This paper reaches into a comprehensive study of a generation of young people in Australia, drawing on a comparison with Canadian longitudinal data. It argues that this is a generation of reluctant change makers who have created new ways of living as a response to economic changes and government policies. These new ways of living, once exposed, "speak back" to neoliberal policies, exposing their human costs. Australians found it more difficult than their Canadian counterparts to establish secure jobs and households, impacting on their patterns of family formation. These changes have secondary effects in other areas of young people's lives, particularly in health and well-being where patterns of inequality are reflected in levels of mental and physical problems--exposing the poverty of neoliberal policies. (Contains 1 table.)