As pens and notepads were being laid out for start of the much-touted economic roundtable on Monday, the chair of the Productivity Commission, Danielle Wood, made a number of dark observations in an address to the National Press Club.

People in their 30s today, Wood told us, are the first generation to be worse off than those born in the previous decade in terms of earnings, housing affordability, budget burden and climate impacts. Her comments laid bare how important reform of so many aspects of the economy and regulation are if this situation is to change.

The flipside of the situation facing millennials is the largesse that has been laid out for the boomers, such as tax breaks on housing and superannuation that benefit those with already substantial resources but add to the tax burden of lower-income households who can’t get their foot in even one door. Quite obviously, not every boomer in Australia is sitting back with multiple investment properties and a multimillion-dollar super balance. But boomers were three times more likely to own their own home in their 30s than their counterparts today are.

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And so, while millennials cry out for change, boomers resist even reasonable adaptation such as the removal of........

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