I dunno if I count as young anymore as I’m 34 summers (or autumns actually) old, and I’ve forgotten whether I’m gen x or gen y, but I’m pleased to note that Brisneyland’s own blogging extravaganza, the actually youthful by any definition Elliott Bledsoe, has been selected as one of the delegates to the Australia 2020 - Youth Summit - which runs in advance of the one where Tim Costello condemns teh yoof for binge drinking and stuff. I’m not sure if the discussion then feeds into the main event (and I kinda hope it’s a stand alone thing not something that gets filtered), though the PMC website does say that ten of the hundred delegates get a gig at the main stage. I’ve got a feeling it might be more fruitful because less self-important. At his must read blog, Elliott very democratically asks for input from the folks - which is a good thing (and so does Joshua Gans, incidentally, one of the 20 delegates so far announced for the 2020 summit itself). So if you identify as young (and let’s face it, who doesn’t?), go have a chat.
The actual age cutoff set by PMC is 14-24. That’s kinda weird in itself. I have a sneaking suspicion it might be closely tied to the Youth Allowance thing. As someone who benefited from adult AUSTUDY at 21 - back in the day - the very slippery definition of youth might be something worth chatting about. It might all be a blur (as love is, gen x joke), but these apparently arbitrary cutoffs aren’t so arbitrary when it comes to gubbermint decision making. Maybe it was the John Howard trad family thing, but the weird exception to the individualist narrative that dominated at least the rhetoric of the Liberals was the decision for policy purposes that people under 25 were adjuncts to their parents. Raising that, and all the implications of this blur, might cause a useful stir.
By some definitions, I’m actually in a dead zone between gen x and the baby boom - though I’m definitely not part of that, because a child of parents born during the war. It’s all weird, and there’s so much bullshit built upon it. But you’re quite right to say that the lines are blurred - because governments and employers and other authorities like to draw lines and capture all of us in a little niche according to whatever pop sociology crap informs their thinking de jour, all the better to not just pigeonhole but also restrict. But then many of us transcend those lines - and all of us age - and when and where you count as worthy of a bit of investment, or still to be considered to be under your parent’s roof, or no longer the gen that needs to be coddled and cuddled while actually being stuffed over more often than not because of labor and skill shortages that sort of aren’t what they seem and all sorts of random noise about “how to manage gen y”… I could go on almost forever, but this nonsense and the gross generalisations characteristic of generational-think almost always has real consequences for where you end up over the lifecourse. And now.
So I got a few years of free education, and adult TEAS (remember that?) status at 18, but also a HECS debt and an AUSTUDY loan (remember that?) to do my first postgrad coursework… and got crunched by the 90s recession - though Paul Keating also gave me a useful skill by sending me off to secretarial school as a useless BA graduate to learn to touch type!
One of the unspoken and never debated points about Howard’s middle-class welfare is the age as well as the class bias. Costello used to hint at that, but his intergenerational obsession had a lot more to do with showing up Howard as an old bugger and his weird obsession with fertility than serious policy. But some of the Productivity Commission and Treasury stuff on this - the serious analysis - is worth another look for the really gaping gaps in intergenerational transfers - exacerbated in a massive way in the dying days of Costello/Howard by the super giveaway, but always there. And always very punitive towards the under 25s, once they’re out of their baby clothes and the baby bonus has run out - possibly before the christening (not that that’s a thing for everyone these days…!)
And then there’s the music. Loves e Blur alright.
It’s a Brisneyland joke for those of a certain age too.
If Andrew Bartlett pops in, he’ll remember!
I’m so pleased Elliott is going - and endorse thoroughly the praise for him and Joshua Gans for preblogging and asking for input. As opposed to the “brilliant idea came to me in a flash” thing or the “running my pet idee fixee” thing.
And I also agree the history of “youth” is something worth bringing up as an “idea” - because it has huge material consequences - a very good example of the illusory nature of the symbolism/practicality false dichotomy.
Also, young Kimberly, I do believe you’re LP’s youngest blogger! But too modest to say!
What you say is true Mark, but one thing to take into account (at least, this used to be the case) is that interpreting welfare at only one age doesn’t give you the whole picture.
It’s true that the terrible bracket of decent salary, but no kids, probably no home and good health (i.e under 30s), get really slammed in terms of welfare. In fact, that period is the worst period of time for welfare in a person’s entire lifetime.
Which is why you have to put it into context. When we’re very young, very old, and pregnant/starting a family, we take shitloads of welfare. Shitloads.
Over the course of a person’s life, you would be surprised, the high tax /low perks burden of mid-twenties to mid-thirties is actually more than compensated for when you’re a baby or a grumpy old bastard, and either way need your nappies changed!
As I say, not sure if it’s true now, but circa six years ago when I was studying welfare it was, at least in the Aus context.
First thing’s first: go Elliott! Those of who know him well will agree that he’s got plenty of good ideas - and not just about young people either, but about copyright law and creative industries and all sorts of cool stuff.
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I suspect Kim is right, and the 14-24 thing is very much tied to policy problems Kate Ellis would rather not speak about.
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I do wonder if the issue of binge drinking - or moral panics about young people in general - will be tackled by the group. I’d like to send everyone a copy of Kate Crawford’s Adult Themes while I’m at it, as Kate does such a copmprehensive job of demolishing the various pop demorgaphies and sociologies Mark refers to.
