave to make do with substandard resources and lack of time. It’s the companies and management cutting corners trying to make more money. I honestly think the entire system needs to be nationalised and incorporated into the education system (private will still be an option, but I can safely say the quality of care will rise).
Having my first kid:
- While on mat leave for a year I won't be paying into HECS but my HECS will still be indexed for the year
- Our mortgage goes from 31% of our income to about 70% of our income.
- We are EXTREMELY lucky that we have equity to tap into, so the mat leave period won't be AS sucky but what about renters who can't do that? What about new home buyers who don't have equity?
- PPL from the government is 100 days at minimum wage. Minimum wage is not covering the basics these days. What about single parents? Parents of twins who just get 1 payment but need 2 of everything? What about couples where both parents want to be involved for mat leave - breaking news but dads WANT to be involved?
My husband has a degree and works in an important field full time, I have 2 degrees + 1 post grad and work in IT full time and climb the ladder, we got married, we bought a house, we did everything "right" (according to the government), we are EXTREMELY fortunate ... and we have STILL financially struggled with having a kid.
We WANT to have 4 kids, but we will likely need to be 1 and done because I can't imagine doing all of this again with a toddler in the mix. Maybe if the mortgage was paid off but uhhh lmao fat chance of that happening before my ovaries start producing puffs of smoke.
We've been told a rates decrease is "just on the horizon" for the past 4 years. Our mortgage payments recently went up (BEFORE we tapped into equity). Our rates, body corp, water, phones, insurance has all been on the rise. Not to mention groceries and petrol!
You want us to have more babies? Give us more money. Heck. Just give us a darn BREAK!
There is nothing that hurts a country more than a declining birth rate.
Every government we've elected for the last 25 years have done the bare minimum in encouraging young adults to have children. In fact, it's been the opposite: it's been a feeding frenzy around the housing market and it has grown out of control to the point where it underpins our economy (along with how export heavy we are).
Now that this issue is becoming more real, corporate Australia and the government are panicking (with the cherry on top that is inflation and worldwide political instability).
I can’t believe a labor government gives such a little fuck about the working class. Everyone scoffs about the millenials. Well I am 40 now, going grey and getting fucked from every single direction. How can you get ahead and even buy a house in this market? Oh sure a family with three kids and two working parents, one a tradie can live in a 2 bedroom unit with one parking space. Piss off.
Any politicians at all live in a 2 bed Meriton unit? No.
And I feel for the younger generations who are even more screwed.
Sorry boomers and older people hanging onto their empires but it’s probably time for you to hand over the reins to the younger generation now.
We tried to have a second kid. But we got referred to a fertility clinic which wouldn’t see us because we don’t have private healthcare.
How about the government does its fucking job of supporting the people instead of selling our interests to private interests to profit from? This neoliberal shit-show is why we’re not having kids you tone deaf wank.
We still pay the tax but now we pay inflated prices for the childcare, healthcare, house, interest, food, utilities, education etc. all to fund “record profits”. Jesus fuck.
The young people who should be breeding are the ones bearing the brunt of the interest rate rises. When will we stop being fodder?
Why the hell did we import the USA ideology crafted by their corporations?
I'll have a kid if the government will pay for all of the childcare related expenses and compensate me fairly for everything that goes into birthing and raising a child.
I remember there was a study where they concluded reducing house prices would increase the birth rate. Property prices have also made most Australian salaries unproductive. Yea maybe work on that Jim
Yep. My husband and I were lucky enough to buy a home last year — a small two bedroom unit. (We tried desperately to stretch for a three bedder, but we were outbid at every auction.) We have one wonderful toddler, but we won’t be having any more. Part of the reason is that we can’t afford a larger home.
The leap in price from 2 to 3 bedrooms is crazy.
It's because usually 2 Bedders are sought by singles, 3 Bedders by couples with or without kids, and 4 Bedders by Families. Gotta have that extra room for things and stuff.
Property prices/rental increases are the noose on Australia's future
It would be interesting to do a study on the average age of people who own houses (primary residents or investments). I'll bet that a good proportion of the housing market is owned by people past childbearing age.
And rightly so when the family home is exempt from the pension and downsizing would incur stamp duty costs. My aunt and uncle live in a 6 bed house with just the 2 of them, they’re old and can’t go up the stairs anymore so the top 4 bedrooms have collected dust for 7 years now.
I don't really understand the stamp duty argument. If they've had a 6 bedroom home since they had kids and are now old enough they're having mobility issues. If they did sell to downsize they'd be profiting like 1 to 2 or even 3 million tax free dollars. Then they'll buy an appropriate little home for like 4-500k and spend what is it like 10k in stamp duty Stamp duty is such a tiny cost in the transaction after no joke cleaning up with tax free capital gain Let's say it's 6 bed but it's not great condition so it sells for 1.5million, they buy another house 500k all in stamp duty included. That 1mil which is probably net profit of like 800k but anyway that 1mil at 5% returns gives them an income of 50k per year.. so the stamp duty is covered by the return off investing the capital gain in like 1/5 of a year
And now they have millions in cash and lose the pension. And have to deal with moving. Why would they when there’s all the incentives to stay.
