Australia’s birth rate is plunging to 1.4 babies per woman — the lowest on record and far below the replacement level of 2.1. 

While Labor and the Coalition are silent, Family First is sounding the alarm. 

Former Treasurer Peter Costello, famous for his successful baby bonus which increased the fertility rate, is right to say this week’s news of a plummeting birth rate is a “major concern”.

Costello says our demographic collapse will affect productivity, economic growth and the fabric of society.

But there’s no policy response from the major parties — just more immigration. 

Family First believes in building Australia’s future through strong families, not relying primarily on immigration.

The most common reason young couples give for delaying children is cost of living. Housing, power, groceries, and childcare are all too expensive. 

That’s why Family First is making cutting the cost of living a centrepiece of our 2025 federal election campaign. 

We’ll fight to bring down power prices by scrapping Labor’s reckless renewables push and backing affordable coal, gas and nuclear. 

We’ll release more land and reduce red tape to ease the housing crisis. 

And to support stay-at-home parents — mostly mothers — we’ll introduce income splitting, so families can share their income for tax purposes, easing the burden on single-income households. 

Raising children is the most valuable contribution any couple can make to the future of Australia. It shouldn’t come with a financial penalty. 

The Albanese government says it “has no position” on encouraging families to have children. Family First has a very clear one. 

We stand for mums and dads. 

We stand for babies. 

And we stand for a future that’s built on Australian families, not permanent dependence on mass migration. 

Vote 1 Family First to make Australia family-friendly again.

Family First has just launched a powerful new ad that cuts through the spin and goes straight to the heart of the cost-of-living crisis: your electricity bill.

Despite promises from the Albanese Government to bring prices down by $275 per year, families are still being smashed by soaring power costs.

Why? Because both major parties — Labor and the Liberals — are obsessed with the globalist net zero agenda. And it’s your family that’s left paying the price.

Tied to the Paris Agreement and committed to rolling out unreliable and expensive wind and solar projects, both sides of politics are making electricity more costly — and in turn, driving up the price of everything else.

Family First says enough is enough.

Australia should be a wealthy nation with the cheapest power in the developed world — we once were.

But instead of using our abundant coal, gas and uranium to deliver cheap, reliable electricity, politicians are sabotaging our economy and environment to appease overseas elites.

If emissions must come down, nuclear is the only proven path to do it while keeping the lights on.

The truth is, net zero has failed — economically and scientifically. It’s time to abandon it, leave Paris, and put Australian families first.

This ad is a rallying cry. It's time to send a message to Canberra: Stop the madness. Vote 1 Family First.

👉 Watch the new ad here and consider donating to help us spread the truth on TV, streaming, and digital platforms before the next election.

With your support, more families will discover there's a party fighting for common sense — and their household budget.

Thank you for standing with Australian families.

Chris Bowen and the Labor government promised Australians a $275 reduction in power bills.
Instead, electricity prices have skyrocketed by as much as $1,300 per household.

The latest Australian Energy Regulator (AER) draft pricing indicates that power bills will rise by another $200 per year from July (Herald Sun, March 13, 2025).

Labor’s answer to the cost-of-living crisis it has created is to borrow more money to hand back to households to make us feel good.

But it is la la land stuff.

Driving electricity prices up by pursuing net zero drives the cost of everything up.

Both sides of politics are responsible for this mess.

It was the Coalition under Scott Morrison which signed Australia up to net zero and despite the protestations of lone voices like Senator Matt Canavan, the majority of the Liberals and Nationals party rooms support net zero and staying in the Paris climate accords which are the source of our economic pain.

The fantasy that renewables would bring down power prices has been utterly debunked (The Australian, March 17, 2025). Instead, the mad rush to wind and solar has made electricity more expensive and less reliable. Billions of taxpayer dollars have been funnelled into subsidies propping up unreliable renewables, while families struggle to pay their bills (The Australian, March 17, 2025).

Labor and the Coalition’s obsession with net zero has forced the premature closure of coal-fired power stations, stripping the grid of reliable baseload power.
Meanwhile, the vast web of transmission lines needed to connect wind and solar farms to the grid is costing Australians billions—costs that are being passed directly onto consumers (The Daily Telegraph, March 15, 2025).

The so-called ‘cheapest pathway’ modelling used to justify this energy disaster was always a sleight of hand. These reports ignored the true cost of renewables—the backup storage, the massive land use, and the staggering taxpayer subsidies required to keep them viable (The Australian, March 17, 2025).

Now the truth is out: Labor’s energy policies are a disaster, and families are paying the price.

Family First is standing against this madness. At this election, we are fielding candidates who will fight to bring down power prices.

That means exiting the Paris Climate Agreement, abandoning net zero, and restoring common sense to our energy policy.

We need an energy mix that prioritises cheap, reliable power—coal, gas, and in the long term, nuclear.

Australians deserve affordable electricity, not empty promises and higher bills. It’s time to end the renewable rort and put families first.

As mums and dads struggle to pay their electricity bills, Anthony Albanese today announced another $2 billion of borrowed money would be thrown at windmills and solar farms.

This is for so-called “green energy” to prop up aluminium smelting which is struggling because so-called renewables are expensive and unreliable for manufacturing.

In contrast, Donald Trump will take the oath of office tomorrow vowing no more taxpayer money for windmills.

“Windmills are an economic and environmental disaster. I don’t want even one built during my Administration. The thousands of dead and broken ones should be ripped down ASAP. Most expensive energy, only work with massive government subsidies, which we will no longer pay!”

He plans to “drill baby drill” to unleash the “liquid gold” under Americans’ feet and in doing so slash energy prices.

But everything Anthony Albanese and nine years of net-zero-obsessed Coalition government has done has raised the price of electricity and pushed us into a cost-of-living crisis.

Aluminium smelting didn’t need “green energy” subsidies from the taxpayer when power came from cheap and reliable coal.

“We need to be more than a quarry. We need to be a country that value adds ourselves, not that exports the raw material, waits for someone else to create jobs and value add, and then import the products back,” Albanese said today as he justified his latest election handout.

But if “green energy” was so cheap (remember the $275 reduction in electricity prices?), why does it need to suck on the taxpayer teat?

We were value adding our aluminium very well before the Coalition and Labor started closing coal-fired power stations to “save the planet”.

Australia’s gold may not be liquid but it is gaseous, rocky and yellow caked.

Albo won’t touch any of it for domestic use because he thinks that’s virtuous for the climate.

Hypocritically he’s happy to take the rivers of gold in royalties from coal and gas sent overseas, ignoring that burning it there is still burning it.

As Trump tacks away from the Coalition and Labor’s commitment to the economy-destroying Paris accord and as Australians watch America becoming wealthy again, pressure may well build here for political change.

Family First is standing Senate candidates in Qld, NSW, Vic and SA, supported by a team of lower house candidates, who are committed to cutting power prices by prioritising gas, coal and nuclear.

Family First is pushing for a pause on Net Zero policies until a proper economic and engineering cost-benefit has been produced.

MEDIA RELEASE