The truth is our young people are interested in political issues, but that interest is unfashionably idealistic. They really care about fairness to the LGBTI community, climate change and the environment more broadly.
They’re not yet sufficiently old and cynical to have realised that politics has devolved into a self-centred free-for-all, where you jump into the ring to advance and protect your own interests at the expense of those with less muscle.
 |
Illustration: Andrew Dyson
|
When last my colleague Jessica Irvine expressed support for Labor’s plan to end the refunding of unused dividend imputation credits to all except those receiving an age pension or part-pension, an angry reader accused her of “continuing to fuel the fire of inter-generational envy”.
Sorry, that argument doesn’t wash. It’s one the well-off and their champions have used for ages. What it’s really saying is, “it’s a sin for you to envy the fruits of my greed”.
When people accuse others of “the politics of envy” or inciting “class warfare”, their true message is: I’m winning, you’re losing, so why won’t you just accept it? Just be nice and stop trying to make things fairer.
Read the opinion piece from The Age by Ross Gittins - “Generational conflict comes to a polling place near you.”
No comments:
Post a Comment