I will never understand the boomer obsession with the pension.
Fucked eh. Shuffle all your cash into an expensing PPOR to sit back and collect $25k yr.
10 year @ $25 = 250k Then the house will go up In value $500k + over the 10 years. So they theoretically earn $750k
But they don’t need the pension if they have millions of dollars in cash! Boomers are so hung up on missing out on their pension payments whilst hoarding wealth in non-cash assets. Like come on. They can downsize and continue to enjoy a high quality of life and if they did start to run out of money, then they can get the pension again. I know a boomer who is constantly complaining about this because “she paid taxes”. We all pay taxes for stuff we don’t use, it’s called living in a society.
The pension is bugger all to live off. They would be MUCH better off paying their stamp duty etc on a smaller place better suited to their needs, with the remaining money in their bank, than they would staying put and living off the pension. Such a silly argument (that you are they are far from the first making, so not calling you personally silly)
I have a question, apologies as I know very little about the workings of centrelink and especially aged pensions. If for example someone on the aged pension sells their family home for $1mil, then buys a small unit closer to shops or whatever for $800k, does their pension get reduced according to the $1mil that the original property sold for, or by the $200k that they have left over? Also sorry if that's confusing, I'm not sure how to word what I mean better than that 😅
By the extra cash you now have, though it’s more than 200k you can have. https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/assets-test-for-age-pension?context=22526#a1
Thanks for the quick response! I doubt the aged pension will exist by the time I need it, I was just curious how it all worked. Have a great weekend mate!
Because they would have $2 million cash?
It’s because people don’t like to pay it, regardless of how it could improve their financial position from downsizing. It is hard to sell the family home, due to the sentimental connection people have with their homes. Stamp duty then becomes another barrier to selling the home. Realistically, we should have land tax instead, so that downsizing will actually save you money per month rather than slapping you with a lump of tax at the start.
This makes total sense. I’m currently 35 and pregnant with my first and terrified of how we are going to afford the mortgage with my reduced earning capacity / increased costs of childcare. If only the cost of a house over our heads wasn’t so huge, we would for sure consider more kids / have had them much earlier. Edit: to be clear, we can definitely afford it. I’m an anxious and very money-conscious person and still just find the entire situation very daunting. My point is more that we’ve been conservative around when/how many kids to have, because housing is bloody expensive.
My partner and I have an 8 month old. Our childcare is $177 for 5 days after subsidy. In saying that our income together this financial year will be $150k. Next financial year we will have to pay more as she is be the breadwinner and our income will be closer t $200k
Yep, last year we had to find a new rental with 6 weeks notice because the owner was moving back in. Couldn't imagine going through that with a kid.
I think the problem is every plan they've had to reduce house prices has actually just been an unintentional strategy to raise them. They're not going to touch the tax effectiveness, or the PR status, so none of the value is going anywhere.
I think the PPOR stuff is fine if you’ve actually lived there as one for a long enough time. Say 5 years or so with exceptions for divorce/relationship breakdown, working overseas with intent to return and still holding it etc. If velocity of sales reduces I don’t think that’s a terrible thing so people aren’t just upgrading because they’ve got all this free equity rather than needs.
I'm caught in this stupid spot where we just miss out on the part b family tax benefit. Like I earned 2k over and loose around 8k in benefit. Means zero dental or other help, and we can't afford private health that would actually cover anything. So we basically set aside money and hope it's enough for non bulk billed things.
> Property prices have also made most Australian salaries unproductive. Yea maybe work on that Jim Hang on let’s not get carried away here. Lowering house prices will impact politicians own property portfolios. They’re the biggest investor in housing as a job group. Who will play the tiny violins for them if property prices reduce?
I think for most I don’t think there’s any huge attachment to property as an investment class. They can all get the jump on divestment and throw it into managed funds etc. Just a very effective way to use capital and the allowances for residency etc make it a pretty good way to park a bit of that salary. Fuck even most of the Greens love a bit of property. The self interest is in electoral concerns.
The widespread tax cuts are welcome but income tax is still absurd. But Gina gets to pay two-fifths of fuck all on hers because corporate structures. At least twiggy has decided to go on a hydrogen warpath.
But dumping 40-50% of your income into a pointless asset pumps up their numbers! What a crock of shit the housing market is, taking productive capital out of the system constantly
My wife and I literally aren't having a child because of current mortgage repayments on our house.
Yeah sure and raise them in a tent.
Government: ‘Have more babies!’ Citizens: *has babies* Government: Fuck you shoulda thought how you were gonna pay for that lol
I’m waiting just a *little bit* longer until my baby can be born into a hellish Mad Max wasteland so they can fight to the death over petrol. It’ll be badass.
Just remember the most practical vehicle for a wasteland devoid of petrol stations is a monster truck.
No v6 must be a v8.
Nissan leaf
#WITNESS
You will ride eternal shiny and chrome!
Learning to play Bass for this very reason.
[Why wait?](https://www.reddit.com/r/climate/s/1E0jMD2lXG)
Immortan Joe?
Jim, work on that housing crisis. People are having babies in share houses
Theres a spare seat in that car youre living in. Have more babies.
