CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
With schooners going for nearly $10 in even the most humble suburban pubs, and supermarket trolleys now costing the equivalent of a months rent in 1980, the delusional political class still insist that Australia’s young people don’t know how to save.
From David Koch, to the plodding Murdoch economists, to every greying talkback radio host in the country – the narrative is concrete. The same generation who received free university education and were just young enough to avoid being sent to any wars, have done it tough enough. And they deserve to enjoy this wildly unsustainable wealth-hoarding racket. If they want to sell their properties to shady international money laundering syndicates, then so be it. They are entitled to do whatever they want with this nest egg that decades of likeminded politicians have created for them.
The issue of housing affordability isn’t the fault of a manipulated property market that has created a whole new generation of haves and have-nots – it’s the lazy kids who can’t make the most of their stagnating wages and are still paying the same prices for overseas plane tickets as their parents did in the 1970s.
Australia’s catastrophic housing and rental crisis has officially rendered Australia’s three largest cities completely unaffordable to the average single-income family, and barely affordable for those with two working incomes.
With every inch of every city accounted for – as either overvalued land-banking assets or vacant lots earmarked for the unregulated development of equally unaffordable high rise units – supply would have to be ramped up to Hong Kong-levels of density to cool down Australia’s hysterical property-industrial complex.
And it’s not just the quarter acre block that has been made extinct by this far-from-noble pursuit of mindless property speculation. Gone are the days of generational beachside communities, or empty squats for the scene’s burgeoning musicians and artists. Goodbye to the notion of having both rough mates and posh mates. Goodbye to the Darryl Kerrigans and their Castles. Goodbye to the community.
The total value of Australian residential real estate was $10.9 trillion at the end of July 2024 – one of the many reasons neither the banks, the RBA, nor both sides of Australian politics want to do anything about this severe generational inequality.
While the Liberal Party are shameless in their whoring to property developers and boomer investors, the Labor Party, who are still trying to weave this whole ‘for the little guy’ narrative – are instead finding different ways to talk about Australia’s extreme social inequalities.
For Prime Minister Albanese’s press team, it seems that recently outdated youth slang has been utilised to soften the youth’s nihilistic outlook.
“The housing market is brat” says Albo.
Brat – an adjective, not a noun, is perhaps the most popular Gen Z slang to go viral in June this year. Which means it is already outdated.
It is used as an endearing compliment towards a person or action emulating ‘a bold confidence despite flaws’.
“We all know it” continues the Prime Minister.
“It’s a hot mess”
“But we love it. It’s brat”
