The truth is our young people are interested in political issues, but that interest is unfashionably idealistic. They really care about fairness to the LGBTI community, climate change and the environment more broadly. They're not yet sufficiently old and cynical to have realised that politics has devolved into a self-centred free-for-all, where you jump into the ring to advance and protect your own interests at the expense of those with less muscle. Illustration: Simon Letch Credit: When last my colleague Jessica Irvine expressed support for Labor's plan to end the refunding of unused dividend imputation credits to all except those receiving an age pension or part-pension, an angry reader accused her of "continuing to fuel the fire of inter-generational envy". Sorry, that argument doesn't wash. It's one the well-off and their champions have used for ages. What it's really saying is, "it's a sin for you to envy the fruits of my greed".

When people accuse others of "the politics of envy" or inciting "class warfare", their true message is: I'm winning, you're losing, so why won't you just accept it? Just be nice and stop trying to make things fairer. (Speaking of sin, when last I supported the reform of imputation credits, a reader accused me of "preaching". Sorry, when your father spent his life preaching two sermons a Sunday, it's only to be expected. And I'm old enough to regard being likened to my father as a compliment, not an insult.) Illustration: Andrew Dyson Credit: Stripping away the religious overtones, there is, always has been and probably always will be plenty of scope for conflict between the generations. The solution is for the generation presently in power to put its children's interests ahead of its own (see climate change above). Almost all of us do this in our private lives (it's clear a lot of the well-off retired fighting to retain imputation credits are motivated by maximising their kids' inheritance, and we're happy for the bank of mum and dad to help our children into home-ownership), but when it comes to public policy we're easily seduced by politicians seeking our votes with promises of short-term gain for long-term pain.

Loading Not enough people realise that our system of taxes and benefits is explicitly designed to move money between the generations. People – mainly younger people - with jobs and no kids pay a lot more in taxes (all taxes) than they get back in benefits (whether in cash or kind, such as education and healthcare), whereas families with kids get back a lot more than they pay. Couples whose kids have grown up but who are still working pay more than they get back, and then the retired get back a lot more than they pay. Since almost all of us will progress through each of these stages, this money-shifting should pretty much even out over our lives. So, until relatively recently, it's been seen as fair. It's the basis for the oldies' eternal sense of entitlement: "I've paid taxes all my life..." But this has changed. As our leading independent think tank, the Grattan Institute, has demonstrated, tax changes over the past two decades have been "hugely generous" to older Australians.

Loading "Older households pay $7500 [a year] less in income tax in real terms today than older households 20 years ago, despite high increases in average incomes," it found. "Taxes on working-age households have risen over the same period." Most of this is explained by changes made by John Howard to benefit the alleged "self-funded retirees" (including making unused imputation credits refundable) and similar changes to superannuation tax breaks made by Peter Costello. Add in Howard's more favourable tax treatment of negatively geared property investment, and the young are dead right to believe the tax system has been biased against them and in favour of the better-off old (including me). They'd also be right to see the looming federal election campaign as a battle between one side seeking to reduce the system's bias against the young and the other fighting to protect the recently acquired perks of the well-off aged.