Intergenerational Report to show Labor's spending was growing out of control

I don't know why I am comforted to read headlines like this, when they are not in the UK, but I am.

Australia has just released its Intergenerational Report (the fourth edition) and it has been met by a wave of protests. It seems as if the thing is being used as a political tool to bash the opposition parties.

Kaye Fallick, who publishes the great online magazine, YourLifeChoices provides some good insights into what it is all about.

I have been increasingly aware that the implications of ageing and the reality of the different financial state of the generations is being adopted as a political football.

In the UK, the Labour party is trying to wrap its arms around 'the young' with promises of reducing their university fee rates whilst damning their parents and grandparents for the financial greed and the tax breaks. The Government, is accused of pandering to the older vote, even though its policies have created havoc with their retirement income expectations.

I know from my reading of the US press that the same sorts of arguments are going on there.

It doesn't matter where on the earth you look the intergenerational 'debate' assumes the status of a Xmas Tree (i.e. everybody can decorate it with their own political hang-ups).

The same, small minded thinking, infects politicians the world over. Maybe there is a politician gene?

OK, so what the hell has this to do with marketing. Well, rather a lot. Something I will return to in a while. Dick Stroud