November 2nd, 2026Kyle’s Rant
On Remembrance Day the young ones will be marching, not in the marches you are thinking of, and I’m firmly in the no-march camp for that day.
It’s a day of remembrance for our diggers, ironically the same diggers who won us the freedoms we enjoy in the first place. That said, I don’t blame the tide of youth for marching (just pick another day).
The poor buggers don’t have a lot to look forward to, as the freedoms the diggers fought for are slowly drying up, courtesy of governments and the fat cats. One could argue they’re one and the same, or at least that those in political power are hoping for a few crumbs from those who have it all.
When I was growing up I was poor, but the world seemed to be my oyster, depending on how hard you worked. I bought my first house at 23, and it didn’t mean I was yoked to the machine for life. If I no longer wanted to live in it, I’d simply rent it out, which normally brought in almost enough to cover the mortgage.
At one stage Donna and I had two houses on the boil and were looking at a third. All had mortgages, but all paid their own way with tenants and tax concessions like negative gearing. Now it’s just tax, tax and more tax, and it’s getting really hard to breathe and navigate your way to the least amount of tax you’re up for. The property market is well and truly on the nose.
So how the hell are these poor buggers coming up meant to thrive? I started my first business at 19 as a commercial fisherman, and it wasn’t a big deal. I got qualified, leased a boat, caught fish and made money. That business failed spectacularly in the crash of ’87, but I dusted myself off and landed a contract to clean the windows of a 17-storey commercial building. I hired guys to do that while I hit the streets with my squeegee, battling to earn enough to pay the guys their daily wage. Those were the days a bloke could simply give something a crack and see if it worked out.
These days, if you want to do what I did, you can’t. Hire a single cleaner and you’ll need a labour hire licence, with fines north of $660,000 if you dare start before the paperwork’s stamped. Want to clean the windows? A boom licence takes up to 45 days, and the boom gives up at the podium anyway. Above that it’s rope tickets, anchor certificates, safety method statements, council footpath permits and $20 million of insurance. Throw in WorkCover, award wages and the EPA policing your bucket water. And ironically, the cleaning qualification is optional.
That’s one specific case, but it shows how bloody hard it is for kids already carrying huge HECS debts to do anything beyond the ordinary. I’m not saying the entrepreneurial spirit is dead, but like anything in life, cop enough kicks in the guts, roadblocks and red tape and the human spirit can only bear so much. I’m with the kids. The system has to change. I don’t know how you change it or which bits need changing, but worldwide this movement is afoot.
I’m pretty sure more than half the youths marching in Melbourne on November 11 won’t know what they’re marching for. Apparently it’s about anti-capitalism, Pauline Hanson, solidarity with the French kids and, I suppose, their lot in life. And this is exactly the sort of muddy water extremists love.
You watch, Remembrance Day 2026 in Melbourne and Sydney will be one to remember. Not because of the core beliefs behind the protests, but because it’ll be a great day out for the violent shit-stirrers, white supremacists and the great unwashed rebels without a cause.
Watch this space. Rant over…
