21 September 2026 · Phillip Bigg
We don’t need another baby bonus. Fix the foundations first.
Birth rates matter. Money that wouldn’t cover nappies does not. Last week I continued a sustainable vision for Tasmania. The broader picture is housing, health, the river, waste and a wage that keeps up.
Last week I continued on from a sustainable vision I had for Tasmania as a whole I wrote about last year. The recent talks about the economy and birth rates are a significant concern — but let’s look at the broader picture.
We don’t need another baby bonus. Birth rates matter, unlike money that wouldn’t cover nappies. Last time it landed hardest on families already doing it tough. It didn’t make life sustainable and it put more kids into households already stretched and grew the gap.
Baby cash doesn’t buy a house. A wage that keeps up, or a future worth raising kids in, should be a priority. Fix the foundations first. Make it possible to have children. Don’t bribe people into it.
Fourteen months ago I wrote that Tasmania was on the precipice of generational failure if we kept chasing election-cycle band-aids instead of long-term solutions. I used Dick Smith’s phrase lazy growth. I wish I had been wrong.
The Centre for Population now puts our fertility rate at about 1.46. You need 2.1 to hold a population steady. Official projections have us as the first state where deaths outnumber births, from 2028–29. Bringing people in without houses, nurses and a reason for young ones to stay is still lazy growth.
Hobart CPI was 4.5 percent higher in July than a year earlier. Wages went up about 3.1 percent. Unleaded around 227 cents. Diesel around 270. Aurora rose 4.23 percent from 1 July. TasWater is on 5.7 percent a year through to 2030. Power up. Water up. Diesel up. Groceries up. Wages not.
That cost of living does not sit in a vacuum. It walks straight into the hospital and the housing market. A typical income now qualifies for about 6 percent of homes sold — worst in the country. People do not have babies they cannot house.
A dedicated teaching hospital, homes sold at cost plus a thin margin with a 2 percent loan, an independent Derwent flow study before they pull another 14,000 Olympic pools out of Meadowbank, a game meat donation pathway, and a serious look at waste-to-energy. That is the broader picture. Not another cheque that does not cover nappies.