VHR on the Clubs Women's POlicy

A thoughtful piece in the Herald today by Club Intellectual at Large, Hankadonna. Those malingerers who have accused our Womens' Policy Officer of lacking substance or a coherent policy platform will have to eat their

words.

Feel it's time to start a family? Go for broke By Hankadoona December 8, 2003

So Amanda Vanstone thinks Australia's birthrate is falling because today's parents are too materialistic.

"We are a very, very material nation and the current generation wants everything," she said last week, nominating overseas trips and private

school education as must-haves for today's parents.

What a joke. Everyone knows that such materialistic impulses make it much easier to pull the chicks. A fast car, a mansion in Coogee, and bang, another notch on the bedpost for any savvy poacher.

She suggests that the declining birthrate is women's fault. She says women think that "if we have fewer kids we can give the kids we have more in a material sense, which in my personal view is not necessarily the right way to go".

It seems that for a number of reasons, Senator Vanstone has missed the most fundamental reason for the declining birthrate * not enough lovin'
going on.

Well fellas, its time to draw a line in the sand. It time to get out there and root for your country. Remember at all times, that poachin'
ladies is
like poachin' goals. Hold your shape, build it up, and bang it away.

I can't help with the structure, but the Wanderer's new love album should provide help with the build up. Club musicologist Udon Juan is currently delving into Wanderer's archives, putting together an album to get the ladies in the mood. Hopefully, we'll have it on the shelves before New Year.

Far from being the avaricious materialistic types described by Vanstone, most of the 57 per cent of women who return to work before their children are aged two do so to help pay the mortgage and provide basic family necessities. Many such families simply can't afford to have more children.

But the important thing to remember is that if you get a lass drunk and

horny enough, she'll forget about this.

Current family policies favour single-income families, making life that much harder for mothers who work. Family benefits to single-income families are not income-tested, whereas double-income families start to lose theirs at a combined annual income of just $31,077. The one way to assure that your lady gets all the benefits is to make sure that she's a single mother. So don't overdo the post-goal celebrations: make sure you do a runner before dawn.

Professor Peter McDonald, from the Australian National University, has

endorsed this approach: " ... The largest payment that an Australian mother can obtain from government goes to those who leave the workforce at the

birth of their first child and never return."

Rabid feminist types have decried this as irresponsible, but we have a

crisis here. Not enough kids, not enough future Wanderers. Some goals can be pretty, others can be a forgettable goalmouth scramble, but they both count the same on the scoreboard.

Isn't that right, Senator Vanstone?