A mattress company is offering struggling Australians the chance to have their rent and mortgage covered for a year – provided they aren’t a baby boomer.
Koala is mocking older Australians, born before 1965, by setting up a provocatively named website – boomerblocker.com – only weeks after Australia’s outgoing age discrimination commissioner slammed ageist jokes.
While visitors to this site won’t be asked for their date of birth, Koala said the website competition questions were deliberately designed to disadvantage baby boomers.
‘In a bid to stop the golden generation from claiming any more good deals, Koala is rolling out a first-of-its-kind ‘Boomer Blocker’, a generationally biased questionnaire which Aussies will need to answer as part of their application, which has been purposefully designed to try and filter out boomers and ensure the offer is available to everyone from generations X, Y and Z,’ it said.
The questions include the meaning of the term ‘Brangelina’ – ironically referring to baby boomer Hollywood star Brad Pitt’s former relationship with his younger former girlfriend Angelina Jolie.
Another question asked what Control C and Control V do on a keyboard, even though the copy and paste functions of Word were pioneered by Microsoft, whose founder Bill Gates is a baby boomer.
Rory Costello, Koala’s chief commercial officer, argued baby boomers had it much easier than the younger generations when it came to being able to buy a house.
‘We wanted to give Millennials, Gen Zers and everyone in-between, the opportunity to have their rent or mortgage paid for an entire year, so they can use their cash for other luxuries that boomers enjoy daily,’ he said.
A mattress company is offering struggling Australians the chance to have their rent and mortgage covered for a year – provided they aren’t a baby boomer.
Former age discrimination commissioner Kay Patterson, 78, whose seven-year term ended on Friday, has previously slammed jokes against older people.
‘Ageism is the least understood “ism”,’ she told ABC Radio National last month.
‘We understand about sexism, we understand about racism.
‘But most of us in our bones have some ageist views and joke about it sometimes, and jokes that would not be accepted in other area.
‘”You look good for your age”. You know, we don’t say to people, “You look good for being a woman” or “You look good for being an Indian or something”.
‘We just have these strange attitudes to older people.’
While baby boomers paid 18 per cent interest rates in the late 1980s, they had a challenging mortgage repayment situation when houses were much cheaper compared with average incomes.
That means they didn’t have dangerous debt-to-income ratios like younger borrowers would have now.
In 1989, Sydney’s median house price was $170,850 – just five times the average, full-time salary of $26,874 after a 20 per cent mortgage deposit.
Former age discrimination commissioner Kay Patterson, whose seven-year terms ended on Friday, has previously slammed jokes against older people
In 2023, Sydney’s mid-point house price of $1.324million costs 11 times the average $94,000 salary with the same mortgage deposit.
That is well above the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority’s ‘six’ threshold for mortgage stress.
So unlike a baby boomer a generation ago, a single average-income earner now in their thirties or forties can’t buy a typical Sydney house on their own.
Melbourne, with a median house price of $918,971, is also out of reach as is Brisbane, with a mid-point price of $806,781 unless a single borrower moved to a far, outer suburb.
Australia’s two previous age discrimination commissioners Susan Ryan and Dr Patterson both came from the Silent Generation, born from 1928 to 1945.
The Australian Human Rights Commission is advertising for a replacement for a role which a baby boomer is yet to occupy.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Governor-General David Hurley, outgoing Reserve Bank Governor Philip Lowe and his successor Michele Bullock, and Chief Justice Susan Kiefel are all baby boomers, born from 1946 to 1964.
Former Australian Test cricket captain Steve Smith, a Millennial, was an early investor in Koala, turning a $100,000, 10 per cent investment in 2015 before it had any customers into $1.5million investment within five years.
Koala co-founders Mitch Taylor, 35, and Daniel Milham, 32, are both Millennials who have featured on The Australian Review’s Young Rich List.
Koala’s Boomer Blocker website is operating from July 31 to August 27.
