Scott Morrison’s legacy — even if he says he doesn’t want to leave one — will be a material degradation in the economic lives of young Australians for decades to come. And yesterday, with his proposal to allow people to raid their super to buy housing, he’s seeking to entrench and extend that.
Climate policy. Fiscal policy. Wages. Housing. Education. At every turn, young Australians have been dudded by this government. And now, as if in reward for having their lives placed on hold for two years to protect older Australians from a pandemic, they’re now told they need to sacrifice their retirement savings not for a better opportunity to buy a first home, but for an opportunity to bid the prices of housing owned by wealthy seniors up, so the latter can push the proceeds into their super, where they’ll enjoy tax concessions funded by taxpayers and an ever-expanding burden of public debt.
And who are the taxpayers on the hook for that? Oh yeah, younger Australians.
You have to at least acknowledge the sheer, staggering genius of working out how to fuck an entire generation coming, going and on the way through. Young people have a lifetime ahead of paying for the privilege of handing their own wealth over to older Australians.
On every key issue, young Australians will wear the cost of the Morrison government for much of their working lives. Our climate inaction, and the related failure to provide global leadership for international climate action, will make Australians hotter, poorer and more exposed to disasters for the rest of the century and beyond.
Paying down Morrison and Frydenberg’s trillion dollar debt, funded by a permanent increase in the size of government spending without a similar increase in taxation, will be a fiscal burden borne by taxpayers for decades to come.
Wages growth, especially for young people and low-income earners, already stagnant for 10 years, is now falling in real terms and will continue to do so — indeed, Morrison’s policy is that real wages should fall.
Buying a house for young people is a competition with government-subsidised investors. The higher education system has been deliberately targeted and crippled, with young people carrying debt decades into the future for the privilege of accessing it.
As the election campaign shows, there’s never a point when the exploitation of young people becomes so egregious that someone calls time and declares they’ve suffered enough; for those in on the giggle, there’s always another rort. Until yesterday it was rats and mice stuff — like Morrison expanding access to the much-rorted seniors’ health card to wealthy seniors. But transferring the small super balances of young people trying to buy a home to the pockets of homeowning seniors is a whole new level.
For Morrison and the Liberals, the real targets aren’t young people. This is a policy designed to reward the Liberal base while attacking the Great Satan of Liberal theology: industry super funds. Once upon a time, unions occupied a senior place in the Liberal demonology, but industry funds have, for the ideological zealots of the right, arisen from the ashes of the union movement and become more dangerous than unions ever were. If the Morrison government is defeated, it will be wholly apt that it goes out desperately lashing at its great enemy, trying to drag it to hell along with the Morrison-era Liberal Party.
But who knows — perhaps enough young voters will fall for the nonsense about helping them buy homes (despite Jane Hume admitting this morning that the measure will push house prices up) and enough disaffected older traditional Liberal voters will see the dollar signs from higher property prices, enough to save some seats, stop a teal or two, and enable Morrison to cling to minority government.
The deep irony is that Morrison loves traditional, wealthy home-owning Liberal voters right up until they have to go into aged care. At that point, they’re on their own — literally, in so many cases. Ask the families of the more than 1350 aged care residents who’ve died of COVID this year alone.
If anyone who looks at that face and it’s snide sneering visage, cannot detect the true character of this individual, then they must be the greatest fools of fools ever born, or one and the same. A charlatan without peer, in the most powerful position in the land. With his grasping hands on all that lovely money. What a dream come true for him and his ilk. No wonder they love him. Or is it that Australians seem to have a sneaking admiration for the smartass conman, almost as an Aussie Icon. That is, until they discover it was them being conned. Not so much admiration and chuckling then, eh!
Dead right. Conmen are masters at disguising their true self-obsessed intent.
I thought confidence tricking was illegal.
Not if you’re in politics unfortunately.
They say there’s a fool born every minute. Morrison and his LNP know this well.
In response to an irritation:
“No truth is the answer, the answer . . .
The “L” stands for lying, for lying
and the “N” and the “P” . . . naught but M I S E R Y.
When I think I cannot detest this man further, he comes up with new reasons in which to hate him.
Truly an evil, evil man with a destructive and greedy character, only match by his lust for power, one rarely seen in the history of our world. That he is even an outside chance to retain the PM office fills me with A DEEP frustration and fear.
………. I got nothing else to say………..
“Detest” is quite appropriate…..
And the term “evil” is also appropriate!
Well said MB, I couldn’t have put it better myself.
If this is the leadership a pentecostal Christian offers God help us . By my guess, most of the 10 commandments appear to be optional. Rorting and lying appear to be prerequisites for a higher position in his kingdom
LIAR ,RORTER,CLIMATE CHANGE AVOIDER, ICAC AVOIDER, EX PM
I watched a vox-pop sequence on ABC’s Insiders last night on voting intentions and one inner west Sydney voters proudly proclaimed his vote was for Morrison. And his reason? Morrison’s leadership fighting Covid. Simply breathtaking. How do you deal with this willful ignorance?
… How do you counter the electorate’s capacity for self-harm?
I mean F-F-S.
