Point of View is written and spoken by Bob Santamaria for the National Civic Council, 254 Queen Street, Melbourne, Victoria, 3000.
Here now is Point of View, an independent news commentary by Mr Bob Santamaria on behalf of the National Civic Council.
How do you do? One of the major arguments concerning the forthcoming Federal Budget lies in its provisions concerning childcare.
Figures actually exist to show that government run childcare centres cost twice as much to run as private centres.
So the Minister for Finance, Senator Walsh, wanted to issue a voucher in respect of every child at every childcare centre.
Each parent would get exactly the same amount to help to pay for each child.
If some parents wished to spend more, it was open to them to pay the balance out of their own pockets.
The strongest opposition predictably came from the feminist lobby.
It wants free or heavily subsidised childcare for everybody, regardless of whether they're rich or poor.
And that simply means that the great bulk of taxpayers on middle incomes but squeezed by high tax rates will be subsidising the wealthy.
And apparently the feminists have won.
Perhaps as justification for this principle, enter the latest research monograph to issue from the National University entitled
The Forgone Earnings from Child Wearing in Australia by two academics, John J Biggs and Bruce J Chapman.
It is actually meant to be taken seriously.
The first paragraph in the introduction begins by stating the obvious, and I quote it.
Raising children is an expensive process. The obvious direct costs include food, shelter, education and clothes.
Less obvious but undoubtedly of great magnitude are the labour market earnings foregone by child-rearers, typically mothers.
Well, I can only say that if only the results of this original research had become available when my own family was coming into being,
it would have concerned me and I would hope their mother that becoming the parents of eight children,
far from representing an economy of scale on the principle of cheaper by the dozen,
should have been regarded by us as a massive essay in personal wastefulness.
The level of income foregone according to our researchers varies.
If one marries what they call a woman with average education, the monograph states, and again I quote,
having one child is associated with a lifetime income loss of about $336,000,
assuming that there's no capacity to receive interest on the sum.
Second and third children are associated with about a further 50,000 and 35,000 income losses.
Well, assuming that numbers four to eight in my own family meant an average income loss of 30,000 ahead,
the income we would have foregone would have been in the vicinity of 600,000, truly a financial disaster.
But the true situation is in fact much worse.
The ANU report, Organ of the Nation's premier center of learning, in its review of the monograph,
outlined the true ghastliness of the situation.
The amount of foregone earnings for women up to the age of 60, it added,
who have had one, two, or three children is $336,000, $384,000, and $419,000 respectively.
Had this money been invested at 5%, the pre-tax income would actually have been $929,000,
$1,059,000, and $1,145,000 respectively.
Thus, it concluded, the presence of children costs around $1,000,000 over a mother's lifetime.
Well, that's surely alarming.
But if you're foolish enough to marry a high-flying, highly educated woman,
the figures become truly catastrophic.
The most substantial income loss is for highly educated women with access to a high interest rate capital market.
The first child, they say, costs over $2,000,000.
The second an additional $400,000, and the third an extra quarter of a million dollars.
The obvious conclusion I would have thought is that you just can't afford to marry a highly educated woman.
Since she yields to the folly of having children, the income foregone would startle even a homes accord.
There is, however, something peculiar about this type of accountancy.
Doesn't anything at all go into the credit column?
In my family's personal case, to have foregone the highly expensive eight children,
so as to keep their mother working and earning, would have meant subtracting two barristers, a solicitor,
two teachers, a nurse, a first assistant secretary of a government department,
and Cambridge PhD from the list of Australia's income earners.
Their collective tax probably helps to keep the smile on Mr Keating's face.
So finally, to quote the ANU reporter once again,
Dr Chapman said that the study had broad implications for debates on important social issues,
such as those concerning fertility choices, population growth, the subsidisation of child care,
and possibly financial settlements in divorce cases.
Dr Begg said that the study had implications also for immigration policy.
Well, under all the circumstances it would seem that the only rational population policy for Australia
is to import millions of adult migrants, so long as they have no children,
and to make sure that all the males undergo immediate sterilisation,
so that we don't add to the statistics of female income foregone.
The English poet G.K. Chesterton must have had a distant intuition of this brave new world of statistical research.
When he wrote in one of his songs of education,
I remember my mother the day that we met, a thing I shall never entirely forget,
and I toy with the fancy that young as I am, I should know her again if met in a tram.
But mother is happy turning a crank that increases the balance at somebody's bank,
and I feel satisfaction that mother is free from the sinister task of attending to me.
Goodbye and until next week.
For a free copy of the text of this telecast, write to News Weekly, Box 66A, GPO, Melbourne.
Point of view, the independent news commentary you've just seen,
is presented by Mr. Bob Santamaria on behalf of the National Civic Council.
Point of view is written and spoken by Bob Santamaria for the National Civic Council,
254 Queen Street, Melbourne, Victoria, 3000.