27-04-2014, 04:16 PM
This article is from The Australian. Mr Hockey is in his late 40's. If Australians need to work till 70, I don't see how Singaporeans can retire at a younger age. And it will be tougher for Singaporeans because of our work environment.
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In another indication that a further rise in Australia’s pension age is on the cards, the Treasurer, 48, said his contemporaries may have to keep working until their eighth decade.
Labor raised the retirement age from 65 to 67 from 2023.
“It may be that my generation has to work for an extra three years (to age of 70) and we need to redesign our systems to manage that fact, “ Mr Hockey told ABC TV from Washington.
“It will affect my generation. This doesn’t happen overnight.’’
Seniors groups last week warned of a voter backlash over any rise in the retirement age, saying it was a simplistic approach to the deeper problem of funding Australia’s ageing population.
Mr Hockey also flagged a possible change to the way the aged pension is indexed. Currently it’s linked to average male weekly earnings.
“I’m not going to speculate on the budget but I will note that over here (in the USA) over the last 40 years 60 per cent of male workers in the USA have had a real cut in their incomes. In Australia we haven’t had that. Male weekly total earnings have been at a higher rate but it is not always going to be the higher rate.
“We need to have a sensible discussion about the sustainability of our entire quality of life. It’s not just pensions, it’s right across the board.”
Opposition finance spokesman Tony Burke said blue-collar workers would be hit hardest if they were forced to work for longer.
A shift in the retirement age would be a “very big deal’’ for pensioners required to do physical labour for longer while sitting on small super savings.
Mr Burke told Sky News Agenda the Abbott government faced harsh judgment if it raised the pension age, because it would be breaching a pre-election promise.
However, asked to provide the opposition’s solution to the problem, Mr Burke said it was not for Labor to provide an alternative as it awaited the government’s first budget.
Mr Hockey also said the world was making “unacceptable” progress on meeting Australia’s G20 goal of 2 per cent growth ahead of the leaders meeting in Brisbane later this year and more work needed to be done.
The Treasurer said the world needed difficult structural reform of the ilk being considered by Australia and used the tough talk to refloat the idea of tinkering with the nation’s welfare system.
”The proposal put forward by nations so far have been unacceptable and they only meet 10 per cent of our goal,” he told ABC TV. “But we pledge by the time we meet in Cairns in September and before the leaders meet later in the year in Brisbane we will have real effective plans to lift the global economy 2 per cent.”
He said with monetary and fiscal policy levers in poor condition and necessarily restrained, the only way to achieve growth targets was with structural reform which, in Australia’s case, would be informed by the findings of the Commission of Audit.
“We received a massive report to the government, we have to carefully consider the details,” he said. “We will release it in good time before the budget on May 13 and everyone will see it in its very raw form.”
Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce made the case on Sky News’s Australian Agenda for economic longevity on the back of trade deals but remained lukewarm about the Coalition’s trade deal with Japan, announced last week.
“I’m happy it’s come to a conclusion — I think we’ve done very well. I’ve got to call it for what it is,” he said.
“There were always going to be areas where you couldn’t tick every box. Rice, dairy, sugar. But in the end what do you do?”
But Mr Joyce said threats by the Greens to block the trade deal in the Senate were “typical”.
“The Greens will come up with a sideline distraction which will cause us immense damage in its public ventilation while they sit in manic monkey cafe of inner suburban Bananaville,” he said.
He also tempered the Prime Minister’s new-found enthusiasm for Chinese state-owned enterprises, after Mr Abbott made it clear he was willing to adjust investment rules.
“There is a natural caution and I think it will remain that SOEs are by their very nature elements of the state and it comes with a diplomatic side to it as well,” he said.
“SOEs, I acknowledge, are overwhelmingly driven by commercial principles, but sitting behind them there is a state purpose.”
Mr Joyce backed the Treasurer in the need for significant pain in the budget.
“The problems we have in this nation will change people’s lives if we don’t turn this around,” he said.
