Yes Toot there has been no mention of anything in the both Parties for the penson at all--don't think Lab will do anything--and of course Abbott has been --"far too busy to answer any mail" was the reply I got from the Libs

With the offer of a payment to hire older people, to get them

of the dole or pension and back to work by Tony. line up

with John Howards agenda of raising the retirement age to 70yrs.

If you have been employed in the building trades you know that

in most cases the body has had enough by, if your lucky, late 50s.

It may be alright for other types of workers who have not put so

much strain on their bodies.

My thoughts also on the raising of the pension age for women,

from 60 to 65 and possibly higher is wrong. .

as we all know that even though their life span may be higher,

the quality of life can be very low. seth.

With the offer of a payment to hire older people, to get them

of the dole or pension and back to work by Tony. line up

with John Howards agenda of raising the retirement age to 70yrs.

If you have been employed in the building trades you know that

in most cases the body has had enough by, if your lucky, late 50s.

It may be alright for other types of workers who have not put so

much strain on their bodies.

My thoughts also on the raising of the pension age for women,

from 60 to 65 and possibly higher is wrong. .

as we all know that even though their life span may be higher,

the quality of life can be very low. seth.

--

I tend to think this is a ploy by Abbott with something more sinister in the running--I agree that it would be nice for older persons to be able to get work--but what is the long term plan he has in store--I know I would NOT want to be working till 65 or 70 and we all need to have some sort of life after working all our working lives--get to travel --or just enjoy life--I think this is the start of getting every one in the future OFF the pension, as he did state last night that it would save a LOT of Government payments.



Abbott has a habit of being cryptic about things

Abbott has a habit of being cryptic about things



What a suspicious piece of work you must be Plan B



It sounds you dislike Abbott as much as I loathe the bitch PM.

With the offer of a payment to hire older people, to get them

of the dole or pension and back to work by Tony. line up

with John Howards agenda of raising the retirement age to 70yrs.

If you have been employed in the building trades you know that

in most cases the body has had enough by, if your lucky, late 50s.

It may be alright for other types of workers who have not put so

much strain on their bodies.

My thoughts also on the raising of the pension age for women,

from 60 to 65 and possibly higher is wrong. .

as we all know that even though their life span may be higher,

the quality of life can be very low. seth.

--

I tend to think this is a ploy by Abbott with something more sinister in the running--I agree that it would be nice for older persons to be able to get work--but what is the long term plan he has in store--I know I would NOT want to be working till 65 or 70 and we all need to have some sort of life after working all our working lives--get to travel --or just enjoy life--I think this is the start of getting every one in the future OFF the pension, as he did state last night that it would save a LOT of Government payments.



Abbott has a habit of being cryptic about things

When Keating introduced the Super Guarantee fund, he said at the time, the eventual aim was to have everyone self funded in retirement....no age pension for anyone.

I'm wondering what percentage of people on this forum are actually drawing the old age pension. I think there are a lot of self-funded retirees who really don't have the same sense of urgency regarding the rise in pension payments.

I’m wondering what percentage of people on this forum are actually drawing the old age pension



I have been thinking that for some time toot.

Some here talk about the pension but it is obvious by their talk that they do not even know how much pensioners get.

I am one that draws the age pension and there was no super when I worked--

Tony Abbott wrote this on the 21st May and I agree that extending the pension age should be debated. Hard to believe that life expectancy in 1908 was only 60.



[i]THE government’s decision to raise the pension age to 67 makes sense in principle but it should have been debated beforehand rather than just “sprung” on people as a budget night surprise. If the government had more real self-confidence, it would not have run away from arguing the case beforehand rather than just presenting it afterwards as a “done deal”.



The pension age was set in 1908 when life expectancy at birth was under 60. Today, it’s over 80. In 1908, life expectancy at 65 was 11 years; today it’s 19 years. Presumably, that’s why the Harmer Report said that the pension age should go up by between two and four years (or to almost 70).



Post-budget debate has focused on older people in manual work worried about whether they will be physically capable of continuing past 65. In fact, there are very few 64 year old bricklayers. Manual workers have mostly either found different types of work or gone onto some form of benefit well before pension age. Raising the pension age is not about keeping people as conscripts in the workforce. It’s about encouraging people who want to work to keep going and, even more important, sending the clearest possible signal to employers that workers aren’t “past it” at 65.



There are still a lot of questions, though, that the government needs to answer about its budget changes and reports for older Australians. How will the promise not to disadvantage existing part-pensioners despite the new, stiffer income rules actually work in practice? Why did the Henry Review canvass means testing the family home if the government has no intention of allowing it? How would people claim their private health insurance rebate under a means test?



The biggest question, of course, is how the government will keep the economy strong enough to pay the social security bill in the years ahead given the higher taxes and interest rates that its debt and deficit mean. Giving more money in social security is all very well but someone has to make the money first. Labor has always been much better at redistributing wealth than creating it [/i]

Yes Toot it would be dreadful if they brought the family home into it--after all we can't eat bricks--maybe they could cut this stupid payment they give kids to "divorce" their parents and give back some ability to the parents to be able to discipline the kids.

Yes PB, that was one of Henry's recommendations, thank God they didn't go ahead with it. Don't forget that Henry was appointed by the Liberals. This is an excerpt from Rudd's social security budget. I do wonder if we would have got that rise under the Liberals.



[i]In the making of the 2009–10 Budget, the Government was also faced with balancing a number of other (potentially irreconcilable) objectives, including:



making significant increases in expenditure, either as part of efforts to stimulate the economy or the implementation of policy commitments

making significant reductions in some areas of expenditure in order to offset increases in other areas and

embarking on significant (and potentially very expensive) policy reform in a range of areas, some of which were identified by the Government when it was in opposition.

The difficult nature of this challenge was nowhere more evident than in the area of social policy where, for example, the Government had the task of simultaneously increasing the pension, whilst reducing funding through a variety of mechanisms, such as eligibility changes, means testing and caps on welfare expenditure. At the same time, the Government was faced with implementing commitments to reform key social policy areas such as higher education, welfare payments, paid parental leave and health—that is, not simply spending more or less but changing overall policy frameworks.



http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/RP/BudgetReview2009-10/SocialPolicy_Overview.htm[/i]

With the lack of any real policy announcements apart from making working mothers more financially secure, I would like to see the coalition's reply as to what parts of the Henry report they would impliment. The present government has said what they would do but I don't recall seeing much on it from the opposition.

I wish there was some way we could find out.