Peter Costello clucky for ‘a younger’ nation

Peter Costello is once again urging Australians to add to their family, and wants the government to back them.

Then Treasurer Peter Costello at Melbourne’s Royal Women's Hospital in 2005.

Peter Costello wants Australia’s mums and dads to consider adding to their family, and is urging the government to back them in to do so.

“It’s clear population growth through immigration has turned down. It could be an opportunity to seize the initiative and try and encourage natural increase again ... this could be a moment for that,” the former treasurer said.

Almost a generation after urging Australian parents to “have one for the country”, Mr Costello has again weighed into the Big Australia debate, saying population growth for its own sake wouldn’t improve the nation’s standard of living, but boosting the birthrate, or at least stemming its decline, is a critical counter to the ageing demographic.

“I don’t argue for a Big Australia, I argue for a younger Australia,” he said in a rare interview.

“There is no point in being big and old. I want a younger Australia, an Australia full of opportunities. The way you build a younger Australia is through natural increase.

“Our long-term interest is in investing in our younger people and getting more out of them.”

Mr Costello’s foray into the population debate came after the federal government’s inaugural Population Statement, released last month, forecast the nation would have 1.1 million fewer people by 2031 than it would have without the impact of COVID-19.

Back in 2004 he famously urged Australian parents to do their patriotic duty.

“You should have one for the father, one for the mother and one for the country. If you want to fix the ageing demographic, that‘s what you do,” he said in launching the federal budget that included a $3000 Baby Bonus.

Peter Costello urged Australians to “have one for mum, one for dad and one for the country” in the early 2000s.

It worked. The next few years saw a marked rise in the nation’s fertility rate, topping out at 2.02 babies per woman in 2008. Demographers cutely labelled it the “Costello hump”.

But fertility is now on a decade-long downward trajectory, with Australian Bureau of Statistics data last week showing it had fallen to 1.65 babies per woman. Overseas migration has plunged due to COVID-19 international travel restrictions and is not anticipated to recover for several years. And life expectancy continues to increase.

Out of politics for more than a decade, Mr Costello, now chair of both the Future Fund and Nine Entertainment, said the government’s population policy imperative should be fertility over migration as this would drive a younger population, counterbalancing the ageing demographic.

Would he advocate for a Baby Bonus 2.0? Mr Costello wouldn’t be drawn into micromanaging government policy, and said there was already a range of child payments.

But the original Baby Bonus worked because it was a lump sum and an unambiguous signal the government was backing people wanting to add to their family; a psychological green light.

“I’m not sure money was the important thing,” he said. “You’ll never make a profit having a child. No one in their right mind would say ‘I’m doing it for the money’.

“The most important thing is to explain the benefits … on society and to back it up with practical initiatives. Every society concerned about its future invests in kids, that’s the mark of a growing, happy, well-adjusted society.”

Mr Costello said he worried the optimism around bigger families in the mid-noughties had been overtaken by a new message that having children was bad for the planet. “I said kids were good for the country. There are hardcore environmental activists who regard increased fertility rates as bad, because they see it as despoiling the planet.

“If the message becomes that the planet is overpopulated and it’s going to end in an environmental disaster, then having kids becomes socially unacceptable.”

He said the other reason for encouraging parents to have bigger families was to help address the mess made of aged care. “We have to get back to the idea of generational care. Your parents look after you when you are young and in return you look after your parents when they are old.

“The other model is that the state looks after you when you are young and when you are old. That system is broken. We can’t fund it.

“We’ve got a royal commission into aged care that’s shown us time and time again we are not adequately funding it.”

What about bolstering immigration?

Mr Costello said he was concerned the current migration program was not delivering Australia the biggest economic bang for the buck, with international students such a heavy component.

“I’m a great believer in skilled migration. Immigration policy should bring in the most highly skilled, who by definition will make the biggest contribution.

“Although universities would tell you they are selling education, I think some are selling soft visas. A lot of the jobs these students end up doing are unskilled jobs.”

Debate over Australia’s approach to population policy continues amid greater congestion in big cities, concerns over a lack of infrastructure planning and discussion about whether the nation’s migration program is optimising overseas talent in areas of demand.

Sandra Kanck, president of environmental lobby group Sustainable Population Australia, said opinion polls consistently show the majority of Australians don’t want the population to get much beyond its current 26 million.

“Our future does not lie in perpetual, unsustainable, population growth,” Ms Kanck said.

Tomorrow: Bob Carr on the perils of a Big Australia.