Another spectacularly callous piece in the seeming conveyor belt of work-till-you-drop articles emerging from the frontlines of the war on retirement.

Lawd! At this rate, articles about expected lifespans of 150 and raising the retirement age to 135 will be the norm!

And this latest article offering is written with all the empathy and insight of a man who is obviously comfortably well-off (entirely through his own hyper-worthiness and infinitely sound financial management, plus no doubt a professional's high salary and generous taxpayer funded superannuation), with heaps of stimulating time on his hands to sit on a bunch of corporate boards and write articles about raising the retirement-pension age.

With all that lovely, comfortable leisure in your post-working life, Everald, what better way to spend it than spruiking for a work-till-you drop retirement for all the people who are not as lucky or worthy or comfortable as you obviously are.

...A reality seldom mentioned on this subject, is the increasingly competitive jobs market. An obvious reason the older worker finds the going tough establishing a meaningful job, is his increasing un-competitiveness as he ages.

...Another stark reality is the effect of globalization and world price parity in the market generally: Already the housing market is priced out of reach to forward generations. The outcome of that single reality alone is a huge burden on the individual, as renting will be the norm into retirement, not the joy of home ownership; this is a crippling burden to foist onto any generation!

...The answer? Maybe a return to the institution of the "poor House" as an alternative to homelessness!

...Lucky Everald is to have achieved his currently comfortable situation at retirement age, but, by a comparison to Everard, the vast majority of workers will miss the boat, and find themselves increasingly sidelined from society as seventy creeps on!

...And the answer? Maybe a return to the institution of the "Poor House" as an alternative to homelessness for the aged!

"the longer one works, the longer one lives."

Surely alcohol is even better: it is proven that anyone who drinks to the age of 120 lives a very long life!

Whatever happened to “progress”?
I remember the sixties and working a 45 hour week. Then the 40 hour week became the norm, then the 38 hour week; one breadwinner could pay off a mortgage...
I take my hat off to Mr Compton, and wish him well. Sadly, what the overachievers who rule our lives consistently fail to appreciate is that very few people enjoy sweeping floors.
Nobody gets a buzz out of cleaning toilets.
Even the tradies who enjoy making and creating, building and producing can get heartily sick of it after 40 years, if their bodies last that long.
Farmers might enjoy their lifestyle, but in terms of hours worked for money gained, it's a mugs game; a young mugs game.
I fully agree that keeping older people active and interested is a life extender but the real challenge is fitting people into jobs and lifestyles they enjoy, then -like Mr Compton- retirement stops being an issue.
Progress must be about more than gadgets and tools; indeed it's the tools and “labour saving devices” which will most greatly destroy the Conservative view of the future (if they actually had one).
The techies predict within 15 years up to 80% of the jobs that older people can't get now will be done by robots.
Retire at 70? What are the boffins doing to get us ready for a time when the retirement age could be 40?
Perhaps Mr Compton should consider his God's words relating to material wealth and rampant consumerism, which neither the economy or the environment can any longer afford.

No. Most of the Boomers will only live to mid/late 70s. The women may live a few years longer. Age mortality is a projection. Not a fact. People born now may live well in to their 80s but that remains to be seen. Working longer for those who can is probably good. But not necessary if you have $500K in super.

The work longer/work until you drop is targeted entirely at poor people. It’s a fear campaign which the Gov should be ashamed of. Public sector debt is at 20 per cent of GDP and dropping. It is extraordinarily low. Even with downloads of aged pension and health spends, it won’t go much above 2 per cent of GDP. A lot, true, but it will hardly kill off the economy.

You’ve failed totally to discuss how age prejudice is traducing the 100,000 people 55+ who are looking for work. You also failed to compel DEEWR to act on older worker programs. That's half the reason why we're in this mess.

Surgeons can't work beyond their hand tremble, or failing eyesight, except where assisted by robotics.
Others cannot work beyond their crumbling bodies, particularly, those who come from post code poverty traps, and missed essential developmental nutrition; hence the bones start to crumble and collapse twenty-thirty years ahead of the norm!
And as others have noted, age discrimination is very much alive and well, among the always in a hurry, beautiful people.
Perhaps if we had a national emergency, that took all the young people away; we, those of us who remain physically and or mentally capable, could work for as long as we chose, with the later years being part time or casual?
But what then of the shrinking job market, and the need to continuously up-skill?
And to be fair, you can teach an old dog new tricks, it just takes longer!
And what do we then do, with a growing demographic of unemployed young! Wait until all the old people die?
If we had intelligent Leaders, we would have vastly reformed and simplified our tax grab and or, vastly reformed an unavoidable tax collection system; and accompanied that with the roll-out of very cheap energy provision and infrastructure, like very rapid rail, to (force feed), grow the economy!
And more than fast enough to absorb all of the unemployed!
Moreover, given a successful growth model, no longer reliant whatsoever on population growth, and as far out as the eye can see; endlessly sustainable.
Incredibly hard ask of pollies or their locked and bolted mindsets, only able to focus some 3 years out; and or, the treasury benches!
And one of the first reform outcomes, ought to allow a non contributory but compulsory 15% super, to be introduced as mandatory!
Then those who are able to exercise their preferred (self funded) choice, able to decide when to retire and accept a proscribed indexed pension from essentially, growing as far out as the eye can see, super funds!
Rhrosty.