The more educated and financially independent women in any society become the fewer children they have and, in the long term, no amount of government social engineering is going to change that demonstrable fact. Of course the introduction of socialism, as tirelessly advocated by the previous commenter on this forum, would quickly impoverish the country and therefore increase the birthrate, but that seems a high price to pay. Remember when the population explosion was the big problem? How quickly things change.

Tinkering with means testing misses the real issue. What is needed is a root and branch reform of the taxation system. The introduction of a flat tax imposed at around 25% of all income above a healthy tax free allowance, with no exceptions or deductions would be simple, cheap to administer effective and raise revenue levels while acting as a great stimulus to economic growth. Such flat taxes have seen a host of countries in the formerly communist countries of Eastern Europe boom after decades of socialist stagnation and decay and countries such as the Baltic States are thriving with dynamism of which statist Australia can only dream. A thriving economy allows individuals to have, and more importantly care for, the families they want without recourse to government subsidy and control.

More radically the provision a 'citizens income' available to all is one idea to simplify the benefits system. This would be available for every adult to claim, in work or not, and would ensure that everybody had a basic standard of living regardless of their circumstances. There would be no poverty/benefit trap because the income would be claimable regardless of the person's working status. There would be no additional payments for any other reason. Radicalism means adopting new ideas, not rehashing the failed statist ideas of the nineteen sixties while truly progressive politics allow individuals to make their own destinies, rather than marshal their lives in tidy five year plans from an office in Canberra.

Regarding the means tested maternity benefit, it is usually true in the short term that where subsidies are offered, more of what is subsidised will be produced but that this will distort the economy and society to the detriment of all. Poorer and less educated women are more likely to have larger families earlier on than women with higher education and careers so, as family circumstances are a good predictor of a child's future educational and professional success, if one believed in producing a higher quality workforce then the Government would subsidise richer women to have more children and not pay poorer women at all. This wouldn't work in practice and is clearly absurd in principle, but the notion merely highlights the absurdity of the tax and benefit system.

The majority of tax is paid by better off workers, but if they are denied benefits available to those who pay little or nothing towards the upkeep of the nation then it is only natural that resentment against such unfairness will grow. Better off people will opt out of public provision entirely and then vote for parties which offer to cut their taxes, as they will see no benefit from them anyway. Britain has endured a dismal decade of tax and spend welfarism and authoritarian nanny state nagging and the Labour Government responsible now stands, broken, bloodied and abandoned even by its more rabid supporters in the press, twenty points behind in the polls with defeat at the next election a near certainty. Those who advocate a more statist turn might look at the examples of Britain - and France, Germany, Sweden and Italy - for the likely reaction of the long suffering public they seek so piously to champion.