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Then it would be nice to have some actual policy discussions about the problems facing young people - which are pretty important given that they are the ones who will have the bear the brunt of long-term problems like climate change. The absurd inter-generational wealth transfers in our society caused by things like high house prices and tax breaks for self-funded retirees would be a good place to start.
patrickg, I have trouble defining student assistance as “welfare”. And though you make a reasonable point about the different needs people have across the lifecourse, massively expensive super shuffling for wealthy older people courtesy of the taxpayer isn’t equitable from an integenerational perspective, as I’m sure you’d agree.
I’d also point out that youth allowance - by presuming parents are responsible for the support of “children” in the early 20s - masks the unwillingness of those who won’t and completely vitiates the idea that a person over 18 might be aided by the government to study or find a job regardless of their parents’ financial circumstances.
Oh Kim, believe me, I’m the last person to be defending current welfare arrangements for young people, they are appalling!
But don’t be ashamed to call student assistance welfare - be proud! It is welfare, just as much as cheap meds for grannies are, blue cross for war widows, etc. etc. Besides, if it’s not welfare, what it is? Don’t let the negative connotations people try and pin to the word stop you using it in the right context.
And yes, I do agree with you about equity, but I don’t even think you need to bring intergenerational considerations into it. Welfare is for people who need it, and super scam bullshit is quite clearly not in that category.
I wasn’t actually talking about students when I made that post, so much as people like myself, relatively wealthy, no kids, no home, etc. We don’t need welfare, so I don’t think it’s bad that we don’t get it, if you know what I mean.
Gotcha, patrickg.
Another Jabberfest. Wonderful.
Like I said, I think it’s likely to be more worthwhile than the “main event”. The ability for young people to come together and discuss stuff was something Howard deliberately quashed. And they’re not likely to be the collection of self-promoting op/edders and op/edder wannabes who are going to make up too many of the 2020 summit participants.
Yeah fair enough Kim. I’m just naturally disinclined to think jabberfests achieve anything much. Good for the facilitating of networks I s’pose. But the larger a group of people the less interesting the conversation.
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You’re Gen X btw.
I second Ben Eltham’s recommendation of Kate Crawford’s book. What’s more, it doesn’t just demolish. Crawford poses an alternative way of thinking about adulthood, including questions of political engagement. Very interesting.
God I’m sounding like a negative nancy today, but I feel duty-bound to point out that Howard did start the whole Youth Roundtable thing.
I know, I know it was a crock of shit, and was tokenistic, gagged and hopeless. But, at least from where we stand now, it remains to be seen that this event will really be any different.
Kids resort to binge drinking because they are denied access to the more benign drugs like MDMA and cannabis. Alcohol consumption needs to be penalized, and MDMA and cannabis decriminalized or legalized. The penalties for all these drugs should reflect the harm that they actually do.
Ummm..bollocks!
Three kinds of bollocks!
I for example was never “denied access” to anything, and am to this day a keen partaker of most of them.
Well it’s illegal so you are denied access.
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HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
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Oh sorry. Kids binge drink ’cause they’re dumbarsed twits who a. don’t realise their limits and b. haven’t realised that vomting is not cool.
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Or at least that was my story when I was 14. And I’m stickin’ to it. That’s also a problem with drugs. I see people dropping 10 pills a night every weekend for years. Not too smart. And then there’s teenagers who think it’s a good idea to smoke 5 cones before school each day. And then they learn …ummmm How to make candles man.
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Really neat table candles man. You pour wax on the table. Then you set it on fire.
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Don’t get me wrong I’m all for the joys of Modern Pharmacy and Antique Herbalism but you only have so many brain cells.
Ha! Thanks, Adrien. Now I can understand myself!
True, true, I’d forgotten that, patrickg.
The key to understanding is Gen X is the following concept from Generation X: Takles For An Accelerated Culture by Douglass Coupland:
As evidenced in the Lalapallooza episode of The Simpsons where the two slackers say:
And also featured in about 95% of everything I’ve ever said. Find the rest of glib soundbytes that define you as a person here.
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Generation Y: Irony? What’s irony?
You’re still young enough to enter the Vogel Kim. But you better start now.
I’m in that dead zone too Mark. Somebody referred to it as the ‘lost’ generation, as demographers (mercifully) deemed us ‘lost’ to the tentacles of advertisers.
Thanks, Caroline, but I don’t really fancy myself as a novelist!
Noticed that, dude.
Lots of debares over Gens. My understanding is as ‘Prague Springers’, Mark, we are fairly uncontroversially Gen X. Not that youth is terribly relevant in the year of turning 40.
And Gen Y is generally held to start in ‘78 - if you weren’t born when Star Wars came out, we just cant help you here at X. Go see Y.
I bought a suit today. First one Ive ever owned. Admittedly, I had to for a specific professional reason, but I do think I’m going through some subconscious pre-40 personal reevaluation process. eg Been applying for a new jobs, just for larfs. Dont actually mind my current one. In fact, its great. Just feel like moving on. Cripes, I even apologised to one ex-partner via facebook for emotional crimes committed in the service of a good time some 14 years ago. Way past statute of limitations. What is that, step 8 of 12?
Mind you, at a conscious level Im ok about turning 40 in a few months, indeed, I welcome it. Youth is over; and getten sie real. Maybe have even more fun. Lets face it, ‘youth’ is a bit mixed as an experience, really…
Congratulations Elliott!!!
As a wee claim to fame, I would like to point out we have actually met, and you scored me entry to the Australian Creative Commons launch at QUT.
I hope you will be a voice for free expression.
i think the age range for yoof comes out of a UN agreement - the UN has special programmes and an action plan for youth and i think that’s the age range used there.