Luxon’s struck a nerve, hasn’t he?

He’s been telling Kiwis to have more babies. He was at an infrastructure conference, talking about our shortage of workers to build the infrastructure we need.

And he said: “We need people. Here is the deal – New Zealand stopped replacing itself in 2016. I encourage all of you to go out there and have more babies if you wish, that would be helpful.” 

Now that’s upset a bunch of sensitive Gen Z-ers on Twitter, who ‘ve clearly bought into the low-bar Labour Party attack line a couple of weeks back claiming Luxon wants to charge for contraception and can’t be trusted on abortion because he’s prolife.

And they see this as a continuation of Luxon involving himself in procreation.

Whatever, the upset will always be upset.

But what he said is bang on and unless we listen to him, the state’s involvement in the bedroom could get a whole lot worse.

We are on the same path as many developed countries to becoming the next Japan. Where we end up with loads of old people drawing on the health system and Superannuation, and not having enough young working people supporting them.

That is a very real possibility for us if we carry on like we are. Our birth-rate has actually been below the replacement level since the 1980s. The replacement level is 2.1 births, we’re now at 1.81. 

We are going to start talking about closing schools in the next ten years because we don’t have enough little ones coming through to fill the classes in every single region, except for Canterbury. 

This is why there are warnings that Superannuation will become unaffordable. Not because it costs too much, but that it will cost too much when we don’t have enough young people paying for it.

We've got two options. We either have some babies ourselves to replace ourselves, and as clinical as it sounds, pay for our retirement. Or we import more migrants, or a combo of the two.

But if we don’t do that, look at what's happening to Japan.

The birth-rate there is now so low that the Japanese Prime Minister in March said the country is standing on the verge of whether they can continue to function as a society.  He's launched a Government agency to support parents to have more babies.

Luxon's right, we need more people. 

And for those who are upset about him saying that, they don’t know what Government involvement in procreation really looks like.

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