In 1926, Charles Vance Millar, a wealthy Toronto lawyer and lifelong practical joker, died leaving no direct heirs.
In his will, he bequeathed his shares in a racetrack to a number of anti-gambling crusaders; his brewery stock to temperance-preaching ministers; and his holiday house to three people who disliked each other, as joint tenants.
Most famously, however, he left the bulk of his estate to ‘… the woman who bore the most children in Toronto over the next decade!’
That final bequest became known as the ‘Great Stork Derby’.
The derby ended in a tie with four women sharing the prize, each having had nine children.
Millar’s final jest highlighted a timeless truth: when it comes to family formation, incentives matter!
A modern echo of the story came in 2004 when Australia’s Treasurer, Peter Costello, urged couples to have ‘one for mum, one for dad, and one for the country’ – sweetened by a $5,000 baby bonus.
Financial incentives alone, however, have proven to be limited against deeper structural barriers.
Extensive research has shown a clear link between affordable, low-density housing and higher birth rates. When young families can access low-density detached homes on large blocks at reasonable prices, they are more likely to have more children.
No surprises there.
Expensive, multi-storey apartments, on the other hand, delays or deters parenthood.
In this regard, South Australia’s abandonment of the Metropolitan Adelaide Transportation Study (The MATS Plan) in 1970 is an interesting case study.
The MATS Plan was a world-class road network for Adelaide’s future transport needs designed to service a vibrant, emerging city.
Released in November 1968, the plan envisioned an integrated road network supporting a growing city, together with ample, affordable fringe land for detached family homes—the ‘Menzies Dream’, named after Australia’s longest-serving Prime Minister Robert Menzies.
Menzies had presided over a golden age of owner-occupied houses with large gardens and private vehicle access (multiple academic studies and surveys have consistently shown that owning or having reliable access to a motor vehicle substantially improves a person’s chances of finding and keeping a job).
With a median house price just three times the median income, homeownership rates under Menzies reached over 70 per cent.
This conservative view of the world was, however – and continues to be – anathema to the radical Left.
Nurtured in our Universities, the Left’s campaign for dense, inner-suburban apartments and public transport, won over then Labor Premier Don Dunstan and Adelaide’s MATS Plan was ditched.
Its abandonment was, without doubt, South Australia’s biggest ever public policy failure.
As a result of that ill-fated decision, SA has suffered incalculable cost, inefficiency, and 50 years of congestion, due to its inadequate road system.
But a more consequential effect has been the limited access to new land supply resulting in elevated housing costs and suppressed family formation.
This pattern has been repeated across the Western world.
Median house prices in major Anglosphere cities (Australia, Canada, Britain, New Zealand, US) have more than doubled – even tripled in many places – in real terms relative to median incomes.
Young couples now spend a far higher proportion of their income on mortgage repayments, leaving less money available to spend raising children. Many even defer family formation altogether, reasoning they cannot afford both a home and children.
The results mirror the demographic catastrophe of China’s infamous ‘One Child Policy’ but through market distortion rather than government decree. The West has imposed its own version of China’s one child policy via housing unaffordability.
Future taxpayers will now face rising pension and aged-care burdens as smaller cohorts of young workers will be required to support larger retiree populations—precisely the demographic time-bomb China now confronts.
Politicians may have enjoyed the feel-good wealth effect that existing owners had in the early 2000s – as former Prime Minister John Howard famously stated in 2003, “I don’t get people stopping me in the streets and complaining that the value of their house has gone up” – but they now face a backlash.
Reversing this won’t be easy.
Removing urban growth boundaries, making residential use ‘permitted’ on fringe land, eliminating ‘upfront’ utility charges – all services should be paid for ‘as’ homeowners use them, not ‘before’ they use them – and simplifying approvals.
There is also much the Commonwealth Government could do to pressure State Governments namely:
- Using the Corporations Power to allow any corporation that owns land to have the right to make it available for housing irrespective of any state planning law.
- Instructing the ACCC to investigate land-price-gouging practices by State government land management agencies.
- Reducing its grants to States or Territories that were found to have gouged publicly owned land for profit at the expense of housing affordability.
Such steps would start the process of lowering prices towards the historical three-times-income benchmark, enabling young families to buy, settle, and grow.
Charles Millar’s Great Stork Derby was a humorous private incentive.
Public policy, however, should not require such gimmicks.
By prioritizing affordable low-density housing, governments can remove one of the main barriers to the natural desire for children.
South Australia’s MATS Plan abandonment cost generations dearly in congestion, opportunity, road fatalities and births forgone.
Its lessons should not be forgotten.
The Australian Family Party
Where to now for the Party?
As discussed in our post-SA election Newsletter Remembering Al Capone, the political tsunami that was One Nation, swept all before it.
People who would normally have voted for one of the parties on the Right (Liberals, Nationals, Christian parties, Libertarians, etc) all went over to One Nation.
There is no doubt that what One Nation did in South Australia – and then the Farrer by-election – will continue across Australia. Similar results are likely in the Victorian election in November, the NSW election next March, and the Federal election in 2028.
We did all we could to present an alternative on the Right side of politics – as did other minor parties. All succumbed to the One Nation juggernaut.
Thank you once again to everyone who helped with the campaign.
We will now bide our time and maintain our registration, and watch what happens with One Nation. We wish them well.
In the meantime, my long-standing interest in housing and its supporting infrastructure has led me to establish the MATS Plan Institute – the Maritime Adelaide Transport System.
I trust it will be of interest to you.
Thank you again for all your support.