4 May

This is what the people who argue there isn’t an intergenerational problem pay no attention to at all. The massive costs now to maintain an ageing population. At the same time as that older population pays almost no tax, and holds most of the country’s wealth. The retired rarely paid tax, but what’s changed is that they never before now held most of the country’s wealth. At the turn of the century, only 20 years ago, there were 6.5 working people for every person who wasn’t (mostly the retired). Now we've got 4 working people for every retired person. In 20 years time, there’ll be 2.5 people who are working for every retired person. At the same time these workers can either not even afford a house, or are paying off unsustainable mortgages. Their wages haven’t gone up in well over a decade. Their HECS debts if they went to uni are skyrocketing because they’re indexed to inflation. They’ll have to pay for climate change action, after decades of inaction by older generations. The whole thing will collapse without dramatic change.