The Fertility Crisis: Null and Void.

Three years ago this was a meticulous insight. I looked around at my friends and almost everyone was having their third child or agonising about wanting to have a third child (hmm, Kim?) (Next time I voice an insight, will somebody please kick me hard and make me sell it to an ad agency?) And yet, until this year, the newspapers continued to be full of "Shock!", "Horror!", "Not Enough Babies!". (I consoled myself, in those first, terrible months after finding we were having twins, that at least I was spared the trauma so many of my two=child friends were facing in deciding whether or not to have three! ) So the morons advising and deciding in the Federal Government, who clearly have no friends at which to look around, announced a new Baby Bonus - a non-means-tested one which was differnet to the means-tested one I missed out on altogether with my first daughter. This new, wonderful non-means tested bonus was announced not long after I had finally managed to pay my latest, nay, LAST, obstetrician's bill. Very late. It was really announced just in time for me and my TWINS to miss out. Yep, this baby bonus of $3000 per child was designed to encourage more people to have babies, and came into effect not too long after I paid $6000 out of pocket expenses to have my TWINS. I am very, very, very, happy that good and deserving and wonderful people like Kim will get $3000 for this baby, yet to come. I really, really am. Also I am delighted for all the other families, especially those with more than two children. Not so happy for the fact that young Sarah Murdoch will get it for whoever Kalan's next sibling may be, however I can learn to live with that on account of I don't mix with too many millionaires. But. If my TWINS and I, and my older baby too, ever meet that arsehole Johnny Howard in a shopping centre, we may just present him with an invoice for our fecund but financially fragile household. Yep, we're cutting edge here. Overly fertile, underly financed. Thank you, PM, for fucking it all up yet again. So, gentle reader, what's the biggest government handout you've ever missed out on? mtc Bec PS - next time you feel you have too many children, check THIS out.