"and import ever more cheap workers to wipe their invalid backsides"

And how many Australian young people are willing to do such jobs (and at similar wages and conditions)?

Or would you rather have your parents go unwiped?

Generational wedge politics is really unhelpful, just as much as those who continually blather on about the failures of Gen Y.

Generational bickering merely pushes the blame from failures in government policy to a generation of people who for the most part had no power to influence policies anymore than today's youth.

Fact is the baby boomers did not have access to superannuation until later in their working lives unless they worked for governments or were high level executives. Even in the 80s when a public servant left the APS, superannuation was paid out.

I am at a loss to see why we would be better off making cities denser? The reason why many people emigrated to Australia was for the open and less restrictive lifestyle. My father emigrated from Europe away from the problems of high density living and Australia seems ever convinced to follow an already failed approach.

Why not be more creative with decentralising. There is much that can be done in this area. Governments keep talking about it but not much action so far.

The issue of baby boomer retirement is not going to be helped by duplication when when Gen Y and later generations retire. Why not face the issues of overpopulation and sustainable living now rather than continue on this farce of continuous economic growth.

Yuyutsu - why should people who take care of the elderly (or our infants for that matter) be paid ridiculously low wages? Mass immigration just serves to keep a lid on wages to the detriment of people already living here. And the Baby Boomer generation DOES have something to answer for. They could have made the choice to move to sustainable practises in consumption and population when they were given the information and when there was still time to act. They chose, instead, to believe in impossible fantasies and thereby guaranteed the trashing of their children's future. The question is, why should we continue this ridiculous pandering to their needs when they have lived so well and taken so much and left future generations with so little. We need to urgently refocus on preserving something of our resources for the generations following the Baby Boomers. They will just have to have to suck it up and experience the difficulties of old age like most other generations of humans throughout history.

Dear Michael,

I was not promoting immigration, but merely the importation of aged-care workers from third-world countries, mainly the Philippines, on a temporary visa, as is done in other countries, on working-conditions which no Australian would accept. They are excellent and devoted workers, they remain at the elderly's home 6x24 (with one free day a week, usually Sunday), they are eager to work and their salaries are affordable. Only billionaires and ex-politicians can afford an Australian to provide them with a similar devoted service.

I am not asking you to sacrifice anything - we are talking about a generation that worked hard and saved all their life for the eventuality of their old age and frailty. All they ask is to be allowed to bring and pay the foreign worker out of their own savings. It seems that the new generation is spoiled rotten and only wish them to die so that they can inherit them sooner.

Yuyutsu, I live out of the big bad city, where perhaps people have less problem with backside wiping. Whatever the staff in our nursing homes mostly speak with Oz accents.

They may be the offspring of immigrants, but you don't have to go back too far to find that is a common trait.

There is not a human in the country who is not the result of immigrant breeding, when you go far enough, so lets stop discriminating.

As backside wiping is a skill most of us mastered somewhere in our preteens years, it is not a particularly rare or highly valued. The skill more rare, & somewhat under valued is the ability to do it with a smile, & some kindness.

These skills do not appear to be concentrated on any ethnic origin, so origin is not of much importance.

Michael,

If you want to heap blame on the Baby Boomers as a group, you need to show that they have been doing something different from the rest of the population. If you actually look at voting patterns, however, it is people over 60, the generation before the Baby Boomers, who are most likely to vote for the Coalition and least likely to vote for minor parties. Even young voters overwhelmingly vote for the major parties

http://www.sisr.net/apo/watson.pdf

A numerate, well-educated person who knows something about science and human history may well be able to see through the spin from the growthists, but this is a big ask for ordinary people people who have had relatively little education, especially given that the growthists control the media. If you have been continually told that you are stupid and should sit down and shut up, it doesn't give you a lot of confidence in your own judgment.