As National leader Christopher Luxon so cogently reminded the country this week, New Zealand has not replaced itself since 2016. We used to be a nation which got on with getting it on, producing enough children to keep our population on the up and up. But our flaccid recent rate of reproduction means that we need to get our wedding tackle out to tackle the serious problem that most important asset, people, are dwindling away.
"I encourage all of you to go out there and have more babies if you wish, that would be helpful," Mr Luxon urged delegates to an infrastructure conference this week, and what more appropriate place could he have chosen to espouse this bold perspective: nothing is more of an aphrodisiac than pipes and roads.
This is, of course, an incredibly important issue and a lot of people immediately felt the need to say very important things about it. Completely skirting over the instant impression which one might have formed at hearing Mr Luxon’s comments in context — that being that he was joking — critics were quick to equate his well-known personal position on abortion with his throwaway line on population size and make one and one add up to three.
Three, coincidentally, is roughly the number of children New Zealand families would need to be having for the national fertility rate to hit the point where we were naturally replacing ourselves, or even increasing the population. Mr Luxon, a father of two, is letting the side down a little there, although it is better than the current fertility rate of 1.847 births per woman.
To be fair to New Zealand’s labouring women, the country has barely been a self-replacement level for a long time, and New Zealand’s population has only risen to 5 million and beyond due to immigration. Like most Western countries, birth rates have been declining due to many factors, including ready access to contraception, the economic cost of having children, women opting to pursue a professional life rather than take up parenthood, or simple personal choice.
Every woman, of course, has the individual right to determine whether or not she has children. Mr Luxon’s deputy Nicola Willis would have felt somewhat frustrated at having to divert herself from the cut and thrust of the daily political battle to make this point to various reporters in the wake of some of the more over the top reactions to her leader’s jokey aside.
Mr Luxon may be floundering a bit in the polls at the moment, but he is not so naive as to seriously think he could give National a leg up by proposing we should get our leg over more often.
That said, the broader point Mr Luxon was trying to make through feeble wit — that the size of New Zealand’s population matters to us all — was entirely correct.
Population projections determine housing policy. Somewhere to live is a basic necessity, and without knowing how many New Zealanders there are likely to be planners will not know how many houses to build, how much land will be required to put them on, and then what services will need to be provided to those houses.
There are the supportive infrastructure questions being pondered at the conference Mr Luxon was attending, and also the ancillary services issues such as education and healthcare.
Then demographic trends need to be considered. The average age of New Zealand’s population is rising: our older citizens will need hospitals and aged care facilities, and the government will need enough people to be in work for their income tax to make a substantial contribution toward paying for them.
Of course, there are some who would argue we need fewer people, not more, so as not to drain precious natural resources or disrupt more the environment. That is also a perspective which merits consideration.
As jokes go it was not much of one, but if Mr Luxon’s quip sparks a wider debate it may have some beneficial effect.
