No one's talking to young voters - Opinion - www.smh.com.au

The language and cultural barriers between politicians and the under-25s are greater than ever, writes Simon Castles.

There is only one thing surprising about the Federal Government's plan to close the electoral roll as soon as the poll is called, and prevent tens of thousands of young Australians from voting. And that is that someone in government remembered young people do vote in this country.

You certainly wouldn't know it from watching politics in action in 2004. Young people (those 18 to 24) are the great unwashed of the electorate - ignored, rarely spoken about, and never, ever spoken to.

At the 2001 election, 83,000 first-time voters signed up in the first seven days of the campaign. While it is unlikely to get the approval of Parliament, last week the Coalition, citing spurious concerns about electoral fraud, said they wanted to prevent the same situation occurring this election. (Read: want to stop some unlikely supporters from casting a vote.)

About 2.5 million Australians are 15 to 24 - not an insignificant number. As a demographic, though, they are increasingly crushed and buried beneath an ageing population - beneath 12.5 million voters, all of us shouting ourselves silly about real estate, retirement, superannuation plans and other issues as grey and lifeless as a politician's suit.

I mean, c'mon, did you care about superannuation when you were 18?

Politics has never been a hip and funky arena, but it's only going to get greyer in the years ahead. For all the talk of generational change (welcome Messrs Latham and, er, Costello), politics is growing old with the population.

Elections of the future are going to have all the youth appeal of seeing Johnny Farnham play the RSL.

In 1971 - not long after Farnsie released Sadie (The Cleaning Lady) - the median age in Australia was 27. That was the rough age of the person political leaders had in mind when they made their pitch to voters. Today, the median age is 36. And rising. By 2031, according to the Bureau of Statistics, it will be 43.

Our leaders talk about the so-called "barbecue stopper" issues - real estate, interest rates, superannuation, balancing work and family - with little or no concern that young voters are either not particularly interested or aren't even at the barbecue to begin with.

OK, I'm being cynical. Of course political leaders can't please - or address - all of the people all of the time. But can't they at least try to please some of the young people some of the time? And this means more than appearing on FM breakfast radio or Rove Live and joking about pop culture ephemera.

It means attempting to engage with young people about issues they are facing now. It means having the imagination to picture the world through the eyes of an 18-year-old.

What's it like to know that no amount of education will guarantee you stable employment?

What's it like to have elders talk about the benefits of work for the dole - for you, not for them?

What's it like to begin adulthood in debt?

What's it like to be gay, knowing your prime minister would be "disappointed" if his child was the same?

What's it like to feel priced out of higher education?

What's it like to know you will pay rent forever?

What's it like to know your generation is exhibiting signs of depression up to 10 times that of previous generations?

And what's it like to know that the Government would rather have you off the electoral roll than on it?

Simon Castles is a contributing editor to The Big Issue and a fellow of OzProspect.

Yep. That's the way I tend to feel about it. His article that I read today in the Courier Mail talked more about inter-generational conflict, particularly focusing on Australia's current situation. A picture was set where GenX + GenY/GenNext options and opportunities is hamstrung by those of the Boomers who are justifiably protecting the interests of their own future.

The situation for Australia's youth is that we will still be dominated by the baby boomer's thoughts & wills long after they cease to be economically-productive members of society. They have amassed all the wealth, have all the power, make policy, rule our lives. The Boomer's are facing the prospect of a poorer future from the one they have enjoyed due to their excesses & poor planning of their future by themselves and their parents. It really appears GenX and GenY are going to shoulder the financial & environmental burdens of the Boomer generation. No wonder so many of our promising youth leave this country to make their careers & fortune. We are indeed hamstrung.

Another article by Kate Crawford also caught my eye. I have been guilty of the GenYs (I think I'm GenX, born on the cusp you know) really gave me a new opinion on the GenYs. You should check it out.

Here's the article...

A generation scolded for not taking options that aren't there - Opinion - www.smh.com.au

Costly education, shaky job security, little chance of buying a house; but buy a hi-fi and you are called selfish, writes Kate Crawford.

