I’m lucky to live near the Melbourne capital city trail. It reminds me of this though. Can you imagine a city not dominated by cars?

Yeah I hear ya. It’s insulting. There are a lot of people that don’t understand that upwards social mobility is gone now. It’s all about family wealth and support now. More people will understand this as time goes on.

He gained a lot of social capital in opposition by coming across as a humanist with his childhood story, and campaigning for increasing social welfare payments. Now he seems like the archetypal “boomer” who got what they needed and pulled up the ladder. (I know not all boomers are like this, but we’ve all met one of them).

Yeah I get where you’re coming from. I’m doing OK myself, I earn an average wage as an engineer. I pay 40 percent of my income to rent, but I’m not struggling because I have a basic life. I chose not to have a car. Bike everywhere. But I think about people like my sister, who lives on disability support and relies on food donations. I’m worried that the flow on effects will result in rent increases again. I wish the gov would entertain rent caps. There are some people in this country who have no safety margin at all, and they are falling through the cracks.

Labor have no viable opposition, so it shouldn’t matter if they receive criticism. They should do what is necessary to help those at the bottom of the economic hierarchy who are struggling most.

He’s always been like this. You can hear it whenever he has to answer questions he doesn’t like. Always sounds like “I’m the boss, don’t bother me”.