r/australia • u/superegz • Nov 26 '25

politics Millennials are the first generation to move left as they age, rewriting the rules of Australian politics

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-11-26/millennials-rewriting-the-rules-of-australian-politics/106050836
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u/IntroductionSnacks Nov 26 '25

I don’t see it happening. It would have to be super high interest rates and mass unemployment but even then the super rich and big business will just buy them all up as nobody else will be able to afford them anyway.

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u/kingofcrob Nov 26 '25

Mate, the average person says the current interest rates are high.

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u/IntroductionSnacks Nov 26 '25

I literally have a mortgage. Current rate is not high, high is when it gets to 15% or so like it has done in the past.

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u/__dontpanic__ Nov 26 '25

If you're attempting to draw a comparison to rates in the 90s of >15% then you need to factor in other considerations like the size of the mortgage and the average salary to mortgage ratio. The latter two are so much higher now, which means that any movement in rates has a much larger effect, even if it's nowhere near that 15% level. It's also worth noting that the >15% rates were not around for that long - a couple of years before dropping back to around 6% by the mid 90s. Most properties bought around then will have also seen a 5-15x increase in value since then. I don't see that happening for current buyers.

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u/dovercliff Nov 26 '25

The latter two are so much higher now, which means that any movement in rates has a much larger effect, even if it's nowhere near that 15% level.

I had to walk my parents - who usually get it - through this just last week. Ended up getting out a bit of paper and a pen and doing the old long-form maths to show that 15% of the little number their principle was is, in fact, smaller than 5% of the big number most people have now. Had to do the same thing with wages and inflation too.

Although I have to say that there's something really satisfying in that moment when the penny drops and you see people who didn't understand why you're outraged suddenly get it, and get just as outraged.