Chapter 1: What is the Australian dream and why is it considered a nightmare for some?
Hey, it's Helen Smith here.
Welcome to this bonus episode of The Briefing. Australia's housing crisis has become one of the country's biggest generational fault lines, with the great Australian dream of owning a home feeling increasingly out of reach for younger Australians, just as housing has once again taken centre stage. in the recent federal budget.
Now, more adults are moving back in with their parents, renters are being priced out of stability, and frustration around intergenerational wealth and inequality is fueling a growing clash between boomers and younger generations. Now, a new Australian film is turning that tension into dark comedy.
Birthright explores housing pressure, class divides, and what happens when the family home becomes the only safety net.
Dad. How did you get in? Mum, it's me, your son.
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Chapter 2: How has the housing crisis affected generational relationships in Australia?
What are you doing here? We were wondering if we could stay here. Maybe it'd be better for the baby. That's it. When I was 20 years old, I bought this house and it was nothing. I built this life.
Sometimes my parents want to be a bit too involved.
We appreciated what we had. And then bit by bit, we turned one jacket, one jumper, into a whole house. Two investment properties.
Chapter 3: What themes does the film 'Birthright' explore regarding housing inequality?
How much longer do you think you'll be staying for? How many nights? Should have bought years ago. Yes, Dad, I know. This is a shakedown. You're never going to leave.
Zoe Pepper is the writer and director of Birthright and it's inspired by real life experiences of young people moving back home as housing stress intensifies. And she joins me now to unpack why the housing debate has become so heated and what's driving the generational divide and whether the Australian dream still exists at all. Zoe, firstly, can you unpack the concept of housing as a birthright?
The film taps into it by looking at it primarily through a millennial lens of like this internalized worldview that these kind of millennials grew up with.
They kind of inherited that worldview from their baby boomer parents of like, yeah, you think you're going to become an adult and you're going to like buy a house and like have a family and like live the life essentially that your parents have lived. And it's
Yeah, so that's where kind of the birthright comes in and it's these millennials coming to grips with the fact that like, oh shit, that's not possible for us. It's really the collapse of that worldview, I'd say.
This idea of like the Australian dream of owning a house, has kind of always been a thing. When you go to Europe or other places, it's not really the same. Do you think Australia still believes that the idea of, you know, the Great Australian Dream is still achievable or has it become kind of more of a myth than reality for millennials and Gen Z?
I think for Gen Z, it's becoming way more of a myth. And look, hopefully some of this structural reform will start to slowly make inroads to change things.
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Chapter 4: How does the film illustrate the clash between baby boomers and millennials?
But the disadvantages of not owning your own home in Australia are just so acute that I think that's why the Australian dream still holds so much importance. If you're renting into retirement, that's a really tough life.
Yeah. How do you think the idea of housing has changed from generation to generation, particularly in the film, you explore the kind of boomers millennial relationship?
Yeah. So the film really looks at this kind of like complete misunderstanding between generations and what was possible for the baby boomers. That's no longer possible today in terms of like that affordability. And I think that housing was more like you know, like it says on the box, it's a house, it's a home to live in for previous generations.
But obviously the changes to kind of the tax structure meant that it became a vehicle to make a whole lot of cash. And like you can't blame people for like jumping on that bandwagon and like playing the hand that they were dealt. But the fallout that we're seeing from it now is that like massive disadvantage to younger generations. And that I think it's absolutely time for reform and to try and
you know, like it's come late, but better late than never in terms of trying to correct that.
What do you think those policies and reform has done to housing equality what has it done to family relationships in Australia?
I mean look we're obsessed with housing in Australia in a way that's kind of crazy but it means I mean something that I look at in the film is that housing is like charts and percentages and all these things that we see on the news but the impact is so much kind of more multifaceted in terms of the way that it's like a really emotionally loaded thing.
Like it's so pivotal to having a good life, to like have a safe place to live. And so, yeah, the film is more about the impact that this kind of housing crisis is having on the psyche of a generation more than it kind of being the fiscal kind of result of where we are now.
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Chapter 5: What does Zoe Pepper mean by housing as a birthright?
So it's like... these millennials that kind of feel like failures. And there's a lot of shame attached to that of kind of getting to a certain stage in life and being like, I just haven't hit those milestones and feeling like they've let their parents down. Yeah. Essentially, what does it do to you kind of like on more of a psychological level?
And in that, the film focuses on a young couple, millennials moving back in with one of their parents. And this is a common thread that we have been seeing for people either trying to save for a house or they've been booted out of the rental market because rent increases have just gone bananas. But what was the inspo kind of behind that storyline?
Yeah, look, it was like seeing lots of friends in this exact situation where they're being forced to move back in with their parents. And then like, knowing that it's not ideal for either generation, it's always intended as a short stay. And then it kind of extends because like, you think the world's going to get a little bit better and it just doesn't. And so yeah, that was a key inspo.
And then I became so curious about the power play that was happening underneath that one roof. Because Of course, millennials are going to regress. As soon as you go back home, you kind of become your worst teenage self to a certain degree. And so it's like, what's happening under that roof and how is that power play kind of unfolding?
