Ageism, Racism, what about Youthism?

Written by Xavier Hill

As a demographic today’s young are perhaps the most marginalized of all in the formation of government policy. A lovely cosy arrangement exists between government, older Australians and corporate Australia which sees the property market  at the centre of all investment decisions. Don’t Believe me? On channel 7’s an evening with the Prime Minister which was a Q&A show with Kevin Rudd and a studio audience he stated to a couple who were holding out on buying property so they could save a larger deposit that “the most important thing is to get into the property market…as quickly as possible.” We then had announcements of increased home buyer grants to further prop up the market (up to $21K) yet there was never similar announcements made for other investment classes.

Tony Abbot is just as bad, he thinks it is great that prices rise yet the only reason any of this is occurring is due to poor government policy and it further marginalizes younger members of the workforce. With the primary place of residence attracting no capital gains tax and not means tested when assessing welfare eligibility, it makes the ideal place to park your money in, especially for older Australians. Everyone wins in this happy little dirty arrangement. Government placates a huge voting block, older Australians will still qualify for the pension and the banking sector is assured none of those mortgages will go bad.

Yet this is hardly fair to younger workers, whose taxes will be needed to fund this arrangement, yet they themselves can often only ever hope to buy on the very outskirts of cities. With health costs set to represent 19% of GDP (up from the current 9%) by 2050 and all those baby boomers set to receive a pension, the blatant unfairness of this system is only going to become more pronounced.