Somehow the housing affordability crisis has managed to invoke the absolute stupidest of takes from the gronkiest of people. Thanks to the fact that it disproportionately affects young people (because they haven’t already entered the housing market), it has been framed as a generational issue instead of one facing Australia at large.
Instead of focusing at the economic factors that are driving the crisis, millennials are being told that they can’t buy a house because they’re lazy, irresponsible with money, and more attached to eating avocado for breakfast than they are to the idea of ever escaping the hell of renting.
Bernard Salt might have tried to pass his dumbshit avocado take off as “satire” (*’Arrested Development‘ narrator voice* it wasn’t), but it was a pretty perfect distillation of the boomers’ idea of what’s wrong with us young folk, as the comments on the piece will attest.
Shockingly against type, even Treasurer Scott Morrison came out today saying that the housing crisis was actually the result of factors outside of our control, an alarmingly un-Liberal concession:
“No matter how hard they work or save or even earn, they are finding it harder and harder to get into the market.”
You don’t fuckin’ say, mate.
The head of the Urban Development Institute of Australia, Arthur Ilias, has decided to throw his two shitty cents in the ring (possibly a mixed metaphor, please ignore), by blaming the housing crisis on our desire to lead “Master Chef lifestyles”.
Apparently Sydney should be in an “affordability sweet spot” but instead:
“Our kids today are happy to stay at home for as long as they can, have a great time enjoying their Master Chef lifestyle with all of their devices and gadgets and then eventually rent somewhere when Mum and Dad say ‘enough is enough’.”
Firstly: what the fuck are you talking about. Secondly: really, what the actual fuck are you talking about.
What the fuck is a ‘MasterChef‘ lifestyle? Getting all your food from Coles and crying constantly? Because, well, yeah I guess in a way I do live that, but I have a feeling that’s not what he meant.
No one is happy to keep living with their parents over the age of 14 (except nerds and weirdos), because it sucks – you can’t bring people home for sex, you can’t get high in the living room and every time you try watch a movie one of them will wander in and ask what’s happening on screen.
It’s something to be avoided at all costs and generally only done if there is literally no other alternative.
As for “devices and gadgets”? I’m not sure whether this is a general slight against how we all have laptops and phones, or a personal attack on my huge collection of high-tech Swedish sex toys, but either way: I need those, fuck off.
Unsurprisingly, his comments were made supporting Morrison’s suggestion that the crisis could be overcome by lessoning regulations on development, which seems exactly like something that the head of the Urban Development Institute of Australia would agree with.
I for one look forward to the day when everyone under the age of 35 lives in one giant sharehouse of mythic proportions because we can’t afford our own damn place.
Source: Australian Financial Review.
Photo: UKTV.
