Seriously, Generation X?

You would have been living under a rock with earmuffs on if you had not heard the confected outrage from the Liberal, National, and One Nation Parties’ coalition of grievance and misinformation, underscored by the billionaires’ interests from whom much of that cacophony of contrived swill emanates.

Much overdue taxation reform needs to occur in Australia, after the fundamental flaws of negative gearing and capital gains tax (‘CGT’) amendments made to our taxation legislation by the Howard Government last century have devolved into an inequitable system whereby the capital of the fortunate few is lubricated by the income tax of the least fortunate majority, so that they may expeditiously expand their empires of unashamed mammonism. To be blunt: Friedman economics has turned around and bitten Australia on the backside. The tax amendments must be made now, as the grievance of the majority is being manipulated by the same fascist ideology, which regrettably sank its horrible teeth into Europe during the 1920s and 1930s.

The statement that I heard depart from the lips of some of the fortunate few among my fellow Generation X members, which has grated away at my ears more than Pauline Hanson’s unrefined vocal cords, is this infuriating drivel: “I worked hard all my life (not as hard as the majority, my little dears), and now the government is going to tax my assets!” Yes, you Pleonexia, self-consumed petals; they are, and more importantly, your assets were accumulated by a regressive tax system. Indeed, as I reflect upon your unjustified protestations born of the toxic avarice that consumes your existence, I think of the nice Generation X woman working away behind the deli counter at Coles, day in and day out, for whom I have the utmost respect. Still, I shall return to her story later. Yet there is a story I wish to discuss, recorded in the succinct passages of the correspondence depicted above.

Australians born between the two world wars of the twentieth century were confronted by economic and societal difficulties that Generation X never experienced. Yet, despite the hardships of WWI, the Spanish Flu, and the Great Depression, followed by World War II, those Australians were not consumed by the crass covetousness that the fading Boomers, and now the spoilt Generation X, are riddled with.

The correspondence depicted above was sent to my late grandfather by a grateful young woman after he had assisted her with her tertiary-level economics studies. Indeed, post WWII, both of my grandparents, like many other Australians of their vintage, looked after the least fortunate, whose lives were destroyed by many factors of those times, including the loss of a parent during the war. These Australians, who included my grandparents, were the fortunate few whose lives were not destabilised by the aftermath of the war. Indeed, by the date of the letter depicted above, my grandfather Hector, whose family during the 1930s had paid for in cash for him the house and land upon which he returned from war, was by 1959 transitioning from being a director of the old Queensland Peanut Board to being the state managing director of the American computer company ICL.

Yet he did not charge a fee for his tuition of this grateful student, nor was she required to contribute to the cost of the meals served up by my grandmother, Noreen. This was not the rare generosity of a philanthropic Australian couple. Instead, it was who we were as an egalitarian and progressive society back then, when men in high-income-earning occupations like my grandfather’s paid approximately 60 cents in the dollar in income tax. These taxes helped build hospitals, public schools, hospitals and highways. And they were proud to do so, because it meant the least fortunate were being allowed to improve their lives, a community spirit that was maintained in this country until the 1980s, 1990s, and then the complete capitulation to avarice this century, in which one cannot help but feel as though humanity has entered into a new crass Gilded Age.

To compound my frustration with talking about my generation (no offence intended to The Who), the egregious display of stupidity is baffling, yet not surprising, as they either blame immigrants (the RBA Governor has doused out this ridiculous fire of inanity on so many occasions that she must feel like the chief of the fire brigade), or even worse, screaming ‘communism’ (most of them wouldn’t even know the difference between the economic theory as opposed to the philosophical meaning of the term). Let me start with the most risible claim my generation is spruiking: Death Tax.

The budget papers clearly record that there is no such damn aspect to the reform package. Yet just because one Murdochracy toady (and their ugly stepsisters being Channels 7 and 9) has the temerity to write such a hideous lie, dimwitted Generation X start embracing it as the gospel truth. Here is the gospel truth: Discretionary trusts have been the vessels of tax minimisation (not evasion- yes, even some dimwitted knuckle draggers voicing their opinions on social media do not know the difference between tax avoidance, which is legal, as opposed to tax evasion, which is illegal) for far too long. Then an even more egregious display of asininity reared its mockable head on social media, as some Generation X members began to claim that a Generation Z worker earning $40,000.00 per year would be taxed at the maximum CGT rate on their share portfolios. Ahh, hello hollow heads,

I doubt there are many Generation Z workers earning $40,000.00 per year with a substantial share portfolio, if any at all. In any event, the budget announcements will be the subject of legislative and regulatory control measures to ensure the one in a billion-indigent Generation Z workers are not exposed to the same CGT rate, if at all, as opposed to ‘Big-Daddy Boomers’ discretionary trust that even pays a salary to the household cat for its vermin control services.