There was a b-l-o-k-e in Reid, on the Insiders ‘v-o-x pops’ the other day, that believes that Palmer can deliver on his “maximum 3% mortgage rates p-r-o-m-i-s-e”, which that bloke said will get his vote????? …. He votes.
I remember a recent Liberal PM suggesting a requirement of citizenship for migrants should include important questions like Bradman’s batting average. Your example makes me more convinced it is important to ensure Australians have a grip on reality before being able to vote. Maybe a question like what party does the Prime Minister belong to? What is a preferential voting system ? could be a couple of starters and most likely many more .( maybe is a fat coal miner a Richard Cranium )
Agree with you 100%
Yes, as Morrison hoped, his late arrival at the scene, and complete abrogation of responsibiity, and passing all decision making and heavy lifting to the State Premiers seems to have been forgotten. I’ve heard this sentiment a few times myself . . .and to think the LNP pilloried Dan Andrews all the way through while the poor guy worked his backside off day and night was absoltuely disgusting. Of course the Murdoch machine was out so unseat Dan anyway, without Covid. In that mission they have failed.
A lovely old lady I chat with every day during my walk proclaimed similar nonsense. I mentioned the states did all the heavy lifting. She went on a rant about Dan Andrews. I think we’ll stick to talking about compost and the neighbouring drug dealers from now on.
So damn true.
Whenever I discuss politics with the plebs (self included) I am also amazed, and genuinely ask why they vote for the Libs (when to me at least) it is self evidently against their own interest.
Their reply is ALWAYS, some form of talking points that News Corp et al has been listing lately. It reinforces the utter power that our media has in our so called democracy. Tragic.
Have you showed her the Miriam Margolyes clip on circulating on Twitter – it would be simple enough to get your point across quickly. Sadly not on Youtube yet, hopefully someone will upload it soon.
I heard a woman on RN this morning say she was voting Liberal because Morrison had led us through COVID and we shouldn’t change now while it was still around. Jesus wept.
I can’t stand watching those undecided voter sequences anymore….too many dopes on slow rotation. Very poor quality journalism and extremely depressing.
Staggers me that the LNP could even expect any more than about 25% of the vote with the performance they’s put on under Morrison.
This whole policy is utter BS! What young person has $125,000 in their super to be able to withdraw $50,000 (40%) for a deposit and after they have saved 5% deposit anyway. Then, when they need to sell the home because the family is getting bigger, they have to put the money back in super so now they don’t have enough to buy a bigger place or they need to take out an even bigger mortgage just when they need more $$s in the budget because of the kids!
And of course there won’t be an aged pension by the time they come to retire because the Libs, claiming the country couldn’t afford it anymore since they gave away big tax cuts to rich folks and companies, completely debauching the tax base, abolished the pension in 2035. Today’s young people will work until they drop – no aged pension and not enough super to retire independently and a Liberal Government that wants it that way.
Yes, BS is all it is. Brain bubbles on the spur of the moment, as usual, completely devoid of any solid study or expert advice.
I wish I believed they were thoughtless brain bubbles. Sadly, I don’t. Not after decades of watching this happen. It is either deliberate, with malice aforethought, or it is insanity, but it is not impulse or accident, Oz. It can’t be.
If this policy came to pass, the next Liberal Government would address the anomaly, and extend the provision so that it applies to the second home (then the third, fourth etc on and on).
It would be interesting to know how much of Scott Morrison’s warped policy manifesto in government is informed by his 1989 university thesis “Religion and Society, a Micro Approach: an Examination of the Christian Brethren Assemblies in the Sydney Metropolitan Area, 1964-1989”.
Obviously a brain bubble from a desperate PM with no credible backing for his already discredited attempt to bribe the young who will see right thru him. This country cannot afford three more years of rorting and stagnation. Sorry PM this was your job and you did hold the proverbial hose . Hawai was unfortunately too far from the fire just as you have been too far from the action every time you were called. No Show Sco Mo should be your epitaph .
Now its time to Go Sco Mo. Time for ICAC and Climate Change action
“This whole policy is utter BS! What young person has $125,000 in their super to be able to withdraw $50,000 (40%) for a deposit and after they have saved 5% deposit anyway.”
They either have to save that money while staying with their parents, or while they are paying off someone else’s mortgage through rent.
Bernard, you have hit the nail perfectly. This comment covers it well..”You have to at least acknowledge the sheer, staggering genius of working out how to f*** an entire generation coming, going and on the way through. Young people have a lifetime ahead of paying for the privilege of handing their own wealth over to older Australians.” Very eloquently put.
One has merely to look at the disintegration of US society, to see where we are heading. These utterly failed and debauched economic “games”, not policies, are imported direct from the US and UK, a decades long war on the young and middle class, instigated by Regan and Thatcher. Morrison and his LNP clones started this slide with Howard, and it continues. An informative read is “Silencing Dissent”, by Clive Hamilton and Sarah Maddison. The whole LNP strategy is laid out, everything from gutting the public service, to attacks on climate action, education, wages, critical thinking, the young, and much more.
Worth a look.
Why not simply transfer superannuation money from young people to the aged? Would save heaps on stamp duty!