The Boomer trap: Why the cult of anti-ageism threatens our future

by · Australian Financial Review

Lucinda HoldforthAuthor
May 1, 2026 – 5.00am

Ageism today is classed as an attack on an individual’s inalienable identity alongside discrimination on the basis of race or sex. The Commonwealth’s Age Discrimination Act 2004, which supplements various state-based laws dating back to the 1990s, explicitly protects individuals from age-based discrimination in employment, education, accommodation, and the provision of goods and services. No one can be forced out of a job because of their age, except in very specific and defined circumstances.

Anti-ageism legislation has, of course, been a godsend for ageing Baby Boomers. At the first sign of generational criticism, or even sensible policy suggestions in relation to generational handover, you will hear Baby Boomers hit back that this is nothing more than vile ageism, that egregious and unacceptable crime, a retrograde scourge in modern life.

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Lucinda HoldforthAuthorLucinda Holdforth was a speechwriter for Alan Joyce and is the author of  ′21st-Century Virtues: How They Are Failing Our Democracy’.

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