Shame about the title. No doubt it got a good laugh at the publishing meeting where this book was pitched, but it’s combative, negative, and will alienate some readers immediately. Pity, because this isn’t a half-bad book. Its strength is that it conveys in no uncertain terms, often using first-person quotes, the frustration many young people feel about the stagnation that currently afflicts Australia. It does so with a savvy grasp of the effect of technological change on culture and captures, too, some of the injustices and social costs of the inequities faced by young people, who, compared to their parents, have gone backwards on major social indicators such as the costs of education, health, and housing.

Please Just F* Off, suffers, though, for its over-reliance on biff. Anti-baby-boomer polemic is always fun, but in the end it’s reductive and it’s easy to get carried away. It almost overbalances this book, making it sound as if a much-needed renewal of Australian cultural life can only come from young people—a patently silly idea. The trouble with generationalism, as I argued in a book on a similar topic a few years ago, is that it’s not sustainable. We all grow old, but no-one should grow irrelevant at the same time. Genuine cultural renewal won’t be achieved by ‘kicking out’ any one group, boomers or otherwise, it is about building a big table where there’s room for all groups. It’s for this reason that debate needs to focus not on getting rid of boomers, but on making room for those young people presently alienated and excluded from change-making in Australian society. The real problem is one of shifting stubborn cultural paradigms. What’s ailing our culture, as Heath knows, is cliques, complacency and market logic for the sake of it. True, all have thrived on the baby-boomers’ watch, but making change will take an effort from all.

Leave aside the polemic and Heath offers something very unusual in present Australian debate: the prospect of genuine cultural renewal. For that alone, plus its unabashed optimism, this book is well worth the price of entry.