Binge Breeders

This is a new one for me, John Gillebaud from the World Health Organisation, thinks binge drinking is the world's greatest danger because it leads to teenage pregnancies:

UNWANTED teenage pregnancies following bouts of binge drinking are contributing to the world's unsustainable population growth, a World Health Organisation academic says.

John Gillebaud, a leading academic on birth control, reproductive health and population issues, told a conference in Canberra that unprotected sex leading to unwanted pregnancies is the greatest threat to mankind....

And of course theres a politician who's going to agree with him and this time its a Liberal:

Liberal MP Mal Washer and outgoing chair of the parliamentary committee on population and development, agreed with Mr Gillebaud saying binge drinking was the leading cause of unwanted pregnancies among teenagers in Australia.

Although Australia's birth rate has gone up in the last few years its still below replacement level. Don't see much chance of overpopulation if that keeps up.

Which brings me to the other breeding story of the day, a couple of academics want the government to abolish the baby bonus and "stop paying the well off to breed".

Look, I'm a small government bloke and realise the bonus is tax churning, but just who do academics want to have babies? Academics? God help us.

However I do think it was a mistake for the Howard government to rely so much on handouts to help families. It would have been better to have given more substantial tax cuts. They would have been harder for Labor to take away too.