I have to say, I am pleasantly surprised by the lack of PC whitewash, such as that which infects most politicians when they touch on this issue, in what Costello has been saying. Looking forward to the policies.

AUSTRALIA faces a future of social upheaval unless couples start having more children, warns the Treasurer, Peter Costello.

Launching the 2006 Census yesterday, Mr Costello said that without an increased fertility rate, Australia would be forced to buttress its population decline with increased immigration.

This, he said, would change the nation’s social composition and lead to problems similar to those being experienced in western European nations such as France, the Netherlands and Denmark.

“There are some European countries with low birthrates and high immigration which have moved into this situation and it has caused a lot of social division. In some of these countries there has been social disruption and violence,” he said.

Mr Costello said Australia had benefited from immigration and the biggest waves of immigrants had come when the birthrates were highest.

“It was easier to keep the balance in population because immigrants were being absorbed into a growing population led by fertility,” he said.

Australia’s fertility rate has recovered in recent years from a 40-year low of 1.73 in 2002-03 to 1.8 in 2004-05.

Mr Costello said the rate needed to be 2.1 for parents to replace themselves but he conceded achieving this rate would be “a very tall order”.

He has made an increased birthrate a personal crusade since 2002 when he released the intergenerational report, which warned of an ageing population with too few workers to sustain it.

Allowing more guest workers was not a long-term solution because they were second-class citizens who were not expected to assimilate, were vulnerable to exploitation and became a society within a society, he said.

“Our concept of an immigrant society is that all arrivals are offered the opportunity to become full, first-class citizens. Our culture and history is not compatible with the introduction of guest workers or different tiers of citizenship,” he said.

..

Mark Davis reported in the Financial Times (print edition):

[Mr Costello] nominated child care, family payments, more flexible work arrangements and the degree to which fathers helped in child-rearing as key areas affecting incentives for women to have children.

Well, I suppose thats a start.

Some more quotes on the Demographic suicide of the West:

“Never in recorded history have prosperous and peaceful nations chosen to disappear from the face of the earth. Yet that is what the Europeans have chosen to do. Back in 1348 Europe suffered the Black Death.” “The plague reduced the estimated European population by about a third. In the next 50 years, Europe’s population will relive – in slow motion – that plague demography, losing about a fifth of its population by 2050.”
Spengler in the Asia Times Online

“It’s demography, and not democracy, that will be the critical factor shaping growth and security in the 21st century. High rates of births are contributing to the booming populations which are dragging down developing nations. Meanwhile falling birth rates are sapping the growth of developed nations.”
former Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew

“Europe and Japan are now facing a population problem that is unprecedented in human history,”
Bill Butz, president of the Population Reference Bureau