Hear, hear.
My mum and dad were not post WW2 "winners" in Prime Minister Menzies new conservative order for Australia. Dad was an orphan of the Depression Era who was set loose as a 16 year old during 1943 as he became too old for the orphange. He joined the Army and got a small stipend late 1945 to go to technical college to learn painting and signwriting. Mum's family was a rural family right on the breadline when farm produce was being rationed "for the troops"; she packed off (as the youngest of five kids) to Sydney as a telophonist at 16yo.
They met and married in the early 1950s eventually having four children. I was the eldest.
I could see what a struggle it was to live through the 1960s for mum and dad feeding a six person family on about $40-$45 per week.
As soon as I hit 17, I left home to ease the pressure on the family's meagre budget and secured a university scholarship five months later.
I lived frugally and worked as hard as possible to have the career and income I felt I needed to succeed. I learned to avoid credit and debt and largely only lived to a budget.
My smartest move was to put a set amount aside every week for a retirement "nest-egg" from my mid-20s onward.
I purchased a moderate lakeside home forty years ago and owned it outright in under 10 years (back when interest rates were 18%-19%). Very few nights out in the 1980s & 1990s ... every spare dollar into paying for the home and its modest comforts. Always, year by year, making sure of building the nest egg as well.
Dad passed in 2001, Mum in 2023.
Once retired, I began drawing on what was now a very useful sized nest egg from a life of living as debt-free as possible. Since 2019, my lakeside home has been modernised and refreshed.
I never had it ALL but I had enough and planned to stay on top ... rather than have the tougher life that my parents had endured. Nothing was necessarily easy EXCEPT the knowledge and the will to not need to rely on others financially.
Just starting my eighth decade on the planet with few worries and the ability to be generous when necessary with knowledge and support for my grandchildren and their parents.
So, when the whingers (under 40yo) who want to live in an oversized $1.5 million McMansion in a well-heeled suburb blame me and others for the high cost of Australian real estate, I remind several of them that they could live in three bedrooms with ONE living area and ONE bathroom and borrow way, way less. They could live with free-to-air TV and maybe just one subscription channel rather than $200 per month of six providers. Similarly, it is not necessary to buy lunch at work (nearly) every day ... nor to have a restaurant breakfast every second Sunday.
Your "plight" is NOT my fault, GenX and GenZ! Grow up and sort out your own 5h1t and your future.