We joke that to afford a home in Australia we must wait for our parents to die. It feels like a deal with the devil | Fiona Wright
For years, whenever my friends and I have despaired of the housing market and our precarious place within it, we have eventually landed on the same dark joke: there’s nothing any of us can do until our parents drop off the perch.The median rent in Sydney – the city where I live, largely by dint of being born here – has just hit $800 a week, a sum that represents more than half of a median income, and well beyond what is defined as affordable.This is the system that we are living with, one in which housing is a commodity, an investment, a means to accrue and hold wealth, rather than as a basic need and human right.In the past five years house prices have risen by nearly 50%, from what was already a record high.In the past month three of my closest friends – including one who lives alone – have been hit with rental increases of more than $100 a week.
In 14 years I have moved house nine times, only once by my own choosing.To be clear: I don’t think the problem is intergenerational, or that the housing crisis has been caused by one generation screwing over another (at least, not entirely).The problem is structural, it is political, and it is cultural.There are many other places in the world where home ownership is the exception, not the expectation, and where renters have actual protections and powers as a result.Where wealth isn’t concentrated in a housing market that must therefore always continue to rise; and dignity in retirement isn’t based on having to own your house outright.
It’s just that as individuals, it’s difficult to imagine any other way in which our situations – and these structures – might change.Generational change is inevitable – that much is true.So many of us feel so powerless that the best-case scenario we can imagine is inheriting our share of the family home after our parents die.Like all dark jokes, this one works because its premise isn’t something that anybody wants.It is a thought that’s truly awful.
Painful to even contemplate,It feels like a deal with the devil,My parents built their house on the suburban fringe of Sydney shortly after the birth of their first child, my brother,It was not an investment: it was a place to live and raise a family,There were plenty of years when money was tight; the suburb was still developing much of the infrastructure – schools, shopping centre, public transport – that make a place desirable, or just convenient.
They both worked hard.It wasn’t easy but it was possible.It isn’t quite luck but something close to it – economic conditions, decades of public policy – that has turned their home, like the homes of so many of their generation, into a valuable asset.They didn’t expect a world in which their children would struggle to find a foothold in the property market, and pay such high rent in the meantime.It is difficult to reconcile that what might count for luck for many of my generation will be the passing on (capital gains tax-free) of that valuable asset, knowing that this can only come at so awful a cost.
No one wanted this.And yet, here we are.I am what the internet has decided to term “an elder millennial” – which is to say that I am in my 40s.More and more of my friends are marrying and having children, more and more of us are well established in our careers, but there are still very few of us who own a home.Very few of us, that is, who aren’t living from 12-month lease to 12-month lease, with frequent rent escalations, with furniture that has been disassembled and reassembled more times that we can count.
Of those who own their homes, I know of only three who have managed to get there without access to their inheritance – one moved to a small country town (before the pandemic, which has made even this far more difficult); and one moved into her parents’ home and lived there, with her partner and small child, for several years so she could save.All of the others drew on their parents’ estates.This is why our dark joke works: it has the smallest grain of truth within it, deep within its horror.Fiona Wright’s new novel Kill Your Boomers (Ultimo Press, $34.99) is out in April
Goldman Sachs to drop race, gender and LGBTQ+ criteria from board evaluations
Goldman Sachs is removing race, gender and other diversity-related considerations when evaluating prospective candidates for its executive board after pressure from an activist shareholder group to remove the criteria.The National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC), a small Goldman shareholder, quietly submitted a request to the company last September asking the bank to eliminate its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) board criteria.According to a Wall Street Journal report, Goldman recently informed the group that it plans to remove the DEI criteria, and the two parties signed an agreement under which the NLPC would withdraw its proposal.Goldman’s board is expected to approve the changes this month, people familiar with the matter told the Journal.Currently, the board’s governance committee evaluates qualified candidates based primarily on four factors
UK interest rate cut likely in March as unemployment rate rises; youth joblessness to ‘increase significantly’ in coming months – as it happened
The chances of a cut to UK interest rates next month have risen, following this morning’s data showing a rise in unemployment and a slowdown in wage growth.The City money markets now indicate there’s a near-75% chance that the Bank of England lowers interest rates to 3.5% at its next meeting, in March, up from 69% last night.Investors now fully expect two rate cuts by Christmas, which would bring Bank Rate down to 3.25%
AI’s workplace revolution is here – and anxiety is rising with it
Hello, and welcome to TechScape. I’m your host, Blake Montgomery, The Guardian’s US tech editor, writing to you while cheering on Team USA in the Winter Olympics.Throughout 2026, The Guardian will publish a series of stories about how artificial intelligence is affecting modern labor. We’re calling it Reworked: A series about what’s at stake as AI disrupts our jobs.Our first story published this morning
Claims that AI can help fix climate dismissed as greenwashing
Tech companies are conflating traditional artificial intelligence with generative AI when claiming the energy-hungry technology could help avert climate breakdown, according to a report.Most claims that AI can help avert climate breakdown refer to machine learning and not the energy-hungry chatbots and image generation tools driving the sector’s explosive growth of gas-guzzling datacentres, the analysis of 154 statements found.The research, commissioned by nonprofits including Beyond Fossil Fuels and Climate Action Against Disinformation, did not find a single example where popular tools such as Google’s Gemini or Microsoft’s Copilot were leading to a “material, verifiable, and substantial” reduction in planet-heating emissions.Ketan Joshi, an energy analyst and author of the report, said the industry’s tactics were “diversionary” and relied on tried and tested methods that amount to “greenwashing”.He likened it to fossil fuel companies advertising their modest investments in solar panels and overstating the potential of carbon capture
Winter Olympics 2026: women’s figure skating, crunch Canada v GB men’s curling and more – live
Forehand is into gold! Forget silver! It’s a 98.25. Nose butter triple 21 with safety grab, perfect rotations, perfect landing. “Oh my god!” yells Forehand at the bottom of the run, hands on his head, and that’s before the score comes out. He knew it was good, but did he know it was that good?Frostad has one more jump to snatch what was his gold back…Three out of three jumps for Matej Svancer
Tiger Woods weighs offer to captain 2027 US Ryder Cup team
Tiger Woods has confirmed he has been asked to captain the US team at Ryder Cup next year. Woods, who has not played competitively since the 2024 Open Championship, has also semi-remarkably left the door open to teeing up in the Masters this year.With the US still reeling from defeat by Europe at Bethpage in September, thoughts have turned towards attempts to reclaim the Ryder Cup in Ireland. Woods is the PGA of America’s first choice as captain. The 50-year-old will determine whether he believes he can commit sufficiently to the role
What do we know about Reform UK’s frontbench team of four?
Nigel Farage unveils Reform UK frontbench team and warns over dissent
‘Scandalous and unacceptable’: readers on the new UK entry rules for dual nationals
‘Betrayed’: 21 Hartlepool councillors threaten to quit Labour over care budget
Farage expected to name Jenrick as potential future chancellor
Starmer abandons plans to delay local elections in England in latest U-turn