The Monash Centre for Youth Policy and Education Practice has tracked more than 2,700 Australians aged 18 to 24 since 2021, examining their experiences across work, education, housing, wellbeing, relationships and civic participation.
Its latest report describes young Australians as living through a “polycrisis” of overlapping economic, social, environmental and political pressures that compound one another.
But our governments are not listening to them enough. We need younger people in positions in which they are taken seriously.
We should have a ‘Voice’ of indigenous people AND young people to parliament. Yep, I know this is fantasy but this is what is needed.
Too many of our older generation (who still run the show) refuse to believe that circumstances are any different to what they had in their time, and therefore any struggles younger people are having must be their own fault. It’s leading to a lot of animosity between the generations, as I’m sure we’ve all seen.
I overheard an older coworker a couple of years back saying that rising interest rates are a good thing because young people need to learn that life isn’t always going to be easy and I nearly spit out my drink.
I met a guy around 6 or 7 years ago who owned multiple adjacent house blocks because when they went up for sale it was 6 pound a block and he was making 6 pound a week. Granted, that puts him at the very oldest among the population, but there’s no way he could possibly understand what life is like for people starting out now.
I literally got chewed out by a 74 year old boomer the other day, because he was claiming how smart he was to buy a triplex back in the late 1960s rather than a “big single home,” like all his friends. He now has a passive income of around $8,200 per month, and got completely incensed when I congratulated him on his luck. He didn’t want to hear about the multiple people I know that are his age, tried the same exact plan, and are destitute because they didn’t get lucky.
Fuck the boomer assholes that made this shit global, and perpetuate their “horse and sparrow economics,” delusions to today, 150 years after that shit was proven wrong.
The young are not given enough representation in politics. Its still an old persons game…as is much of life in aus due to the attitude of she’ll be alright. Its code for we don’t want change; drop it!
Second as always the lack of ability for the young to settle and build an affordable life is highly detrimental. The housing system (and education) treats them like cattle to be profited from. They have to run 3 jobs and side hustles just to live so getting involved in civic or politics is very much out of reach…unless you already have wealth (that’s not really who should be the voice in this situation).