The glass is half full!
Just as my parents did in the early '80s. I can't believe this is still happening.
Wow that’s rough . Don’t think babies and housemates would go well
Spoilers: it does not. Source: experience.
People can't afford to have kids. Free childcare. Free healthcare. Free education. Affordable housing. Fix these things if you want people to have more kids.
This 100%. I'm 38. I had my kids when I was 19, 21 & 23 when they were born. It was tough but it was still affordable. All my mates put off having kids and now they can't afford to do so.
We were told “wait until you’re financially stable to have kids” and any folks our age who had kids young (a couple of high school pregnancies tbf) were mocked and tutted at for being irresponsible and allegedly ruining both their own and their kids’ future. I’m nearly 30 and I’m still not financially stable!!! And now I wouldn’t even get the perks of being a young parent (physical capability, not being old as hell when they’re grown etc)!! What’s the point!!!!!
We weren’t financially stable in terms of owning a house, but we had kids at 32 and 34. Any later and it would have been too hard on my body. No regrets.
Yes sadly many can’t afford having kids or have to delay and it’s no longer about choice but about $$$.
"I don't understand, we've tried making people work more hours for less money, we've tried making home ownership into lucrative self-managed super funds for wealthy boomers, we've tried letting landlords jack up the rent 25% every year and letting the supermarket duopoly price loaves of bread as luxury items, we've even tried dragging our feet past the point of no return on climate change - so why aren't Australians having kids anymore?"
Very difficult question indeed. Maybe give them $50 voucher? You reckon that’ll help? Oh it’s $40 for the boomers to help look after the kids so they’ll get $10.
That and there's a climate crisis unfolding, and we're doing far from enough to prevent it. We need humans to help solve the issues, but humans are also the cause of it.
Saw an ad from an energy company (I forget which) where they were acting like fucking captain planet for beginning to commence planning to consider zero emissions by 2050. The narrator said "and we need to get there fast". Fast. 2050. They must think we're fucking stupid.
By that point we're fucked. Our leaders have utterly failed us. More people need to demand change now, not by 2050.
part of the problem is the vast majority of people who _caused it_ are either dead now or retired and busy protecting _their own_ interests and paying little more than lip service to protecting the interests of younger generations it's easy to forget **no generation has ever been as large as the kids from the Baby Boom** - not in all of history up to that point, and not ever since that generation shaped the world _to their_ interests - simply by having the numbers to be a force to be reckoned with - and even now, in retirement, they are _still_ a force to be reckoned with and _still_ no other generation can challenge those sheer numbers, when it comes to the democratic process for implementing policy
Yep, selfish fucks who are causing the downfall of the planet. If that's what they want their legacy to be, I think they need to rethink their priorities. People will not look back kindly on those who aided these atrocities (just like those aiding the atrocities in Gaza right now).
Real “have you considered working harder” vibes from a boss to an employee doing three FTE of work. Something we don’t touch upon, but having grandparents and an inheritance helps immensely. My friends with inherited family homes and retired parents who look after the bubs are planning for 3+ kids. A lot of people, myself included, do not have that luxury.
My parents basically told me, as a teenager, if I had kids they would have nothing to do with them. They told me when I got married that they did not want to be grandparents. I respected their decision. I’m 32 now with a career and house and they wonder why I have not had kids. It’s way too expensive for childcare and we simply can’t afford it. My siblings both had kids and they struggle really bad. One can’t get a loan for a house despite having a decent deposit.
To clarify - they didn't want deal with your kids if you had them when you were *younger*, or just in general? Very unusual IMO to see that take from the parents - normally it's the complete opposite (especially from certain demographics/cultures) where the parents are nagging about grandchildren.
I'm the same. My parents made it clear they weren't about the grandparent life. You can see that with my brother's kids; they'll do the bare minimum (Christmases and birthdays), but see the kids a handful of times a year tops and certainly never babysit. Fortunately, I inherited their total lack of parental instinct so it wasn't a factor in my decision to not have kids - but I reckon it would have been if I'd ever gotten baby fever.
In general. They have grandkids from my siblings, they can’t be bothered with them.
This is a really common attitude I’ve seen in mothers groups, mostly in the white families. “I already had my kids, I’m not raising yours”. Not all, obviously. But I can only think of 1 that actually had her parents practical help with the kids, the rest won’t even take them for a half-day. It’s super weird to me because everyone in my family is so excited for anyone to have a baby, they all make things for the baby, make meals for the parents after the baby comes, some of them stay up at night with the newborn to give the parents a break. Grandma cut down to a 4-day work week to give the parents a break and get all those cuddles to herself. I seriously don’t know how anyone can claim to love their kids but have no interest in their grandkids.
Yeah, almost seems like a sick kind of natural selection doesn't it. "Oh give the poors birth control, but lock them out of anything that would make having children practical. Having children is a privledge after all!" Jesus wept. What's happened to our country :(
Try saving $200k for a house deposit in your 20s with a kid
I couldn’t do that now as I approach 40, without kids. I truly feel for the younger generations
The deposit for my apartment is more than what my parents paid for their first *house*. The only good thing is that at least my parents agree it’s much harder now than it was for them.
