We love to blame the Boomers. But intergenerational warfare may be a distraction

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Christmas lunch could be awkward this year, depending on whether the turkey has been cooked with gas or electricity, and whether any Baby Boomers at the table deign to share its bounty.

Pass the gravy, Grandma? And would you mind relinquishing your iron grip on the nation’s tax benefits and capital as you do?

The Labor government is furiously signalling that intergenerational equity will be the focus of its May 12 budget.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers appears set to introduce changes to investment tax perks that largely benefit wealthy Baby Boomers, and which many economists believe have contributed to runaway house prices, locking young people out of the market.

We are famously in the midst of a housing affordability crisis. Inflation is roaring. Higher education is longer and expensive. The embedded economic disruption of our age has an outsize impact on young people’s lives.

Housing isn’t just a young people problem. We know how this story ends

Millie MuroiEconomics Writer

Even the much-vilified Boomers acknowledge that the intergenerational compact of democracies – that we will make life a little bit better and more comfortable for our children – is broken.

But Shadow Treasurer Tim Wilson says that Chalmers is setting grandparent against grandchild; and that Chalmers wants to “start an intergenerational war between the young and the old”.

Besides, Wilson says, the changes are unlikely to make much difference to house prices and may push up rents (many economists agree with him).

Into this intergenerational contretemps leapt, athletically, yet another Wilson.

The son of Labor MP Josh Wilson, Oscar Wilson, stormed the stage at the Woodside Energy annual meeting last week.

WA Greens MP ejected as oil and gas giant feels the heat from........

© Brisbane Times