President gives talk on demographic challenges at Campion College Australia
At the event held as part of her official visit to the country, Novak said Hungary spent more than 6 percent of its GDP on supporting families. She outlined the government’s financial measures that include a housing support scheme for couples raising children, the lifelong PIT exemption of mothers raising four or more children as well as the preferential system of suspending or fully cancelling student loans for women who raise children.
In addition to financial measures, other forms of support for families are needed, Novak said, adding that although “Hungarians by nature are a family-focused people”, there were efforts also prevalent in Hungary aimed at enticing people to hold “anti-family views”. “Hungarians, I think, feel that their children are exposed to this threat,” she said.
Raising a child is the right and responsibility of the parents and Hungarians want to preserve that right, the president said. She highlighted the provision in the Hungarian basic law that states that a mother is a woman and a father a man.
She encouraged her audience “to dare to state their opinion” if they disagreed with the mainstream on the matter of having a child, insisting that starting a family and performing duties in a job could be done simultaneously.
The president cautioned that “a demographic ice age” threatening every society in the world was as serious a problem as climate change. She spoke about her efforts to scout international allies in fighting against the demographic decline and noted her recent meeting with Elon Musk to that end.