The economic reforms of the 1980s and 1990s helped underpin almost 30 years of uninterrupted economic growth in Australia and supported generation-on-generation progress in living standards. However, there is growing evidence that younger Australians have not shared in the benefits to the same extent as the generations before them. Almost three-quarters of Australians now believe that children growing up today will be financially worse off than their parents. If the generational bargain is defined by the obligation of one generation to ensure — or at least not deny — the prosperity of the next, we should all take notice. What role has policy apathy played in the fraying generational bargain? And what would make the biggest difference to the long-term prosperity of future generations?
