Generations in Conversation

Ryan Heath clashes with Salusinzky on Gen Y and Baby Boomers in Australia

Ryan Heath has just been back home to Australia to promote his book, “Please Just F* Off It’s Our Turn Now: Holding Baby Boomers To Account”, published by Pluto Press.

I read a summary of his thinking in his article in the Weekend Australian Magazine over Easter, “War of Words”. The 25 year old journalist says it’s time Generation Y began taking the reins of power and influence from the baby boomers. Imre Salusinszky responds with an alternative point of view. Sadly the article is another example of the press fuelling intergenerational contempt rather than helping people develop a ‘win-win’ approach to intergenerational passing of the baton.

More thoughtful reviews can be found at Bad Analysis February 5 (Andrew Norton). I’ll be back with more when I’ve finished reading the book.
From Ryan’s web site, it appears as though Pluto Press approached him and asked him to write the book. Once again, who is gaining from this approach to generational journalism?

The Pluto Press editorial review:

Australia watch out! This is a snapshot of the generational change that is coming.
A call to generational battle not seen since the 1960s.

Ryan Heath, a twenty five year old writes about his generation - young people in their twenties who he says are very different to Baby Boomers and Generation X.

His book is a sexy snapshot of the people born after 1970 - the people of this century. How they are different, special and ready to take over from Baby Boomers.

Like many of his generation, Ryan Heath has had a gutful of the same bunch of boomers still hogging all the good jobs and holding Australia back. He says: Enough is enough - it’s time for a generational change or Australia will slide into decline.

In a style that is controversial, passionate and with humour, this is an enjoyable and provocative read in the tradition of Mike Moore. A must read for Generation Y and X but also for Boomers who will love to hate Heath’s criticisms and mockery of them.

He pulls no punches when it comes to Aussie sacred cows and institutions - Fairfax, the ABC, and the ALP particularly.

Ryan asserts that his generation is very different to boomers and X’s. They may be smaller in number but are more diverse, better educated, more socially responsible, switched on to new technologies and believe in working through networks rather than hierarchies. He believes they have what it takes to make Australia a better place.

Ryan says Australia is moribund and stultified with superannuated leaders arguing over outdated orthodoxies while business, media, culture and political parties sag under the weight of tired methods and ideas recycled from the 70s and 80s.

According to Ryan Heath, Australian public life has ignored the energy and ideas of younger people leading to mediocrity and decline here, and an exodus of hundreds of thousands of talented young people like himself to take up opportunities overseas, where younger people are given positions of responsibility, and where generations share more fairly.

Ryan grew up near Coffs Harbour in Australia, studied communications in Sydney, wrote for the Sydney Morning Herald, before moving to the UK for a job in public service.

Tags: Baby Boomers, Gen Y, Ryan Heath, Workplace

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Tourism Australia TV advertising campaign aimed at Baby Boomers

MzzD posted this week at Australia and Melting Pot Politics on the Tourism Australia advertising campaign, “Where the Bloody Hell Are You?“, suggesting that it’s working on the nostalgic yearnings of Baby Boomers.

“So retro-ozculture here we come. Just when the lucky country was almost escaped its ocker image,. The latest television advertising campaign to entice Australians to come to Australia features the final line of a young gorgeous girl on the beach asking Where the bloody hell are ya?. Sounds like a comment Shazza the stoned Ocker from local SBS comedy Pizza fame might be screaming at her equally ockerfied stoner boyfriend . It just doesn’t sound credible coming from the sweet young thing circa 1990s dispensing the line probably unbeknownst to most Yanks. It is more of a line to cheer the heart of the baby-boomer Aussie remembering the good old days when Australia was full of real Aussies, you know the type Tony Abbot likes, ones who don’t have foreign names or accents. Peter Costello, Tony Abbot and their like all seem to be suffering form of identity crisis and need to return to an outdated , outmoded era. Where are the these old antipodeans heading for, what are they trying to achieve?

This retrospective ockerism has recently been invading television advertising and is making a return to Australian popular culture it seems. It takes me back to the simpler life we led as kids in the seventies north of Brisbane or even further back to my sixty something mother’s youth. I am happy to leave the past where it belongs in the past. Women were still relatively powerless; a house quarter acre block was affordable in most parts of Australia; the dollar was stable; protectionism isolated Australia from the vagaries of the world economy; the white Australia policy had not long been dismantled; education had become accessible to all; multi-culturalism just rumour in federal parliament and Skippy ruled. It was an ideal time if that is what you are used to.”

There is something disturbing about the advertising campaign. The scene featuring the Aboriginal dancers features a spokeswoman who looks more Italian/Greek than Aborigine.

I’d be curious to see how other Gen Xers and younger are responding to the ad. MzzD’s cynicism is tied up with a disillusionment with a swing to conservative values in Australian politics. Surely there are Baby Boomers who are likewise disturbed by such trends.

Tags: advertising, Australia, Baby Boomers

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