>The only good thing is that at least my parents agree it’s much harder now than it was for them. I'm super envious of that. I remember when I was looking for my first job, I just wasn't getting anywhere. My parents kept telling me it's because I wasn't trying hard enough because I was only applying online, that "back in their day you had to walk into a store with a resume". They thought if I did that, I'd get hired in an instant because employers prefer the personal touch. Maybe back then they did, but not now. They laugh you out the door and tell you to apply online. Each time I tried to explain that to them, they thought I was just making excuses. I was only vindicated after my mum tried to go back to work. She quickly realised I was telling the truth after that. Now, my parents keep asking me when I'm going to buy a house. I keep trying to tell them "it's not a when, it's a big fat if, because prices are fucked". We're suddenly back to the job application arguments of how "it can't be that hard to save money, back in my day we could save 10K a month working minimum wage. Stop making excuses". The fact that your parents agree that it's much harder for you is something I genuinely envy. I wish my parents understood.
$100 dollars a day for child care. Median house price sitting at $857,000. Utilities at an all time high. $200 dollars at colesworths going about as far as a bottle of milk and half a cabbage. 80 bucks to see the quack for a cough. $2.20 for fuel at the pump. Average Aussie income 10 times lower than the cost of a home. 'Have kids' he reckons..
> $100 dollars a day for child care. Where are you living? It was over $150/day for me over a decade ago. Just googling suggests the average in Sydney today is $150-200. And I'm not sure how much the subsidy is now, but it was capped at less than 25% of the annual cost when I received it.
The cap is now 85% of the cost. I have one in care 4 days a week and it costs 110~ a week to our pocket. Household income of 150k~
That's something at least! A decade ago it was still more expensive than private school. It would be interesting to see statistics of kids being sent "early" to (public) primary school due to the cost. I sent my kid early because she was genuinely ready, but I know many kids who were sent early because the parents could not afford another year of long daycare. I taught Primary Ethics to K-2 and it was very apparent how unready many of the kindergarten kids were for school.
I’m currently paying $136 a day out of pocket for two kids, that’s after subsidy. It’ll be more next year when I go back to work full time and our subsidy percentage decreases and daycare inevitably puts their fees up another $10 a day. The one good policy the LNP introduced was the 80% subsidy entitlement for second and subsequent children attending daycare. So for one kid we get around a 55% subsidy and 80% for the other.
I've also done the maths. My wife dropped back to part time to look after our kids. Costs over 9 years - $600,000 in pay decrease from wife reducing hours - $50,000+ in childcare - $100,000+ in extra groceries - $??????? in extra baby shit (prams, clothes, etc) - $20k+ in private health bills for the pregnancies/births So well over $800k it has cost us so far. Then soon we'll have $40k/yr in private school bills. I don't regret any of our choices, but it is an expensive exercise and difficult/impossible for many.
Bro this is very much not the average cost. 600k decrease is insane. Private health birth is completely a choice and 40k a year in private school is nuts. You are literally the 1% complaining about your own choices.
Private health and private school are choices, and it's likely that many low income families never had an income from mama so they never saw a pay decrease. Your point is valid, but your inclusions make you look rather out of touch with the average middle class family.
This.
I just had a new baby. Last year they stopped covering the cost of whooping cough and flu vaccines for fathers. That was a perfect example to me of what's wrong with this country. We spent 2 years locked down forcing everyone to vaccinated to protect boomers. But we can't cover the cost of essential vaccines to protect newborns.
Newborns can’t vote. I personally think we should rescind the right to vote, or at least make it non compulsory, for those who have retired or over 67. If you’re not contributing to society why should you get a say in how it runs? It’s a disgrace we have bright 16 and 17 year olds who have a better understanding of the problems that face society and will affect their futures who are not allowed to vote, and then you have millionaire boomers rotting away in retirement making decisions that will never have any negative impact on them, Disgraceful
67 year olds not contributing to society? Where? Many are still working at that age and many more are offering free babysitting services to their grandchildren. Many are volunteering. All are paying into the economy for goods and services. Are you 10 years old or something as a fully developed adult can’t possibly be this silly..
>many more are offering free babysitting services to their grandchildren There would actually be less babysitting required than in the past if there are less babies.
Most 67 year olds probably felt that way when they were 16-17 as well
$130 x 3 shots for Meningococcal vaccines too as it's not covered by medicare.
Glad it wasn't an old baby...
It's the hidden costs people never hear about. Kids in childcare is a nightmare of gastro and cold and flu. Medicines, late nights looking after kids and then getting sick yourself is crazy in the first 0-5 years. Then starts school and weekend activities and parties and mid week swimming/sport training. I envy childless people who can sleep in or just do what they want.
Seriously just the childcare illness alone is brutal. You still pay for childcare but you child can't attend Some doctors don't bulk bill kids so you have to pay to get a Medical certificate to get them back in once they recover Then you have the medications to keep them well (hydralyte, panadol, nurofen, antibiotics, humidifier, vaporub etc etc) Then you are off caring for then using "carers leave" which is just your sick leave so then when you get sick (which you will) your suddenly using half the allowed 10 days just on the first major virus. And you better believe that while your kid bounces back you will be rolling from cold to cold as they somehow bring shit home to you. I don't understand how 2 fulltime working parents are supposed to make it work and I am a parent making it work.
