ABC Chair Ita Buttrose reckons young Aussie workers “almost need hugging” because of our supposed lack of resilience, which is pretty rich coming from someone whose first gig was at one of the biggest women’s magazines in the country.
Buttrose made the remarks at the Australia-United Kingdom Chamber of Commerce, speaking under Catham House rules which mean nothing said is allowed to be reported outside the meeting. Luckily for us, the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age didn’t attend, so they were able to report exactly what was said via sources.
“It seems to me that today’s younger workers, they need much more reassurance and they need to be thanked, which is something many companies don’t do,” the 78-year-old media titan said.
“They’re very keen on being thanked and they almost need hugging – that’s before COVID of course, we can’t hug anymore – but they almost need hugging.
“You have to understand that they seem to lack the resilience that I remember from my younger days.”
It’s basically the boomer equivalent of saying all young Aussies do is twerk, eat hot chip and lie, only this time, it was spoken aloud to a crowd of very important people at a very serious private meeting. Cool.
Many young Aussies are finding there are fewer opportunities, fewer pathways, longer hours and less pay compared to their parents’ generation. Some would argue that makes all young workers inherently resilient.
Buttrose started her career writing for the Australian Women’s Weekly – the kind of entry-level job many Aussie workers would kill for nowadays. In fact, this kind of career trajectory is all but impossible to replicate nowadays thanks to shrinking budgets, not to mention the fact many of Australia’s leading lifestyle magazines were shuttered earlier this week.
Since then, Buttrose has had a long and very accomplished career across print and broadcast media. All this context just makes her comments seem even more out of touch.
Many Aussies took to Twitter to let her know what’s up.
Millennials watched a live terrorist attack broadcast on tv while we were tweens & teens, graduated our trades/uni degrees in to a major global recession, face precarious employment & live in an era where even double incomes it’s near impossible to purchase a home
STFU Ita.
— Dr Amy Thunig (@AmyThunig) July 22, 2020
https://twitter.com/joshgnosis/status/1286089614004953088
https://twitter.com/mckinnon_a/status/1286077863796420609
I can’t be mad at Ita because I am too busy laughing at thought of asking my boss for a hug every morning, a thing we definitely all do at Guardian Aus
— Bridie Jabour (@bkjabour) July 22, 2020
Later at the talk, Buttrose went on an uninspired diatribe about kids these days and about how our parents supposedly coddled us.
Imagine job hunting or trying to work during a global pandemic, with the impending doom of mass ecological catastrophe as a backdrop. All things considered, it’s not outrageous to want a living wage and basic workplace respect, Ita.
