Young Australians never stood a chance. For decades the controls have been set to favour older generations

‘As more younger people have been unable to get into the housing market, more of Australia’s wealth is held by those born before 1965,’ Greg Jericho writes. Photograph: Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images

Around the turn of this century the road to wealth equality in Australia was purposefully destroyed. Gone were policies designed to ensure everyone could gain wealth as they worked and aged, replaced by policies designed to add more wealth to those who already had it. Twenty years on, the impact of those polices is being felt not just by younger people but by the political parties that put them in place.

Last week a chart on Twitter showed that, unlike baby boomers and Gen Xers, millennials in the US were not becoming more conservative as they got older. It replicated the findings of the most recent Australian Election Study, which showed that not only are people becoming less likely to vote conservative, they are less likely to do so than people of the same age 20 or 30 years ago.