It's time for a confession: I'm 31, I'm not married and while I have succumbed to temptation and bought an iPod, I don't own a house. The AustraliaScan survey by Quantum Market Research quoted in the Herald on Tuesday says that makes me an "adultescent".

Putting aside the careless violence to the English language contained in that piece of marketing jargon, there is much in the research to make the toes curl.

Perhaps it's the sting of recognition, but what is missing in the latest reports about the so-called "Me" generation is any attempt to analyse the broader economic reasons why this group is not engaging in the time-honoured traditions associated with coming of age.

First, let's look at the claims made about adultescents. Quantum's data says they are in their late 20s or early 30s, but they think like teenagers. This means that we may live at home, and instead of making serious commitments to mortgages or families, we fritter our cash away on designer clothes, travel, phones and music gadgets.

Chillingly, we have little respect for the labour involved with fame and think that it can be achieved without much effort.

This, no doubt, is a clear sign of our disrespect for the workaday pop stars and TV personalities who used to have it really tough before reality television arrived.

According to the author of Quantum's report, David Chalke, it's about the "indulgence of me now" attitude: "They don't save because they don't aspire to settle down. They don't think in terms of a career - just a series of jobs because they get bored easily. They don't invest, because they want instant gratification."

If you listen closely, David Chalke, you can hear 1.5 million "adultescents" laughing under their breath at these condescending generalisations. Allow me to suggest another possible interpretation.

This is a generation with much less economic power than the baby boomers, and even the generation Xers.

We no longer have the privilege of free education, we're locked out of the housing market and we don't experience the kind of job security that was common in Australia in the late 20th century.

And if a lack of financial security wasn't enough to make us hesitant to marry, the boomers showed us just how badly traditional relationship models can go wrong. We are a generation who realise that certain doors have been closed to us, so we're rapidly moving toward the alternative exits.

But parading "adultescents" as a generation of dim-witted pleasure-seekers too busy watching Big Brother to realise that that they'll soon be disenfranchised and toothless is a well-worn story.

This is another instance of the boomer generation imposing its value system on the same young people that it has cornered economically. To add insult to injury, we are also instructed to breed copiously, no doubt to provide more willing taxpayers to fund the aged-care infrastructure required for a greying population.

This is not to say there's no truth in Quantum's data; it's the interpretation that's bogus. If you know you will graduate from university with a sizeable debt, living with your parents may seem a feasible idea. And if you read the figures from the Housing Industry Association in March, you'd know that housing affordability for first-home buyers has reached a record low.

Without the money required to buy property or the security of a "job for life", spending on travel and portable technologies seems like a sane option B.

But the question remains why the common media discourse of generationalism is so skewed. Why are the statistics about education debt, house prices, high rents and job insecurity left out of the picture, while the armchair-theories about profligate hedonists get so much airplay?

Mark Davis, in his excellent book Gangland, argues that generationalism is used to ridicule young people as an act of cultural and economic gatekeeping by those in power. Almost every one of the tactics he notes that was used to denigrate generation X is being recycled.

Instead of the "Me" generation, it's more like the "Not Them" generation; we have been lumped with a financially enforced infantilisation due to our one great mistake. We were not born baby boomers.

Kate Crawford is a lecturer in media and communications at the University of Sydney.

I have to say I am fairly lucky with debt. Yes, I do have one, but it is not as severe as the HECS debts current tertiary students will incur. They can rack up my entire debt in less than a year. And this is a country that's concerned about its brain-drain? Concerned about the mental health of young Australians? Concerned about youth unemployment? Concerned about morals and maintaining the Aussie way of life? To me, its very un-Australian. Investing in your future is much more than increasing taxes & growing the economy. Given Australia's inflated internal economy (i.e. housing construction) which is compensating for our traditional strength in exports, I think the current economic policies won't provide a long-term future. Investing in our people and tertiary industries is the way to go. Unfortunately, that involves wide-scale education and training now! The McJob doesn't really fill that need now does it?