Over-65s told to ‘hand over’ their voting rights so young Aussies have a ‘voice’: STEPHEN JOHNSON reveals why this shameful push is the natural conclusion of years of boomer bashing

The mafia has turned against the baby boomers. In reality, it was only a matter of time.

Apparently, older Australians are so unqualified to have a say in how the country is run that a columnist and author suggested in a major newspaper that they give up their right to vote.

This view is based on the idea that young people should have more of a say in how Australia is governed because “they are going to live with the consequences of (an) election for much longer than we do”.

That very divisive proposal from Michael McGirr wrongly assumes that Australia would have better government policies if only boomers made a conscious effort to never visit a school or community hall polling booth again.

It is fashionable among young people to blame those born between 1946 and 1964 for all their problems without addressing the bad government policies that are actually to blame for unaffordable housing and the rising cost of living.

The call to boomers to abstain from voting conveniently overlooks the fact that those Those born after the war led social change for the better and were the driving force behind policies that younger generations now benefit from.

The hated boomers were the generation that fought against the draft with protests during the Vietnam War. There was once a time when young men were sent into battle based solely on their birthday being drawn from a barrel. Since then, no Australian has been forcibly sent into a foreign conflict.

Boomers, Anthony Albanese’s cohort, defied racist social and family prejudices and entered into intermarriage with Asian immigrants in the years after the White Australia policy was officially abolished in the early 1970s.

Interracial marriages are now commonplace and no longer taboo because the boomers made them acceptable.

Boomers also led the fight to discriminate against homosexuality, and members of this generation were beaten and detained by police for marching in Sydney’s first Mardi Gras in 1978, long before it became a tourist and marketing draw.

The names and addresses of the 53 arrested were published in The Sydney Morning Herald in an attempt to shame them for fighting for a basic human right, leaving many with criminal records that made it difficult for them to get work.

This was almost four decades before gay marriage was legislated in Australia, and in the era before rainbow flags were fashionable.

Early boomers also had to wait until age 21 to vote, and the voting age was not lowered to 18 until 1973, even though they were the ones sent to war before they could have a say at the polls.

Despite this, McGirr suggests that those over 65 should voluntarily give up their right to vote, ostensibly so that young people can have more of a say in how Australia is run under a compulsory voting system.

“I think voting should be optional for people over 65,” he wrote in a column for the left-wing Sun-Herald newspaper.

McGirr, who is a 63-year-old boomer, is embracing anti-boomer rhetoric by suggesting that his generation dilute its political influence as part of some virtuous generational manipulation to favor the young.

In fact, he is advocating a form of political seppuku, in which boomers commit political suicide based on a misguided notion of honor by asking the government to grant them an exemption from having to vote.

Their hope is that since voting is not mandatory for those over 65, many will stay home and younger generations will decide the outcome of the election.

“My point is simply that some older people might be willing not to vote so that younger people have a proportionately greater voice,” McGirr wrote.

‘After all, they will have to live with the consequences of the elections much longer than we will.

“When you think about climate change, housing, energy, economic innovation and a list of other issues, short-term thinking doesn’t help.”

Pru Goward, former sex discrimination commissioner, NSW government minister and ABC radio presenter, criticized the column as attention-seeking nonsense.

‘Ridiculous. God, we are a happy little country when people are led to that kind of rubbish. It’s a way to get attention. I just laughed,’ he tells me.

Goward, a grandmother and boomer, says any ridiculous argument can be made to argue that a certain group shouldn’t vote.

‘Of course you can’t do that. In the end, no one has the right to vote,” he says.

‘(With) any large group of voters, you can always find a reason not to give them the vote. Do they work? Seniors? You could go on and on and on. It’s a stupid idea.

McGirr’s suggestion that boomers are no longer required to vote – a policy that would effectively encourage them not to – is an affront to the concept of universal suffrage, where everyone gets the same vote regardless of their demographic group.

Suggesting a rule change for a particular generation is no different than men’s rights extremists arguing that women should abstain from voting so that sex discrimination laws can be repealed.

While McGirr acknowledges that boomers are not necessarily more politically conservative, he has overlooked the fact that boomers were not the demographic that opposed gay marriage in the 2017 vote-by-mail survey.

It was younger immigrant voters with more religious views who voted in favor of traditional marriage. Blaxland, in Sydney’s southwest, had the largest no vote, with 73.9 per cent – despite having a younger median age of 32 – or six years below the Australian midpoint of 38.

By contrast, the Lyne electorate on the New South Wales north coast got 55 yes votes despite being home to retirement towns such as Laurieton, where the average age is 65.

It is difficult to take McGirr’s column seriously, not only because of its outlandish tone, but also because of the fact that It contains nothing more than an empty call to boomers to renounce their civic duty without addressing the bad government policies that have made it impossible for young people to buy a home.

High immigration since the 2000s has put median house prices in Sydney out of reach for a person on average income. It has nothing to do with the boomer vote.

The struggle to keep a roof over our heads has made AAustralia has become a less innovative nation as young people stay with stable jobs in the hope of paying off a mortgage rather than trying to start a business.

The problem is Australia’s addiction to income tax revenue and therefore high population growth, so there are more skilled working-age immigrants to tax.

That’s the bad policy that has caused housing prices to rise to levels that far outpace income growth, condemning younger generations to living in cramped, high-rise apartments and never being able to raise their children. in a house with a backyard in a big city.

Calling on boomers – many of whom deeply sympathize with the problems facing their children’s generation – to stay away from the polls will do nothing to solve a bad situation that has robbed young people of a financial future.