Former Prime Minister John Howard has called on Treasurer Jim Chalmers to ‘bring back the baby bonus’ in response to Australia’s falling birth rate.
Mr Howard welcomed Dr Chalmers’ hint at a range of incentives for Australians to have more children in the federal budget due to be passed on Tuesday night.
Dr Chalmers’ announcement last week follows news that Australia’s birth rate has fallen to 1.63 in 2022, below the ‘replacement rate’ of 2.1.
It’s 22 years since then-Prime Minister Howard and his Treasurer Peter Costello introduced a ‘baby bonus’ in the 2002 budget – a year after Australia’s birth rate fell to 1.7.
“We need more children and there is high immigration because of the falling birth rate,” Mr Howard told me The Australian on Monday.
Former Australian Prime Minister John Howard (pictured) has called on Treasurer Jim Chalmers to reintroduce the ‘baby bonus’
‘I am very pleased to hear that Dr Chalmers is promoting the birth of more children and inviting him to reinstate the Coalition policies introduced in the 1990s that led to the only increase in the birth rate in fifty years to feed.’
Mr Costello famously promoted the then coalition government’s new baby incentives by encouraging women to have one baby for themselves and ‘one for the country’.
Dr. Chalmers was more subtle in his speech last week.
“I know people will make their own choices and I don’t for a moment pretend that the government should direct those choices, but we want to make it easier for people to have larger families if they want to,” the treasurer said.
One purpose of increasing the birth rate is to put less pressure on Australia’s immigration program, which is currently at a record high.
Dr. Chalmers (pictured with daughter Annabel) hinted at incentives for Australians to have more children in the upcoming federal budget in response to the country’s declining birth rate
Mr Howard highlighted his government’s baby bonus and the introduction of Family Tax Benefits A and B to boost the country’s birth rate.
Despite this, Dr Chalmers – who has faced backlash for urging parents to have more children during a cost-of-living crisis – has dismissed the idea of a baby bonus being included in this year’s budget.
“We have found a better way to support people who make that choice,” the treasurer said.
Howard remains Australia’s second-longest serving prime minister, serving three terms from 1996 to 2007.
The former Howard government’s baby bonus scheme initially awarded $2,500 in tax cuts per year to parents of newborns.
It was changed to a lump sum of $3,000 two years later and had risen to $5,000 in 13 installments by 2013, when then Labor Treasurer Wayne Swan announced it would be abolished.
The scheme ended in March 2014.