Much derision in the media this week over Tony Abbott's claim that his paid parental leave scheme will encourage
women of calibre to breed. Abbott's plan is to impose a levy on the biggest corporations in Australia - how's that for a great big tax on everything? - and use the money to pay parent's up to six months parental leave at the mother's wage rate. This, he hopes, will encourage high income earners - those he dubbed the "women of calibre" - to breed. You'd expect this would alienate his base of aspirationals - the low and middle income earners from outer suburbs - but they still adore the guy. Now, Tony Abbott is a fetid piece of distended monkey rectum on epic scale and should he be elected prime minister, we'll be an international laughing stock...more so, but he has pointed the way to an interesting solution to all society's problems (although
Bill Murray got there first).
It's often been said that society is becoming more conservative, and there's definitely some truth to that. Michael Moore has called Richard Nixon the last Democratic president. Malcom Fraser has quit the Liberal party in disgust at it's shift to the right. Conservatives hark back to the days of the 1950s, leaving out the part where one of the reasons society was kept in smooth running order was a top income tax rate of over 90%. Australian history points to a more open and tolerant past. We had great nation building projects such as the Sydney Harbour Bridge and and the Snowy River Hydro Electric scheme; we accepted with open arms boat people fleeing Vietnam after the war. Nowadays we can't even get a decent national telecommunications system without people wailing like stuck pigs about the cost of it all; we're an international laughing stock due to carrying on like a bunch of scared, spoiled, selfish children over a relative handful of asylum seekers. Why is this happening?
We can blame some of the shift to the right on the Howard years - the Howard government left this country with moral wounds from which it may take decades to recover, an culture of greed an entitlement which shames us as a nation. But it's not just that. Perhaps the nation is becoming more conservative because there are...more conservatives. Conservatives, as a sweeping generalisation, tend to marry younger and have more kids, who grow up listening to rants about illegal immigrants and dole bludgers, before marrying at 24 and having three kids of their own. Lefties aren't keeping up. We're breeding ourselves out of existence. In order to save society from the lurch to the right, lefties need to acknowledge the problem. And we need to have more kids.
It's a generalisation, sure. I know many lefty, feminist, kick butt families with 3, 4 or more kids. But in general, lefties marry late, or not at all (many because they're legally prevented from getting married to their partner of choice), and are far more likely to have no or only one child. It's completely understandable. We're busy, and we understand the costs to the planet of overpopulation. We ourselves were planning on leaving it at Baby G - babies are expensive, and a lot of work, and I'm the family breadwinner for the time being, and I don't do pregnancy well. When your first child nearly kills you, you're not rushing to go back for more. But perhaps I need to revise my view. Australia needs more kids growing up in lefty houses, going to marches and rallies, knowing that 90% of what's published by News Ltd is rubbish and the rest is the ads, that the belief "I work hard for my family, why should I pay for other people's welfare?"just makes you sound like an asshole. Now, I'm not rushing into anything yet - DH is yet to warm to the idea, and Baby G needs so much work right now I can't imagine adding to the load (and he's an easy kid) - but I feel I should add to the effort. If not for us, to have a baby for a same sex attracted friend. I'm still aware of the environmental concerns, but look - we're being outnumbered here. If we don't have the kids, they will. Lefties, you need to get breeding. Have just one more. Bear a child for a same sex couple. Fill the planet with concerned, responsible citizens now. I believe we are in danger of being swamped by racists. This mother's day, couldn't you go just one more?
Peter Costello famously exhorted us to have "one for Mum, one for Dad, and one for the country". I would ask you to have one to spite the IPA, one to stick it to Rupert Murdoch and a third to annoy Joe Hockey. Playgrounds full of little lefty kids wearing t shirts that read "WHITE AUSTRALIA HAS A BLACK HISTORY" and "THIS IS WHAT A FEMINIST LOOKS LIKE" whilst their two dads look on adoringly and sip chai lattes. What a great future for the country. Let's all have more babies.
