Entitlement and responsibility: a personal odyssey

Nearly fifty years passed – dear God, where did they all go? – and I am now barely weeks away from being 69.

Of course, much has changed. My mature, reasonable and eminently acceptable view now is that the nation owes me a very comfortable twilight living for all that I have given the nation throughout my working life. Woe betide Turnbull and Morrison and the rest if they fiddle about with my just entitlements.

Yes, we have a house, investment properties and I have a very modest superannuation but it stands to reason that after a lifetime of paying exorbitant income tax and a myriad of other bloody taxes that I should get something back and the more the better. I have earned it.

I mean there are lots of things the Government could slash and burn without coming even close to me. Young people today – unlike my generation – are so selfish and it would do them a lot of good is they shouldered more of the burden. Character building I call it and God only knows that they need it. They should be made to realise that it was me and my generation who kept them free from communism and that means a debt to be repaid.

Young people get away with far too much nowadays. Why, when I was a boy…