Make Australia a great place to form and raise a family. A Ministry for Families from Day 1. Childcare at $10 an hour, universal. 26 weeks of parental leave with 8 reserved for each parent. The right to disconnect, and jobs that let a parent come home at night. Granny flats as of right. Free relationship counselling, and relationship education in schools. The family court system has its own page: Family Law & VROs — the WA Royal Commission.
Australia's fertility rate fell to 1.48 in 2024 — a record low for the second consecutive year, and below replacement (2.1) every year since 1976. Survey after survey shows Australians want more children than they are having. They are being priced out. Housing: cannot afford space for a family. Childcare: consumes the second income entirely. Time: working hours and commutes leave nothing for family life. The settings have been wrong for a generation, and the consequences will be visible for the next two.
The second squeeze is time. Working hours, commutes and rosters are set as though every worker has someone else at home running the family. For thousands of Western Australian families the roster is FIFO — a parent gone for weeks at a stretch, because the job and the home are a flight apart. The settings that decide whether a parent is present are made in workplaces and planning departments, and family life absorbs whatever is left.
A dedicated Ministry for Families with a single mandate: make Australia a great place to form and raise a family. Every bill includes a Family Impact Statement. Planning rules that prevent granny flats. Tax rules that penalise couples. Welfare rules that punish partnership. All reviewed. Most reformed. Some abolished.
Childcare capped at $10/hr maximum. Not means-tested. Universal. 26 weeks total parental leave, 8 weeks reserved non-transferable for each parent — use it or lose it for both. Normalises fathers being present in the early weeks. 15 hours per week of free early childhood education for every 3- and 4-year-old.
Employees cannot be required to respond to work outside paid hours. For parents of children under 12: flexible work is the presumed right. Employer must demonstrate genuine necessity to refuse. And the FIFO non-default: when a worker comes home at night instead of flying out, a family stays together. SBC corridor towns and regional industry make daily return commutes possible for jobs that currently require FIFO.
Granny flats approved as of right on residential properties nationally. No council discretion to refuse. Complying development only. Keeps ageing parents near family, reduces aged care demand, provides affordable housing for adult children, and creates multigenerational options that planning rules currently obstruct.
Free relationship counselling through Medicare. Relationship education in schools — Australians learn academic subjects but almost nothing about sustaining a relationship or managing conflict.
Family policy and community policy are one system. The Community stream builds the places families need around them — Green Zones, Healing Centres in every corridor town, hospice and respite, $10/hr childcare delivered locally — and the Community Towns and corridor programme puts jobs and homes in the same place, so daily-return work replaces FIFO as the default. A family is strengthened by what surrounds it: housing it can afford, work that ends at a reasonable hour in the same town, and a community that notices. That is built policy, not sentiment.
Everything on this page is about keeping families strong and together. What happens when a family separates — the four systems that can act on it at once, and the Western Australian Royal Commission into how they actually work — is set out on its own page: Family Law & VROs — The WA Royal Commission.
| Current — The Problem | Sovereign Australia — The Solution |
|---|---|
| Childcare: average $150/day. Second income entirely consumed. Poverty trap. | Childcare cap: $10/hr maximum. Not means-tested. Available universally. |
| Parental leave: inadequate, not genuinely shared. Fathers rarely take meaningful time. | 26 weeks per child, 8 weeks reserved non-transferable for each parent. |
| Council can refuse granny flats. Ageing parents end up in distant aged care. | Granny flats as of right nationally. Complying development. Multigenerational housing enabled. |
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Memo 16 — A Royal Commission into Family Law and FVROs. What happens when a family separates: the four tracks, what is and is not measured, and the case for a Western Australian commission. The memo sits with the Family Law & VROs page.
Memo 25 — The Australian Family System (Part One). Formation and breakdown data, and the systems that act on a family when it separates.