A Generation Robbed Rebels

More than one in four Australian men aged 18 to 24 say extreme measures, including violence, can sometimes be justified for a cause, according to reporting on the newly released McKinnon Index. Only half believe Australians can freely express political opinions.

The people governing this country should have to answer for those findings.

What future have they offered these young men? What reason have they given them to believe that their work will be rewarded, their ambitions respected and their voices heard?

A home. A wife. Children. Useful work that pays enough to build a life. These are reasonable ambitions in a wealthy country. Yet the generation entering adulthood faces formidable obstacles to achieving them.

The McKinnon Index, conducted with Roy Morgan, surveyed more than 4,000 Australians. Among all respondents aged 18 to 24, preference for democracy stands at 54.3 per cent. Among young men specifically, belief that Australians can freely express political opinions fell from 72.6 per cent to 49.8 per cent in a year.

Consider the country they are entering. They aren’t wrong!

There’s an ever-expanding machinery governing what Australians can say: the eSafety Commissioner’s removal powers, the proposed Digital Duty of Care, tribunal proceedings over vilification and criminal laws against inciting racial hatred. Add the National Hate Crimes and Incidents Database and politicians should hardly be surprised that it’s younger citizens worry about the boundaries of permitted expression.

But the future is bleak beyond the measure of freedom of speech.

The National Housing Supply and Affordability Council’s 2026 report puts the time needed for a median-income household to save a 20 per cent home deposit at 11.2 years. Affordability for renters and prospective homeowners had deteriorated to the worst level on record.

Eleven years to save the deposit. Then comes the mortgage.

Think about the apprentice, the young labourer or the bloke establishing himself on one wage. He can work hard, spend carefully and still watch a modest home move beyond his reach.

What happens to marriage and children while he waits? How many years disappear before he can establish the foundations of family life?

These losses are measured in postponed decisions and opportunities that may never return.

Governments make choices about land, planning, infrastructure, taxation and population growth. Successive governments deserve scrutiny for the conditions those choices have created.

The survey cannot establish why each respondent answered as he did. But any serious response must examine the lives these young men are being asked to accept.

A healthy country needs their strength, enterprise, skill and willingness to undertake difficult work. It values their desire to provide for people they love. It gives them opportunities to become known, trusted and needed.

Imagine working, saving and sacrificing while the cost of an ordinary life climbs away from you. Then someone with a secure salary and an established property portfolio explains that your generation needs to rebuild its trust in institutions.

Trust has to be earned.

A civics campaign cannot build a house. Another consultation achieves little when citizens cannot see their concerns reflected in decisions.

Build homes. Bring population policy into line with housing and infrastructure capacity. Support apprenticeships and productive employment. Make energy affordable. Protect political expression. Give citizens meaningful influence over decisions affecting their communities.

There is dignity in wanting a home, a family and enough left from your wages to face the next week without dread.

These young men have paid in delayed independence, postponed ambitions and years of uncertainty.

The political class owes them a future worth believing in.

“The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose.”
– James Baldwin