I covered the pre-story to this one a few months back. Australia is having problems with their population. They have a low birthrate so they currently offer new moms $4133 cash for having a baby(single or married).
This was an issue because moms were having the babies, receiving the cash and then handing the babies over into the care of the state.
After hearing this I was surprised to hear that in an attempt to kick start the lagging population, a Senator will be proposing this week that new moms will receive $10,000 for the third baby they deliver.
He said Australia had a real problem because it was not producing enough new young Australians.
“We think the baby bonus was quite good. We think a bumper baby bonus for those that have the third child would make a lot of sense,” he told the Nine Network.
The government’s baby bonus is a one-off payment of $4,133 for each child.
Senator Fielding said the government’s Intergenerational Report, the second of which was released in April this year, predicted a crisis with an ageing population.
“We need to have kids. If we don’t have kids then when we are all old we have no one paying taxes to support us,” he said.
“When you think about it, it is really a small amount that we are giving to people to have a third child.”
Senator Fielding said concerns had been expressed at the time the original baby bonus was introduced that it would only encourage those more interested in cash than in children.
He said that did not appear to be a major problem.
“I don’t believe that is what is happening on the whole. For sure it is probably happening in small numbers but really when we start saying that about people, then I think we have a poorer Australia,” he said.
“We have got to encourage people to have kids. There is nothing wrong with that. It costs a fortune to raise kids but it is the most rewarding thing in people’s lives.”
I think that this guy has lost his mind. The country has already admitted that the original bonus has caused problems.
Now he has proposed to double the budget if you have a 3rd baby…? They aren’t doing that bad – Australia’s birthrate is higher than both Canada’s and the UK.SOURCE
This is just crazy for them to offer such a big sum of money for having a baby! And to the “moms” that do this and then hand their babies over, shame on them! I cannot imagine giving birth to a baby just for money.
Is this really happening… I hadn’t heard any of this before…When and why is this happening…