This is typical of the way Labor regimes operate. In 1983 one of the last initiatives of the Fraser government was a scheme to induce employers to employ persons over 45 years by a supplement to do so. Guess what? As soon as the team of Hawke and Keating came into office they scrapped it. So Gillard is just following the lead of her mentors of the 1980's.

The problems as I see them are multiple. First problem is, I believe, providers.
The middle men employment agencies that allegedly retrain older workers, to make them job ready for a new career.
To date their record of retraining seems superficial and largely ineffective; and, their record of placing mature workers is patently abysmal, with one or two stand-out exceptions.
Most of the allocated money, seems to have wound up in such hands, minus any serious long term results?
The other factor are young Turk employers, who simply see older folk as less desirable, for a whole host of clearly misplaced and less than cogent reasons.
And the corporate bosses seem to be getter younger and younger, with lots of university qualifications, but little real world experience; and it would seem, a grab bag of personal prejudices, particularly where older wiser heads are involved!?
If there were no payroll tax applicable to all workers over 55, then maybe more of them would be retained or re-employed!
And if that's not enough, why not give the employer a sliding scale tax break, that improves with the percentage of older folk employed or retained.
That's where Govt employment subsidies ought to be redirected!
Rhrosty.

I think we 'older persons' must also take a positive hand in retraining Industry and society.
At 40, having trained in Health and Tourism, worked in retail and farm hand as circumstances varied, I stopped paid work for two years, laboring on our owner/builder home.
At 42 I fronted govt employment office to start paid work again. Brash young man looked me up and down and clearly announced I had no chance at anything as I was "too old". It was the heady years of the 18 year old vote and the "young turks and womens lib" but I was devastated and deflated and felt wiped out.
I found a newspaper Ad 'selling encyclopaedia' job, and THAT FOOLISH YOUNG MAN STARTED A LEARNING CURVE as I returned to haunt him each time I progressed to other jobs and industries hilited by a fascination 4+ year stint in various aspects of Market research, where flexible hours suited my then single parent status and almost 14 years as Office/IT Operations manager for a transport Company until legal retirement age.

The young man and I became better friends as he realised the error of his ways and his early suffering and embarrassment was a valuable lesson to all the staff in that Government employment office.

It is important that we 'oldies' stand up and believe in ourselves as mostly we have a huge experience. Often older men & women dont realise in life they have accumulated experience from sport, hobbies as well as their paid work so sell this experience to workplaces. It does not matter what the job you take, be flexible, your next employer will look at you differently if you are in a job.