Oz housing debate: Why pick on avocados?

Social media has lit up with Aussie millennials furious over suggestions young people should give up the weekly brunch plate in order to save up for a home deposit. Photo / Jason Oxenham

The avocado industry has defended the right of young people to chow down on a plate of smashed avo amid an intergenerational debate over housing affordability.

"I'm glad they're eating avocados, at least they have the good sense of putting something nutritious down their throats," Avocados Australia chair Jim Kochi told AAP.

Social media has lit up with Aussie millennials furious over suggestions young people should give up the weekly brunch plate in order to save up for a home deposit.

Demographer Bernard Salt kicked off the debate when he questioned if young people should be eating out frequently.

"Shouldn't they be economising by eating at home? How often are they eating out? Twenty-two dollars several times a week could go towards a deposit on a house," he wrote in The Australian.

Many have hit back saying a $22 weekly saving would take something like a century to reach the housing dream.

Kochi says young people should cut spending on alcohol or resist going to raves if they want to save for a home.

At least avocados are healthy.

"Why didn't he pick on coffee - where's the nutrition in a cup of coffee or slug of alcohol?" he said of the article.

The debate has even hit federal parliament, with everyone from the treasurer, bureaucrats and senators weighing in.

Treasury secretary John Fraser was asked about it by an avocado-wielding Greens senator Peter-Whish Wilson at a Senate estimates hearing on Wednesday.

With a smile, he pointed to the exorbitant cost of another commodity.

"I prefer people to start talking about the exorbitant cost of coffee in Melbourne. It's got to be the highest in the world," Fraser replied.

Treasurer Scott Morrison said he wasn't going to tell others what to do with their cash.

"It's not for me to lecture Australians on how they're going to spend their money," he told Sky News.