Peter Costello famously asked families in 2002 to “have one for mum, one for dad and one for the country”, but almost 20 years on, the fertility rate has plummeted to record lows and policymakers are facing the tricky question of how to deal with the consequences of smaller families.

Australia registered 294,369 births in 2020 for a fertility rate of 1.58 babies per woman – a 3.7 per cent fall on the previous year, almost 50 per cent lower than 50 years ago and the lowest rate on record. The total number of births was the lowest since 2007, down 6.6 per cent from a peak in 2018.