“We must turn this around. We should have turned this around back in 2009 when these other clowns were going crazy with the credit card. It needs deliberate action and it needs it now.”
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In another indication that a further rise in Australia’s pension age is on the cards, the Treasurer, 48, said his contemporaries may have to keep working until their eighth decade.
Labor raised the retirement age from 65 to 67 from 2023.
“It may be that my generation has to work for an extra three years (to age of 70) and we need to redesign our systems to manage that fact, “ Mr Hockey told ABC TV from Washington.
“It will affect my generation. This doesn’t happen overnight.’’
Seniors groups last week warned of a voter backlash over any rise in the retirement age, saying it was a simplistic approach to the deeper problem of funding Australia’s ageing population.
Mr Hockey also flagged a possible change to the way the aged pension is indexed. Currently it’s linked to average male weekly earnings.
“I’m not going to speculate on the budget but I will note that over here (in the USA) over the last 40 years 60 per cent of male workers in the USA have had a real cut in their incomes. In Australia we haven’t had that. Male weekly total earnings have been at a higher rate but it is not always going to be the higher rate.
“We need to have a sensible discussion about the sustainability of our entire quality of life. It’s not just pensions, it’s right across the board.”
Opposition finance spokesman Tony Burke said blue-collar workers would be hit hardest if they were forced to work for longer.
A shift in the retirement age would be a “very big deal’’ for pensioners required to do physical labour for longer while sitting on small super savings.
Mr Burke told Sky News Agenda the Abbott government faced harsh judgment if it raised the pension age, because it would be breaching a pre-election promise.
However, asked to provide the opposition’s solution to the problem, Mr Burke said it was not for Labor to provide an alternative as it awaited the government’s first budget.
Mr Hockey also said the world was making “unacceptable” progress on meeting Australia’s G20 goal of 2 per cent growth ahead of the leaders meeting in Brisbane later this year and more work needed to be done.
The Treasurer said the world needed difficult structural reform of the ilk being considered by Australia and used the tough talk to refloat the idea of tinkering with the nation’s welfare system.
”The proposal put forward by nations so far have been unacceptable and they only meet 10 per cent of our goal,” he told ABC TV. “But we pledge by the time we meet in Cairns in September and before the leaders meet later in the year in Brisbane we will have real effective plans to lift the global economy 2 per cent.”
He said with monetary and fiscal policy levers in poor condition and necessarily restrained, the only way to achieve growth targets was with structural reform which, in Australia’s case, would be informed by the findings of the Commission of Audit.
“We received a massive report to the government, we have to carefully consider the details,” he said. “We will release it in good time before the budget on May 13 and everyone will see it in its very raw form.”
Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce made the case on Sky News’s Australian Agenda for economic longevity on the back of trade deals but remained lukewarm about the Coalition’s trade deal with Japan, announced last week.
“I’m happy it’s come to a conclusion — I think we’ve done very well. I’ve got to call it for what it is,” he said.
“There were always going to be areas where you couldn’t tick every box. Rice, dairy, sugar. But in the end what do you do?”
But Mr Joyce said threats by the Greens to block the trade deal in the Senate were “typical”.
“The Greens will come up with a sideline distraction which will cause us immense damage in its public ventilation while they sit in manic monkey cafe of inner suburban Bananaville,” he said.
He also tempered the Prime Minister’s new-found enthusiasm for Chinese state-owned enterprises, after Mr Abbott made it clear he was willing to adjust investment rules.
“There is a natural caution and I think it will remain that SOEs are by their very nature elements of the state and it comes with a diplomatic side to it as well,” he said.
“SOEs, I acknowledge, are overwhelmingly driven by commercial principles, but sitting behind them there is a state purpose.”
Mr Joyce backed the Treasurer in the need for significant pain in the budget.
“The problems we have in this nation will change people’s lives if we don’t turn this around,” he said.
“We must turn this around. We should have turned this around back in 2009 when these other clowns were going crazy with the credit card. It needs deliberate action and it needs it now.”