Elon Musk issues a dire warning to Australians

Outspoken billionaire Elon Musk has warned Australians about the country’s declining birth and fertility rates.

The Tesla founder took to social media on Thursday to address reports that Australia’s birth rate has fallen to an all-time low as a growing number of couples and women decide to have children later in life.

In 2023, 286,998 births were recorded in Australia, a four percent decline from the 300,684 recorded in 2022, giving a fertility rate of 1.5 babies per woman, also down from the previous low of 1.65 in 2022.

It was the lowest number of births since 2006, when Australia’s population was at least two million fewer.

Commenting on the numbers, Musk wrote: “Birth rates continue to decline. There will be a population decline.

Musk has warned for years about falling birth rates in developed countries, saying the trend poses significant risk to humanity.

“Population collapse due to low birth rates is a far greater risk to civilization than global warming,” he said in 2022.

Musk said: “Many people are under the impression that the current number of people on Earth is not sustainable.

‘That’s not true at all. The population density is actually quite low.’

Australia’s fertility rate has fallen since it peaked at 3.5 babies per mother in 1961

Musk and other concerned experts fear that societies will end up with “more grandparents than grandchildren” and face “countless” challenges, such as too few young people to work, pay taxes and care for the elderly.

Emeritus professor of demography Peter McDonald from the Australian National University in Canberra said there are several reasons why young Australian women delay having children.

“Younger people have established careers and postponed life and established themselves, staying longer in education, traveling and all these things lead to things happening later.

“We cannot delay births until women are in their 40s or there will be no births,” he said.

The professor said governments can use two policy tools to increase fertility rates.

“One is affordable housing and the other is affordable childcare,” he said.

“It takes a long time to deal with affordable housing, but with affordable childcare they could get started.”

Despite Australia’s fertility rate falling to a record low, the government is not considering a revival of the baby bonus.

“It’s not something we’ve talked about. I am obviously interested in the figures,” Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles told Seven’s Sunrise program on Thursday.

“We want to do what we can to make it easier for families and couples to have children, and we are doing that. It is important that we have a sustainable birth rate.’

The baby bonus was set up by the Howard government and gave a lump sum of $3000 to new parents of children born from July 2004 onwards.

Then-treasurer Peter Costello urged families to ‘have one for mum, one for dad and one for the country’.