this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2024
29 points (71.6% liked)
Australia
3579 readers
78 users here now
A place to discuss Australia and important Australian issues.
Before you post:
If you're posting anything related to:
- The Environment, post it to Aussie Environment
- Politics, post it to Australian Politics
- World News/Events, post it to World News
- A question to Australians (from outside) post it to Ask an Australian
If you're posting Australian News (not opinion or discussion pieces) post it to Australian News
Rules
This community is run under the rules of aussie.zone. In addition to those rules:
- When posting news articles use the source headline and place your commentary in a separate comment
Banner Photo
Congratulations to @Tau@aussie.zone who had the most upvoted submission to our banner photo competition
Recommended and Related Communities
Be sure to check out and subscribe to our related communities on aussie.zone:
- Australian News
- World News (from an Australian Perspective)
- Australian Politics
- Aussie Environment
- Ask an Australian
- AusFinance
- Pictures
- AusLegal
- Aussie Frugal Living
- Cars (Australia)
- Coffee
- Chat
- Aussie Zone Meta
- bapcsalesaustralia
- Food Australia
- Aussie Memes
Plus other communities for sport and major cities.
https://aussie.zone/communities
Moderation
Since Kbin doesn't show Lemmy Moderators, I'll list them here. Also note that Kbin does not distinguish moderator comments.
Additionally, we have our instance admins: @lodion@aussie.zone and @Nath@aussie.zone
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Not an Australian but I bet good money it is the exact same reason as everywhere else in the west: people have no time, no money, no social services, and really bad future perspectives with the ecosystem going to shit and capitalism running the world into the ground.
People need time to raise kids, people need money to afford kids, kids need education and attention. Provide those things, and provide a not-bleak perspective for the future, and people will be happy to have kids again.
That and the fact that women are still penalized in the workplace for having babies.
As someone with a three year old kid in Australia, I think the government does a pretty good job at all of those things.
For example we've only ever paid medical bills for things that were totally optional, and the free services were extensive (including repeated 1:1 home visits by a professional midwife - for free, and for the actual birth there was more staff attending that mum than anyone else in the hospital gets - even Intensive Care Unit patients get a lower level of care).
Education will be free starting next year, and the optional education he's enrolled in this year and in the last couple years have been extensively subsidised (and would be subsidised even more if our income was lower).
Money and time are and always will be in direct opposition to each other and every parent has to make a tradeoff between the two, and not really anything the government can control. But it's worth noting basic living expenses (like staple foods) are largely exempt from taxes, and the recent high cost of electricity, due to the ukraine war, has triggered government assistance packages to help people out (everyone, but low income people have been get even more help — we actually haven't paid an electricity bill at all the last 8 months or so - from memory we're about $100 in credit due to various subsidies).
Could it be better? Sure - for example I think free education should start younger and include things like swimming lessons (enough to not drown). But I don't really have any complaints.