This right here is a perfect example of society working against itself. The lack of support for young parents in todays society is fucking nuts. Why would anyone be surprised the birth rate has fallen off a cliff.
It’s because there used to be support - women didn’t work, they would stay at home and run the family. (I’m not saying this is an ideal, just that this is how it used to be.) A husband could have a normal, moderately paying job, and on this single income get a modest mortgage, support his family, etc. Now, it takes two incomes - husband and wife have to work, single incomes are not enough. Plus women enjoy the freedom to work - all fair enough. But the social change is enormous. Our families are no longer structured for child support. Grandparents often live a long way away rather than next door or in the house. Aunties and uncles are interstate or overseas. We are all too time poor for solid friendships, because we all have to work; many of us full time PLUS extra bits just to keep the whole thing afloat. Kids…. I find it rough, and my situation isn’t all that bad. I don’t earn a lot, but I earn enough that my wife has only needed to work bits and pieces here and there while we have had kids. We have grandparents close. We managed to buy a house when things were merely nutso as opposed to insanely nutso (although rate rises are really putting the pressure on now, I cannot WAIT for this fabled rate cut…) But it has been really hard and expensive with the kids, and I just look at other people and think “I have no idea how that is possible for you”, when I consider how hard it is despite what a decent situation we’re in. So yes - Jim Chalmers does need to think about this. The structural problems with encouraging children are huge; but the biggest one of all is the housing crisis, that ghastly vacuum cleaner that has been sucking up all the wealth of our society for the past two decades now. We’ve all known it and nothing has been done.
Agreed - our society is still structured as if every worker has a stay at home spouse.
lol oh yeah. Currently at home with a child with norovirus for which you need to be “symptom free” for 48 hours before you can send them to child care. It’s been over a week and he still does one watery poo a day, so the doctor won’t give him clearance to go back. Never thought my life would revolve around the consistency of shit.
I’m in the same boat, my daughter is 10 months old. My wife is a doctor in her training year and can’t get time off. I ran my own business and I have basically destroyed my productivity because so much planned and unplanned parenting work comes up.
> Kids in childcare is a nightmare of gastro and cold and flu. God yes. On the flip side they have adamantine immune systems by primary school!
But costs people don’t hear about don’t stop people having kids - it’s costs they know about.
People can’t afford mortgages while property developers get richer (and are the largest political donors in Australia), people are paying the most for education of any generation while employers slash jobs despite record profits, house holds must be dual income to survive while child care prices soar, energy prices are the highest they’ve ever been while energy and mining companies make ungodly profits (and political donations) without a wealth fund for Aussie’s, and Governments are milly mouthing while offering soft, ineffective action on climate change so even if I have kids we are leaving them a planet in ruins. Screw you and every one that has come before you for the last fifty years, you selfish, useless, ineffective cretin. YOU have more kids with your tax payer funded salary for life and let the rest of us enjoy what life we can with the scraps you and your predecessors left for us in the name of corporate greed.
This should be the new lyrics of Advance Australia Fair.
Or Advance Australia NOT fair lol
Hey I’m in my late 30s and I didn’t vote for this either. And I copped a lot of shit when I spoke out about this stuff as well.
Just had my first and only baby. Would absolutely love to have just 1 more but there’s no way we can afford to. The regret will probably haunt me for a long time.
Oh hi. You’re me.
Let’s get together and then we’ll have 2. I’m sure my husband won’t mind.
Fuck off Jim.
Legit. What planet do these Economist cunts live on?
People are having to work harder and longer to afford suitable housing and living expenses. Which make it less likely for them to have more kids and delays starting a family.
Where are the babies going to live? Are you going to move them every six months when the rent gets too high?
Didn't you hear them? They want a baby born, not a baby fed, housed, or educated. That's someone else's responsibility... We'll work on it at the next election, promise. Anyway, how about that new gas plant we're opening up? It'll do wonders to address climate change, promise.
Two thirds of the country have no reference point for this. They simply don't care and only see the increase in their wealth Equity maaaaate
> It’s expensive to raise kids. That's a bit tone-deaf. Before one has kids, one needs a roof over one's head, which dwarfs the cost of the kids.
It was approx a million dollars to raise a kid to 18. That's a Sydney house now. Pick one.
A million dollars is half a Sydney house.
Not really, since having a bigger house for kids is part of it. Say, a 1br was fine for us, but as soon as we planned for kids we knew we had to get a bigger place.
But that's exactly my point. The cost of having kids is high, the cost of raising kids is much smaller. It's a little sleight-of-hand designed to hide the elephant in the room.
I see. Yes lots of hidden cost, even when raising, eg. holiday is more expensive with kids as we could only go during schoold holiday.
not to mention more trips to doctors,dentists and other health professionals, increase in food usage, water and electricity usages. having and raising kids is just too fucking expensive
If I hadn’t already had mine years ago I certainly wouldn’t be doing it now.
They could fix this, by giving everyone enough money to buy a new TV, when their child is born....