Additionally, the Liberal Party, which has been declared an endangered species, has brought back Sir-Knights-A-Lot Tony as their party president. At the same time, he is still a board member of Fox News, mind you. Yes, apparently, court jesters are the remedy to prevent a wingless aero plane of extremists from crashing into political obscurity. Along with the Waterboy, Sir-Knights-A-Lot (what a great way to win over women by pairing these two clowns together) is arguing that the tax reforms are ‘an attack on aspiration’! And yes, some Generation X clowns whose wagons are still tied to the wind-brake flaps of those cranium protrusions Sir-Knights-A-Lot calls ears have been gullible enough to murmur those words.

The very nature of the distorted advantage afforded to the wealthy by the Howard Government’s CGT and negative gearing reforms is the attack on aspiration, as we watch houses become commodities that only some pot-bellied boomer with a discretionary trust full to the brim of houses can afford, as he outbids others at auctions who are trying to purchase their first home. For goodness’s sake, Sir-Knights-A-Lot, if you wish to gain the limelight again, why don’t you reveal your true agenda: Knighting Simpson’s Donkey!

But wait, my pretties, there is more Generation X stupidity which I must punt kick through the uprights. There is also a new claim being spruiked by the ultra-wealthy, namely that we are the most taxed country on the planet. This is absolutely false. Australia’s overall tax burden is one of the lowest among advanced countries. This is primarily because the GST in Australia is 10%. The equivalent retail sales tax is above 16% in Germany, Britain, France, India, Malta, Luxembourg and Israel. It is above 20% in the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Ireland and Greece. It is at 25% or above in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Croatia and Hungary. The International Monetary Fund’s Fiscal Monitor recorded total taxes-to-GDP for 2026 across all 35 high-income OECD members in April. Australia’s was 36.62%. Only seven countries had lower overall rates – Chile, Costa Rica, Ireland, Japan, South Korea, Switzerland and the USA. The average was 41.6% (my thanks to the economist Alan Austin for bringing these details to the public’s attention, and whose crisp prose I have borrowed for the sake of clarity). Far out, Generation X, use your computers for enriching your minds with facts, as ‘Google it, mate’ is a trite expression at this time.

Then we have the unthinkable: Generation X is embracing the Wizened Apricot’s One Nation Party (Goebbels must be rejoicing in his grave). That’s it, let’s follow Ms Missing-in-Action into the fields and drink Kool-Aid as she flies away on Gina’s gift of an aeroplane to dine with billionaires (but surely, sir, you have room for one after-dinner mint; it’s wafer thin!). If I wanted to ride an orange wave, I would reach for a can of Fanta rather than the Wizened Apricot’s collection of crazies. Enough said about the flash-in-the-pan Wizened Apricot, as I fear the words ‘please explain’ becoming a usual expression of an already butchered language in Australia!

So now, I return to that nice woman behind the deli counter at Coles, whom I always go out of my way to not just say hello to, but also to ask how life is treating her. Just recently, I could tell from her tired eyes at about 4:00 p.m. that it must not have been a good day for her, which she confirmed when I enquired how her day was treating her. She told me she had started work at 6:30 a.m. that day and had been left alone behind the deli counter all day, without even being offered a break by her manager, who was aware of her appalling working conditions. That woman is paying her taxes. She is not playing Talking Heads ‘Burning Down the House’ as she slaves away behind that counter, her taxes propping up the capital investments of Generation X, who are banging their fists down on the lunch table in apoplectic fits, screaming ‘communism’ as they force another forkful of $500.00 a kilogram wagyu into their gobs, washed down by a $1,000.00 bottle of red poison. Put the fork down, porkies- it’s time that at least one-third of that piece of meat was redistributed to people like that nice woman working behind the counter at Coles. That’s the Australia I was born into.

This article was originally published on my website.