More coverage of Parnell McGuinness and Marian Tupy papers

Australian Government needs to offer empowerment not pallatives to young people — The Nightly

Another publication has now arrived from the Centre of Independent Studies, authored by social researcher Parnell McGuiness that sets out to answer the essential democratic question: are we leaving more to those who come after us?
What makes this contribution unique is that it dares to bring facts to the intergenerational unfairness vibe fight.
That is not to say that the unfairness is not real. As Ms McGuiness demonstrates, it is very real. The emphasis on analytical causality forces readers’ focus to solutions, while driving out the toxic compassion with which this topic is so often considered. This makes this study compelling.
With the methodical precision of a German industrialist, the author deconstructs the impacts of government help.
After a year of work on the psychological state of young Australians, she found the ambitions of the next generation are not dissimilar to those who came before. Young Australians want financial security, home ownership, meaningful work, relationships and children.
The difference with earlier generations is that fewer than four in 10 young people think the main barriers to their goals are within their control, and this loss of control closely tracks lower life satisfaction and higher anxiety.
These outcomes are contrary to popular belief that this is due to “snowflake” attitudes rather than a collapse in autonomy, driven by housing costs, financial insecurity and time pressure, interacting with a welfare‑state “lattice” that manages symptoms and narrowing choice.
McGuiness argues that the state has expanded, but in a way that often substitutes a government‑designed version of the “good life” (rent assistance, therapy, free courses) for the traditional milestones young people still want but can no longer see a path to.
Across the research, life satisfaction is strongly linked to the belief that you can influence the barriers in your way.
For people with low autonomy, money is “existential”. It determines whether they can live at all.
For those with higher autonomy, money is “instrumental” — a tool to exercise choice.
Policies that increase money transfers but reduce choice do not lift overall wellbeing because people perceive themselves as passengers rather than authors of their own lives.
The paper makes it clear that the focus on input-driven policy is adding to an entire generation’s anxiety. This shift in thinking alone could do more good for the future of Australia than anything else you are likely to do today.
There are also some intriguing insights amongst the six identified tribes of Australians under 35.
Many young Australians, despite having low trust in government, still use government information as verified truth. And while many agree that our institutions need to be rebuilt, they want to see it done from the inside in an evolutionary way not revolutionary.
Most interestingly, the very people most likely to identify as socially progressive are the very people most likely to be sceptical about government spending and supportive of small government.
Parnell McGuiness and her publisher have achieved a rare triple with this paper: they have reframed a debate that sorely needed new perspectives; brought rigour to what has been a fact-fee discussion; and hopefully changed the trajectory of future generations.

Young Australians are despairing. I decided to find out why — across Fairfax

This week, the Centre for Independent Studies released my new research paper, Generation Trapped. I started the research with a question: What’s making 18- to 34-year-old Australians so unhappy? And what can we do about it? To find out, I asked them.
I conducted in-person interviews and, together with pollster Morgan James from Spectre Strategy, undertook extensive qualitative research into the aspirations, perceived barriers and values of Australians 18-34 years old. To dig deeper into young Australians from different backgrounds, we took a Pew Research-style approach of segmenting young Australians into six “tribes” according to their dominant characteristics and behaviours.
This approach revealed a core finding: young Australians who have a low sense of control over the barriers in the way of achieving their aspirations also have low life satisfaction. And those who feel a greater sense of personal agency have higher life satisfaction.
This held true regardless of the financial situation in which the tribes found themselves. Unsurprisingly, though, young people who have inherited or expect to inherit money from their family have the highest sense of personal agency. Money is a tool which creates agency, or in less jargony terms, choice. But choice is also valuable by itself. Young people who feel they have agency – the ability to shape their future according to their wishes – have higher life satisfaction, even when they don’t have money or expect to inherit any.
In an ideal world, in which politicians were primarily motivated to make the lives of citizens better, that insight by itself should trigger a radical rethink of the way we do policy. (More)

Australia’s housing crisis blamed on restrictive policy in myth-busting new report — The Australian

The Centre for Independent Studies recently released a study by Cato Institute senior fellow Marian Tupy, Growth That Builds: Beyond the Immigration Blame Game. Tupy says Australia’s housing crisis is fundamentally a policy failure rather than a result of just population growth.
Tupy offers a direct challenge to one of the most politically potent claims in public debate: that fewer migrants would mean cheaper housing.
“The evidence says otherwise. Yes, more people increase demand for housing. But whether that demand becomes permanently higher rents and prices depends on one thing above all else – whether governments allow homes to be built.” Policy hasn’t kept up with immigration and demand.
The paper draws on Australian and international research to show that housing costs rise most sharply in cities where planning systems restrict land use, delay approvals and cap density. Where supply can respond, the long-term price effects of migration are far smaller and can even be offset by stronger economic growth and construction. Auckland is an example of what happens when governments allow building at scale. After upzoning most of the city, Auckland experienced a substantial lift in construction and rents that were significantly lower than they otherwise would have been.
As Tupy says, it is not just the numbers; the make-up of immigrants is important for housing and the economy that also has a spin-off effect on social cohesion.
We know about the scarcity of skilled builders. We need skilled immigrants involved in the building trade: engineers, surveyors, project managers and brickies. Australia needs to “align migration to construction capacity goals, ensuring that intake complements rather than substitutes for reform”.