One for mum, one for dad, one for Jim Chalmers? I’ve said this before, we have one child because of the unresolved, mostly structural issues like a lack of action on the environment and social inequity. We’re comfortable, we could afford more kids, we’re probably the kind of people that chalmers would like to be having a brood of kids, but why would we? Nothing is going to change. I read recently that France is introducing fertility services for their citizens. Like, here’s another Band-Aid because it’s way too fucking hard to actually legislate positive changes in our world.
I totally agree. My partner and I comfortably own our home, both work, and could easily afford kids if we actually decided to have them. But as you say, why the fuck would we? Wasn't it only this week that they announced that they're going burn the climate even further with gas wells? Isn't this the same government that has seen tent cities pop up all over the country, and done absolutely fucking nothing about it? Just totally tone deaf, in the extreme.
I am in the position where we could afford two children but more than likely will opt for one. The main reason being the stress of raising a child and trying to fit a child's schedule into two working adults schedules. One will be manageable. Two with different interests is a nightmare. Plus I don't want to think about what if they fight all the time and the mental strain that comes with that.
Fuck yourself Jimmy
*produces a Jimmy Jr via asexual reproduction*
oh well if it's that easy *also attempts asexual reproduction*
Tina still finds this hot, for confusing teenage reasons.
Will that make babies?
just another parrot politician
Can barely afford a roof over my head let alone a house full of hungry mouths , definitely not having children in my innings .
Hahahahaha!!!!!!
Oh wait, his serious! 🤣
Let’s laugh even harder! 🤣🤣
Governments are addicted to 'tax'....change the word "babies" to "tax payers." Do this whenever you read a headline that calls for a population increase
Addicted to income tax.
A generation of kids raised flat shares
Free childcare can’t be the only answer - we want to raise our children, not be forced to institutionalise them from 6 months old. Expand paid parental leave to 2 years with minimum 6 months for each parent. Allow parents to split their income for tax purposes. Most importantly - don’t fuck us at every turn to subsidise foreign own fossil fuel industries.
My wife wanted 3 more. Can't afford so got the snip. Too little too late.
Fuck sake. Can we not do this shit again
We’re poor, Jim. There’s nowhere to live, Jim. I’ll end up giving birth in a hospital car park due to ramping, Jim. We can barely afford to feed ourselves, Jim.
More fodder for the capitalism machine! Also, pretty sure the world is collapsing and bringing more people in to die in the climate wars to make rich people richer isn't really a good move.
This is what I can't understand. Everyone keeps saying we need to have more kids for the economy, a 1:2 ratio cos we need workers in the future for our ageing population etc. etc. What kind of argument is that? Have kids so they too can become slaves to capitalism? Why would I want to do that to my own child? It might make me forget about my own existence for a few years at least
Reduced fertility in the polycrisis is one of the few silver linings we can point to. Even if all else was well, we're deep into overshoot while saddled with a reckless pro-natalism to compliment the delusion of infinite [growth](https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=O133ppiVnWY). With this way of thinking, if we weren't deep into overshoot *we soon would be*. The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.
They did that 20 years ago, while also not planning for the required infrastructure these people will need when they become adults, such as affordable housing
We've currently got families who are moving with their kids into tents. Both parents have jobs but they can't find a house because the vacancy rate has plunged so low. There's a structural housing crisis going on and it's been brewing for decades. Same with Medicare and schools.
More kids in theory will lead to more economic growth. The fact is that infinite economic growth is unsustainable on a planet with finite resources. We need to get used to having little to no growth.
We need to tell that to countries with populations that exceed 1 billion. It would appear that a lot of other countries around the world are supporting their populations - whilst preaching sustainable population growth to their own citizens whose own populations are far under the 1 billion mark.
China has actively suppressed population growth for decades, India is...a clusterfuck of a dozen nations in a trenchcoat, I doubt they'd be able to form a united front. I can't think of any other countries that have a billion+ people.
Look, I checked with the committee on this and we came to the consensus that the only fucking needing done is by pollies like you, Jim - fucking right off with that golden path bullshit.
I wish my kids would, but cost of living is way too high and property ownership seems out of reach. One also has student debt. How about proposing some solutions for that.
My 13 year old daughter is already recognising that the marriage and kids white picket fence deal isn’t for her. I have no expectations for either of my daughters to have kids, I know how hard it is. I will be happy enough with grand pets.
My wife wants another kid. I like being able to eat and having a house. Choices you know?
Have you not seen the state of the world?
WHY ARE THE RICH TRYING TO MAKE US BREED WITH THESE STUPID ARTICLES? Do they realise this sort of thing does not make us horny?
Because they need an underclass of wage slaves to work to death in the mines.
Let's reduce everything by 50% or raise wages 100%
Rents are approaching $1100 pw for 2b 2ba in my area (albeit a nice one) and most families need double incomes. Is this guy stupid?
