A prominent author and baby boomer has lashed out at younger Aussies who blame his generation for their economic woes.
Clive Hamilton, 70, and his daughter Myra, told readers it has ‘become a crime to be born in the 20 years after World War 2’, claiming ‘generational warmongers’ had their targets set on baby boomers.
The Hamiltons used the opinion piece to debunk several of the ‘toxic’ myths surrounding baby boomers, revealing how many had really received a free university education, and showing that a vast majority aren’t blowing through their children’s inheritance as is often claimed.
They also refuted claims that boomers are to blame for the state of the housing market, for fuelling inflation, and for being responsible for rising rents.
Clive Hamilton, a former Greens candidate, is a professor of public ethics at Charles Sturt University and a member of the Order of , while his daughter is an associate professor at the University of Sydney researching gender, ageing and care.
Prominent Aussie academic, author and Baby Boomer, Clive Hamilton (pictured) has taken aim at younger ‘generational warmongers’ who blame his generation for their economic hardship
The Hamiltons told readers that fewer than 10 per cent of his generation benefited from the ‘fabled free university education’, most of which came from upper and middle class families at a time when year 12 finishing levels were still low.
Gough Whitlam’s Labor government in 1974 abolished fees for undergraduate university degrees to make education for more accessible for the working class, during an era when mainly middle class students benefited from scholarships.
‘That was the reason for HECS, so that low-income people would no longer subsidise middle-class kids to get the high-paying jobs,’ the opinion piece for the Sydney Morning Herald reads.
Bob Hawke’s Labor government in 1989 replaced free tertiary education with HECS, also known as the Higher Education Contribution Scheme, which meant graduates paid for their education after they earned above a certain threshold.
Baby boomers, specifically those in their late-60s and in the ‘builders sub-generation’, still hold the lowest rate of university graduates at less than 10 per cent.
Every generation following baby boomers, born from 1946 to 1964, has continued to increase the amount of people graduation university with as many half Gen Zs holding a degree in the future.
The Hamiltons told readers that fewer than 10 per cent of his generation benefited from the ‘fabled free university education’, most of which came from upper and middle class families at a time when year 12 finishing levels were still low (pictured is a stock image)
The Hamiltons went on to bust the ‘toxic myth of skiing’, saying that boomers vilified for hoarding financial resources are instead to be responsible for a massive transfer of wealth between generations
The Hamiltons went on to bust the ‘toxic myth of skiing’, saying that Boomers vilified for hoarding financial resources are instead to be responsible for a massive transfer of wealth between generations.
‘Over the next couple of decades boomers will bequeath a massive $3.5trillion in assets to their children, the same ones they have been oppressing so thoughtlessly,’ he wrote.
A Productivity Commission report from 2021 found about $3.5trillion, mostly property and superannuation, would be passed through inheritance by 2050.
That figure will only grow over time, with the current $120billion inherited per year predicted to rise to $500billion by that same year
The Hamiltons also noted that while the housing market is ‘shockingly unjust’, the fastest growing demographic that are becoming homeless aren’t aged in their 20s, but instead ‘women over 55, baby boomers’.
‘There are rich boomers and there are poor boomers and many in between. This fake conflict is responsible for enormous bitterness out there,’ they wrote.
A generation ago in 1982, when Sydney’s median house price was $79,425, an average, full-time worker earning $17,238, paying off a $63,540 mortgage with a 20 per cent deposit had a debt-to-income ratio of 3.7.
With Sydney’s median house price now at $1.397million, an average, full-time worker on $95,581 with a 20 per cent deposit, paying off a $1.117million mortgage, would have a very dangerous debt-to-income ratio of 11.7.
Someone would need to earn $186,251, and be among the top four per cent of income earners, to even qualify for a loan, because the banking regulator is concerned when a borrower owes more than six times their income.
High immigration during the past two decades has made housing unaffordable in Sydney and Melbourne for middle and average-income earners buying on their own, with property prices continuing to climb despite the Reserve Bank’s 13 interest rate rises since May 2022.
Strong population growth and an influx of international students has pushed ‘s rental vacancy rate to just one per cent, and caused capital city rents to rise by double-digit figures during the past year.