Koala mattress company ‘blocks’ baby boomers from entering competition to cover rent or mortgage for a year

A mattress company is offering troubled Australians the chance to have their rent and mortgage covered for a year – provided they’re not a baby boomer.

Koala mocks older Australians born before 1965 by setting up provocative website – boomerblocker.com — just weeks after Australia’s outgoing age discrimination commissioner slammed jokes about age discrimination.

While visitors to this site aren’t asked about their date of birth, Koala said the contest questions on the website are purposely designed to penalize baby boomers.

In an effort to prevent the golden generation from claiming any more good deals, Koala is rolling out a unique “Boomer Blocker”, a generational questionnaire that Aussies will be required to answer as part of their application. is purposefully designed to filter out boomers and ensure that offerings are available to everyone from generations X, Y and Z,” it said.

The questions include the meaning of the term ‘Brangelina’ – ironically referring to 59-year-old baby boomer Hollywood star Brad Pitt’s past relationship with his younger ex-girlfriend Angelina Jolie, 48.

Another question was what Control C and Control V do on a keyboard, even though Word’s copy and paste functions were developed by Microsoft, whose founder Bill Gates, 67, is a baby boomer.

Rory Costello, Koala’s chief commercial officer, argued that baby boomers had a much easier time than the younger generations when it came to being able to buy a home.

“We wanted to give Millennials, Gen Zers and everyone in between the ability to pay their rent or mortgage for an entire year so they can use their money for other luxuries that boomers enjoy every day,” he said.

Former age discrimination commissioner Kay Patterson, 78, whose seven-year term expired on Friday, has previously made fun of the elderly.

“Age discrimination is the least understood “ism,” she told ABC Radio National last month.

“We understand sexism, we understand racism.

“But most of us have deep-seated beliefs about age and sometimes make jokes about it, and jokes that wouldn’t be accepted in other areas.

“You look good for your age”. You know, we don’t say to people, “You look good because you’re a woman” or “You look good because you’re an Indian or anything.”

“We just have a strange attitude towards older people.”

While baby boomers paid 18 percent interest in the late 1980s, they had a difficult mortgage payment when homes were much cheaper compared to median incomes.

That means they didn’t have a dangerous debt-to-income ratio like younger borrowers would have today.

In 1989, the median house price in Sydney was $170,850 – just five times the median full-time salary of $26,874 after a 20 per cent mortgage payment.

By 2023, Sydney’s median home price of $1,324 million will cost 11 times the median salary of $94,000 with the same mortgage deposit.

That’s well above the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority’s “six” threshold for mortgage stress.

Former age discrimination commissioner Kay Patterson, whose seven-year term expired on Friday, has previously cracked jokes at the elderly

So unlike a baby boomer of a generation ago, a single middle-income earner in his 30s or 40s cannot buy a typical Sydney home on his own.

Melbourne, with an average house price of $918,971, is also out of reach, as is Brisbane, with an average price of $806,781, unless a single borrower moves to a distant suburb.

Australia’s two previous age discrimination commissioners, Susan Ryan and Dr. Patterson, both came from the Silent Generation, born between 1928 and 1945.

The Australian Human Rights Commission is promoting a replacement for a role a baby boomer has yet to fill.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Governor General David Hurley, the outgoing Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe and his successor Michele Bullock, and Chief Justice Susan Kiefel are all baby boomers, born between 1946 and 1964.

Former Australian Test cricket captain Steve Smith, a 34-year-old millennial, was an early investor in Koala, turning a $100,000 stake, 10 percent in 2015, before it had clients, into a $1 windfall within five years. 5 million.

The co-founders of the online mattress and furniture company, Mitch Taylor, 34, and Daniel Milham, 32, are both millennials featured in The Australian Financial Review’s Young rich list.

The Sydney-based childhood friends appear 44th and 40th on the list of Australia’s richest individuals under 40, with net worths of $128 million and $153 million each respectively.

Koala’s Boomer Blocker website will be active from July 31 to August 27.

Steve Smith, a 34-year-old millennial, was an early investor in Koala, turning a $100,000 stake, 10 percent, before it had clients, into a $1.5 million windfall within five years in five years (he is pictured in the middle with another former captain Allan Border, a baby boomer, and his wife Dani Willis)