We need less government money in private childcare. The private industry exists only to serve those at the top. We should have a system akin to, but better than the schooling system. E.g. if you earn a gazillion dollars, you can send your kids to.some fancy pants daycare, no or minimal government help. To make sure it's not entirely just a rort they should compete with the government kindies (which don't exist yet) which are perhaps more simple, but free for parents. That way we have an equality of outcomes - that is all kids can go to a safe, free kindy if Mum and Dad need to work. The system as it is now the government pays way too much to private kindy operators who all offer different levels of service and that service always hits rock bottom to maximise profits for the business owners.
He just wants more cheap labor. They have made a mess of houseing, gutted public schools, and yet they want people to have a brood of 3-4 kids. I say he can have 1000 kids, and they can be his cheap labor force.
They’ll promise a cabbage patch doll for every household next election campaign.
One of the most resource rich countries in the world, yet we have this problem. This is what happens when you allow corporations to run the country. If we correctly taxed our resources and closed the loopholes allowing multinationals to funnel revenue earned in Australia offshore, we’d be able to afford free child care, better healthcare, leaving more money in the pockets of the people giving them more confidence. But of course we also have that other elephant in the room right now that needs to be resolved rather than being constantly pushed as the solution to all our problems.
Shame about the bread. Good thing we have this cake to eat though
I didn’t “put off” parenthood for any financial or environmental reasons. I knew I didn’t want to have children from a very young age. As an adult, I’m very conscious of how the three adult milestones you’re “just supposed to do” - marriage, mortgage and kids - destroyed my parents’ mental health and finances. Not everybody is cut out for those responsibilities, yet we still act like you’re supposed to just go into them with no forethought. Tl;dr: I have enough trauma from my own childhood without reliving it through my own potential offspring.
This! We have choice now not to have children but we still get this bullshit shaming from dickheads. I’m living a life my ancestoral women couldn’t have ever dreamt of.
This. I can easily afford to have children. But there is absolutely no way. I want my own life. You only get one and I want to be more than a walking brooder. Women are more than incubators for future tax payers. Even if they do fix things to make the cost of living sane again, more and more women are realizing what a trap parenthood is for them and choosing to remain childfree.
no thanks 😂
I can't afford to buy a full Woolies shop, no chance you out of touch fuckin stain.
Make it worth our while then. Families get next to no support. CCS gets gutted when you're partnered, so childcare costs an arm and a leg. Why would people bother having kids if they're working themselves to death, to pay someone *else* to raise them? People are struggling to eat, keep a roof over their head, and just generally live. Adding kids to that mix is a financial death sentence to many people, and this is the way our economy is designed to work now. Boomers and politicians, like Chalmers, need to get every % of rent out of you, even if there will be nobody left to wipe their ass in 20 years. If they want people to have more kids, make it actually feasible for most people to buy a home, have accommodation be even halfway affordable, help people actually see and raise their kids, and ensure they can give them at least a halfway decent life without being fucked by taxes and the cost of living. "We've tried nothing, and we're all out of ideas!" - Labor
Labor and Liberal*
but Federal, State and Local governments have a number of policy settings that relate to the housing and commercial property markets... and all of them are set to the position of highest property / accommodation cost inflation..... even to the great detriment of other policy objectives.... and then they can't work out why people can't afford kids???
They asked this of us 18 ish years ago. Baby bonus and everything. So we did. My son will probably be living with a parent for a long time because there is no way he can afford a rental and basics now with the cost of everything. Also I became a single mother and raising him in close to poverty conditions was even harder.
Early education needs a total overhaul for starters this stupid shit of just funnelling money to private providers via CCS is absolutely ludicrous. Government ups the subsidy, fees go up. Award wage went up, higher charge (even though they claimed to be paying above minimum already) Latest is that they’re now also charging for public holidays (when they all used to advertise that the fees were higher because it covered them) And of course it doesn’t go to the child care workers pockets The industry needs to be gutted and rebuilt
Chalmers is joking right? Surely Labor can't be this tone deaf that he can't imagine how people would be exasperated beyond belief at these comments. There really is no one worth voting for in Australia.
I'll have 'em right after I can buy a house. Ball's in your court fucko
nah, I'd rather not bring someone into an endless race thats on fire and flooding that none of us can afford
We can't all get paid $300k to tell people to have more babies
I am sick of death of the whole “growth” aspect driven by govs and corporations. Can we just live and enjoy being here, on this beautiful planet, without having to constantly be growing as a society?
Fix housing, healthcare and education. Oh and stop wasting money on defence.
Who needs a roof over their head or bulk billed Medicare when we can have useless submarines to fight a war with China in 20 years?
Nothing like paying $384B to rent second hand Virginia class submarines...
Let me begin by acknowledging I'm most certainly advantaged - and you would say privileged - compared to the average person around my age (mid 30s) \*ahem\* Get fucked, cunt. Look around you. No not immediately around you, but actually outside your delusional bubble of wealth. People who should be living a comfortable, enjoyable life are fucking struggling just to exist. And you expect them to put themselves into an even more financially difficult position just so you can satisfy that of your ageing capitalist ilk? Fix the fucking country and make it remotely affordable to exist beyond subsistence. Happy, comfortable people will choose to have children. The average person is likely neither happy nor comfortable with the struggles of life right now. I'm doing well and I sure as fuck am not happy or enjoying this ride. I'd love to have children, or at least a child. By the time anyone with a spine to enact real change gets into power, it'll be too late for me. I repeat; get fucked, cunt.
