From the Daily Telegraph:
BARNABY Joyce is kidding himself – and all the Australians planning to vote for the federal Coalition at next year’s election – with his latest policy thought-bubble of $10,000 baby bonuses for stay-at-home mothers.
Nobody would deny it’s hard work being a mum, or that the financial pressure on families is increased with every new baby.
But the Nationals Senator’s idea of handing $10,000 to women who choose not to take paid employment is a social policy nightmare.
It would be a tacit encouragement to women to stay at home instead of maintaining their careers with part-time or full-time work, contributing to the taxation system and building up their own superannuation balances in preparation for retirement.
It would, without a shadow of doubt, create a generation of women who opt out of the workforce.
Australia can’t afford that luxury.
Indeed, it is a social policy nightmare in the view of your humble blogger also.
But for the polar opposite reason of that propounded by Neil Breen, editor of the Daily Telegraph, who clearly thinks the biggest problem with the Nationals’ policy is that it would encourage mothers not to go back to doing their “modern” “enlightened” “liberated” duty … their “equal right” to be binary-digit earning, tax-paying, interest-paying lifelong debt slaves of The Machinery of “modern” society.
Back to that in a moment.
First, some balance.
All the lamestream media commentary I have seen on this subject fails to consider context and nuance.
As usual.
First, they are automatically, in typical knee-jerk style, sheeting home all responsibility for this policy suggestion to Barnaby Joyce. Even though it is not necessarily his personal suggestion – it is a revived Nationals policy:
Fearing a backlash over the generosity of the Coalition’s proposed paid-parental-leave scheme, which would offer wealthy working women up to $75,000, the Nationals have proposed a better deal for stay-at-home mums.
“It’s an incredible sacrifice for women to stay at home. You can see it in their superannuation and everything else,” Senator Joyce said.
“We want to make sure people don’t lose their house. Because everything is based on two incomes these days. All policies have a cost. But it’s a substantial sacrifice for people not to go to work.”
The Nationals first flagged the policy at the 2010 election …
Nationals leader Warren Truss stressed the plan to double the baby bonus was a policy of the Nationals rather than the Coalition and had not been endorsed by Mr Abbott.
It is clear to any thinking person that The Nationals revived policy suggestion is motivated primarily, if not entirely, by the gross inequality of Tony Abbott’s paid parental leave scheme, whereby working mums would receive 6 months paid leave at full pay for those earning up to $150K pa – meaning, up to $75K of taxpayers’ money for a high earner – while stay-at-home mums receive nothing.
Barnaby Joyce is nothing if not fair minded, and genuinely concerned for the many who get overlooked and left behind by the popular (social-engineering) politics of the day – witness his attempts to see justice done in the abhorrent Heiner Affair. So I applaud him for wanting to see a rebalance of the Abbott policy.
However. This is not the way to do it.
In my personal view, the baby bonus is bad policy. As with so many (all?) government “solutions” for society, it is classic good intention, bad outcomes. Indeed, the baby bonus is one of several major criticisms I have of the Howard government era.
Why?
For all the good intentions, it is my view that cash handouts for having a baby simply (1) encourages by reward the “handout” / welfare state dependency mentality, and (2) encourages the very young, the vulnerable, the desperate, and the foolish, to fall pregnant just to “get the cash”.
I have personally witnessed numerous examples of both those outcomes.
And so, for those reasons, I oppose the idea of a “baby bonus” as a matter of principle.
If Barnaby Joyce and/or the Nationals want to see government encouragement for, and a better and fairer deal for stay-at-home mums, that I strongly applaud.
Indeed, quite unlike Neil Breen of the Daily Telegraph, this blogger is all for a society where parents are actively encouraged to stay home and nurture and raise their children themselves – for the long haul, not just 6 months – rather than push their babies onto (government-regulated) “carers” a.s.a.p., so they can get back to “earning money” and “pursuing MY career” a.s.a.p.
Having witnessed many friends with young families who have followed the ever-growing trend in so-called “modern” “advanced” society to do exactly this, I see the results in the little individual horrors that others raise for them, and wonder at the collective horrors we may all face within a generation or two.
Back to Neil Breen, editor of the Daily Telegraph one last time:
It would, without a shadow of doubt, create a generation of women who opt out of the workforce.
Australia can’t afford that luxury.
Yes, we can.
The entire world can.
All it takes is a transformation of our “money” system.
From being our master … to being our servant.
Barnaby Is Right 
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