Youth Allowance is Not Wasted on the Young

Most of what people write about generations is useless. The bloated, self-satisfied op-eds that litter the dying newspapers of this country (and around the world) usually say far more about the people who write them than the people they are about.

There is, however, a story to tell about generations in this country and it has nothing to do with beards, hipsters, violence in Kings Cross or whatever indecent or immoral thing old people think we are doing with our smart phones.

The story is this. Long term unemployment for young people has tripled since the GFC. Australia may have avoided recession and kept a respectably low unemployment rate overall – but while Gina Rinehart has made billions in the Pilbara an entire generation of Australians has been locked out of the workforce.

This is a structural shift in the economy. A reasonable government would look at this problem, look at where this trend is heading and think complexly about ways to bring young people into the workforce. That's why we have governments, to find and implement solutions to the big problems in our society.

Instead this government removed financial support for people under thirty for six months at a time.

That means that an entire generation that has been already locked out of a structural shift in our economy will essentially be forced, quite consciously, into abject poverty for six months at a time. Even in a budget that seems to have made a point of being unfair to vulnerable groups in our society this is unusually cruel.

It attacks an idea that has been at the heart of Australian politics since the Great Depression, that people unable to find jobs have the right not to live in complete poverty. That people have a right not to die in the streets. That in order to justify the wealth of this Nation we have an obligation to support those who have not benefitted from this wealth.

The perverse Earn or Learn program that the government justifies this with cements the idea that they are utterly incapable of thinking complexly about the problems that young people face. You cannot solve youth unemployment by making youth unemployment as miserable as humanly possible.

This is a government that will literally starve young people into degrees that they cannot afford or into jobs that are simply not there. It tells young people, even those in universities or in jobs, that their lives are not valued by this government. It is, in a very literal sense, sickening.

So how is a generation supposed to respond to a government that refuses to even let it feed itself? This government doesn't care if young people live or die. It is utterly impossible to have a calm and rational debate about this policy, you simply cannot negotiate with a threat of starvation.

The first thing that young people have to realise is that this is a matter for all of us.

Whether you have a job or not, whether you are a student or not – unemployment is something that could happen to any of us at any time. And on a more philosophical level, the indignity of this policy and its flagrant disregard for the lives of young people represents an ideology that does not see us as full citizens and a government that does not act in our best interest.

The next thing is that we need to make a very big deal of this.

This policy wants to put young people out of sight and out of mind. I suggest we do the very opposite. We cannot simply attend the marches, we need to lead the marches. We need to re-energise our student unions, our action coalitions and the youth wings of the political parties. And we need to make sure that the Liberal party knows that this anger and this energy is directed at them.

We need to make it very clear that no members of this government are welcome on the grounds of any Australian universities, TAFEs or private colleges. That if they refuse to treat the young people of this country with respect then they should not expect any in return. That the cosy relationship between elite university governance and the Liberal party will be disrupted at every opportunity.

If you are a student at a High School, public or private, make it very clear that members of this government are not welcome at your schools. Throw sandwiches. Give the Liberals a taste of the indignity that they are forcing young people into. If you get detention, wear it with pride.

This government is relying upon the image of young people that is described to them in their dying newspapers; that Generation Y is lazy, spoiled, entitled and politically apathetic. I refuse to believe this image. We should look forward to proving them wrong.