And then the more I kind of like pulled at those threads, it became really apparent that's a great microcosm for kind of to represent what's happening in Australia kind of more broadly.
Yeah. Do you think that the housing crisis has created resentment between generations?
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Chapter 6: How has the perception of the Australian dream changed for younger generations?
Oh, 100%. Like, in a way that's kind of complicated. And I try to address that in the film that, like, I represent both the baby boomers' perspective as well as the millennials. Like, nobody comes out unscathed. The millennials in this film do come off looking pretty entitled and, like... Yeah, it's a satire. You've got to poke fun at everyone.
But there's a lot of resentment, but it's complex resentment in that, you know, you still love your baby boomer parents, even though you're like, but your generation like crippled the whole housing market. But there's still this kind of like... I don't know, like a deep desire to kind of earn their respect and make them proud and kind of do all those things in growing up.
And so, yeah, it's a complicated resentment, which I think what made it so right for the film that it's not so straightforward as to kind of like pit one side against the other.
Yeah. And I mean, it doesn't matter what generation your parents are, naturally, lots of the time, you do want to make them proud if they have helped you or you've worked hard. But this line that kept popping up in the film that really got me was, there's a line around working hard and then the world will look after you. Why did you want to include that in Birthright?
I mean, it's really just about this kind of mantra that the baby boomer father in the film kind of lives by, which is this hard work mentality, which is kind of a really kind of core capitalist ideal. This understanding that we live, you know, from Richard the baby boomer's perspective, we live in a meritocracy and so hard work will be rewarded.
You put in effort and you'll kind of like reap the benefits. And it's this clash where the millennial son is like, I followed your recipe, dad. I did everything you told me to do.
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Chapter 7: What role does resentment play in the generational divide over housing?
And it just simply doesn't work. So it's really that millennials coming to grips with the idea that the meritocracy just doesn't exist anymore and the recipe doesn't work.
Mm-hmm.
After making the film, did it change the way that you view or think about older generations and wealth accumulation in any way?
Yeah, look, when I first started writing the film, like I kind of had a sense that things were bad. And then when you actually like dig into the taxation policy, it was a bit horrifying actually in terms of like how lopsided things are and how the game is rigged in a lot of ways. So yeah, it was shocking on that level. And then the other thing that's really changed is
is that I started writing it in 2021. And I think that the housing crisis has just kind of like gone on steroids since then. Like it's got exponentially worse. So almost like the Baby Boomer characters are portrayed as like, they're pretty harsh, really. But I feel like the Baby Boomer sentiment has shifted to have more sympathy towards millennials.
in the time since when I started writing it and now it coming out because it has gotten so much worse. Like back in 2021, you could still see avocado on toast articles in the newspaper. I feel like they don't really fly anymore.
You touched on this just before about, you know, doing everything right and saving a deposit and still potentially not being able to even enter the market or touch the surface. When we look at younger people, who do feel like they're doing everything right or they're checking the boxes, but they still can't break into the housing market.
How do you think that frustration is fueling the narrative around the housing crisis right now?
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Chapter 8: What are the implications of the housing crisis on family dynamics and mental health?
I mean, look, it's part of it and it is like, I think that frustration is becoming so loud and so undeniable that it is shifting the conversation politically and it has kind of like opened up this kind of potential, which we've just seen on Budget Night, for kind of taxation reform to try and like correct it.
And look, it's going to take a really long time, but I think that rage has kind of translated into actual policy change. in part because millennials and Gen Zs are such a big voting block now that, yeah, we outnumber baby boomers. So it's, yeah, it's undeniable.
Now, this film is going to get people talking, going to get politics, political sides talking as well. What do you want people to take away from this film? Do you want them to side with a certain generation? Do you want them to resist? Do you want them to kind of broaden their perspective of how hard it might be looking at it from multiple generations?
Yeah, I really did try and craft the story so that your sympathies, your empathy keeps shifting across the course of the film so that you do understand the perspective of the baby boomers as well as the millennials and that it's, yeah, that it is complex and there's kind of, you don't get to the film and there's some like,
black and white answer waiting for you there it's yeah to provoke discussion and to bridge the generational divide if you will like to kind of yeah let's have some fiery arguments would be fabulous off the back of the film but yeah to really kind of kickstart those conversations because it is like a really heightened version of of modern Australia on screen in a way that's like
funny and entertaining. And so it's kind of poking fun of everyone, which is, yeah, essentially the point of satire.
Yeah, you do poke fun at each generation quite equally, I think. But I wanted to ask about kind of the generations in between. We've got Gen Xs as well, and then we've got Gen Z and Gen Alpha. Where do they kind of sit in this story?
I mean, look, I've spoken to some Gen Xers who do still identify with the millennials. I mean, but also just, I think it depends on your background and your class and kind of like how you grew up in terms of who you side with. Like there's younger people who've come from quite a privileged background who are like, why do I think the baby boomers are in the right when I watch this film?
Like, so the lines are quite generational in terms of audience reaction, but I do hope that it's kind of more nuanced and it is a lot about class.
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