Register - WIN a $10,000 Safari | Login

Think of Australia and have babies

June 11, 2004

Women, now is the time to arise and lie down again for your country, writes Harriet Veitch.

The Australian Medical Association claims some women are planning to have babies just to get the Federal Government's $3000 bonus, it said on a television moving news-strip yesterday morning.

You see? It's true, we women really are the venal, scheming trollops that you always thought we were.

For years we've been carrying around perfectly good wombs, gleefully refusing to use them, just waiting for this moment. Politicians have begged us to have babies, they've pleaded with us to have babies, but it wasn't until they waved $3000 under our noses that we have even considered unlocking our legs and getting down to it - selfish cows that we are.

Now, it's different, bribed with a munificent $3000 we are ready to throw away the jobs that we have to have to pay for our superannuation nowadays, take unpaid maternity leave and make babies while the sun shines, chuckling all the way to the bank.

If we have enough babies, they may even pay for the superannuation, which is of course designed to keep us in old age and stop us being a "drain" on these very children. Which is only fair when you consider what the poor things will be paying for their education, their capital-city-prices housing and the politicians' super payouts.

Advertisement Advertisement

So, women of Australia, now is the time to arise and lie down again in the service of your nation. All we have to do is find the man, crank up the ovaries, relax and think of Australia, and nature will do the rest while we wait for the money to roll in.

Easy as pie, no worries and, what's more, we can do this because we are so clever and cunning that we have arranged it with nature so that male politicians, however much they honestly, truly, hand on heart, would love to do it, can't have babies.

You see, we've cornered the market and, in true economically rationalist fashion, have decided to accept payment for a service that was previously provided free.

In fact, at $3000 a baby, perhaps IVF multi-births are the go here - quantity over quality, not to mention more efficient use of our time and resources. One womb can stretch a lot, and we'll have plenty of time and money to wait for it to snap back into shape afterwards.

So, here's the plan: we'll all have five babies at once, gather up our $15,000 payment and enjoy ourselves while the rest of society looks after the multitude of little darlings. We all know how eager public transport, restaurants and landlords are to have large families on board.

Of course, once we've paid for the medical bills for the bubs, covered our maternity holidays and bought a few dozen of those adorable little Size-0 singlets at a chain store, there'll be plenty of money left over for us grasping gold-diggers to really party.

A packet of chewing gum, garcon! And wrap it in a brown paper bag, we're really splurging tonight.
