Hours after being elected, the new Nationals leader, Matt Canavan, declared he wanted to see a “hyper” Australia and “more Australian babies”. The father of five envisions an Australia where maternity wards are full, parents have ample time and incentive to rear their children at home, and Sunday afternoons are “carefree”.
Canavan’s strong views on the traditional family unit and abortion are well known – in his first speech to parliament he committed to working to ensure that Australians are able to “have their own family”. But his latest call comes amid a decline in Australia’s fertility rate to a record low of 1.48 per woman in 2024 and a growing push around the world to encourage more people to have bigger families. It is a trend particularly pronounced among populist conservative parties, including self-proclaimed “fertility president” Donald Trump, and Nigel Farage’s Reform UK alongside influential billionaires, like father of 14 Elon Musk, who has warned “civilisation will disappear” unless the fertility rate recovers.