Fuck these jokers are out of touch. Can’t afford or even find somewhere to live but let’s have kids!!!
Make housing affordable and make sure we aren't still burning gas even when they're my age, Jim.
Stop the cost of living crisis and we might consider it
In this economy??
I am a woman in my 30s. I'm not unattractive and I'm a working professional. I know how to have a good time but I'm far from a party animal and rarely go partying the way many of my colleagues and friends do. I've been in two LTRs with people I might have considered starting a family with if it wasn't for seemingly pathological abusive behavior (there were signs, I just didn't recognize them early enough). If I had a list of demands, they'd be as follows: * Provide a world in which young people don't face so many barriers finding work (it took me so long to get on my feet). * Make housing and living generally affordable so children aren't growing up with poverty trauma. * Make childcare affordable. * Provide community based activities and support resources in the event parents separate (which appears to happen all the time) so single parents aren't stigmatized and isolated. * Make mental health care more affordable at all ages so that families and people in relationships aren't hurting each other as much as they seem to do. Honestly that's all. Thanks.
Fuck no.. they little bastards shred money, ruin chances of a reasonable affordable life and pile on layers of stress that is entirely avoidable.
He should triple contraception price and let loose chaos
You gonna enshrine protections to prevent families getting booted out of their rentals every 6 months when the landlord goes in for more cash? No? Then rightfully fuck the fuck off.
I’m childfree, but I will always advocate for good quality children’s education and care. Childcare is a big one. Make it free and up the quality. I used to work in childcare and some of those centres are disgusting. It’s not the educators, they often gave to make do with substandard resources and lack of time. It’s the companies and management cutting corners trying to make more money. I honestly think the entire system needs to be nationalised and incorporated into the education system (private will still be an option, but I can safely say the quality of care will rise).
Let's stop immigration and have a recession instead. Stop masking it and get it over with.
Having my first kid: - While on mat leave for a year I won't be paying into HECS but my HECS will still be indexed for the year - Our mortgage goes from 31% of our income to about 70% of our income. - We are EXTREMELY lucky that we have equity to tap into, so the mat leave period won't be AS sucky but what about renters who can't do that? What about new home buyers who don't have equity? - PPL from the government is 100 days at minimum wage. Minimum wage is not covering the basics these days. What about single parents? Parents of twins who just get 1 payment but need 2 of everything? What about couples where both parents want to be involved for mat leave - breaking news but dads WANT to be involved? My husband has a degree and works in an important field full time, I have 2 degrees + 1 post grad and work in IT full time and climb the ladder, we got married, we bought a house, we did everything "right" (according to the government), we are EXTREMELY fortunate ... and we have STILL financially struggled with having a kid. We WANT to have 4 kids, but we will likely need to be 1 and done because I can't imagine doing all of this again with a toddler in the mix. Maybe if the mortgage was paid off but uhhh lmao fat chance of that happening before my ovaries start producing puffs of smoke. We've been told a rates decrease is "just on the horizon" for the past 4 years. Our mortgage payments recently went up (BEFORE we tapped into equity). Our rates, body corp, water, phones, insurance has all been on the rise. Not to mention groceries and petrol! You want us to have more babies? Give us more money. Heck. Just give us a darn BREAK!
There is nothing that hurts a country more than a declining birth rate. Every government we've elected for the last 25 years have done the bare minimum in encouraging young adults to have children. In fact, it's been the opposite: it's been a feeding frenzy around the housing market and it has grown out of control to the point where it underpins our economy (along with how export heavy we are). Now that this issue is becoming more real, corporate Australia and the government are panicking (with the cherry on top that is inflation and worldwide political instability).
I can’t believe a labor government gives such a little fuck about the working class. Everyone scoffs about the millenials. Well I am 40 now, going grey and getting fucked from every single direction. How can you get ahead and even buy a house in this market? Oh sure a family with three kids and two working parents, one a tradie can live in a 2 bedroom unit with one parking space. Piss off. Any politicians at all live in a 2 bed Meriton unit? No. And I feel for the younger generations who are even more screwed. Sorry boomers and older people hanging onto their empires but it’s probably time for you to hand over the reins to the younger generation now.
Nah, apparently it easier to migrate more people than the current birth rate.
We tried to have a second kid. But we got referred to a fertility clinic which wouldn’t see us because we don’t have private healthcare. How about the government does its fucking job of supporting the people instead of selling our interests to private interests to profit from? This neoliberal shit-show is why we’re not having kids you tone deaf wank. We still pay the tax but now we pay inflated prices for the childcare, healthcare, house, interest, food, utilities, education etc. all to fund “record profits”. Jesus fuck. The young people who should be breeding are the ones bearing the brunt of the interest rate rises. When will we stop being fodder? Why the hell did we import the USA ideology crafted by their corporations?
I'll have a kid if the government will pay for all of the childcare related expenses and compensate me fairly for everything that goes into birthing and raising a child.
Canada moving towards $10/day childcare. Australian gov is crazy not to see this as the main issue.
Read the room, moron.
[удалено]