These are round numbers.

At present our population is 22 million.

Of these, 11.5 million work.

Of these, 4.8 million pay less in taxes than they draw in benefits.

So effectively, our nation is being 'propped up' by less than 26% of the population, and that's why our government is grasping at straws in order to find a solution, and fast.

And remember, a fair percentage of today's workforce is (was) due to retire within five years.

So, the options appear to be.

The mining tax.
Now it has been suggested that 19 out of every 20 mining ventures fail. Now I doubt this would be how it is now, but can we cripple this industry who takes such large risks and employs so many, while leaving other big business, with much less risk and huge profits alone. Like the banks. After all, they outsource at every oportunity.

Increasing the workers age.
Many workers these day prefer to retire at age 55, collect their super and hit the road, while they are still young enough. Why shouldn't they! Changing the rules will stop them and is that fair?

Make super harder to get to.
There is talk about raising the age from 55 to 67 before one can access their super.

Now if these were contracts you had, Retire at 65, or, retire and collect your super at 55 and the other party broke those contracts, you could sue them.

So, where do the answers lie.

Now, before any of you labor puppets get on your high horse, I do not blame labor as it has been a steady decline for decades, however, we do have a very serious problem looming and something must be done, and fast.

We have already passed the point of no return, rehctub.

>>So, where do the answers lie... something must be done, and fast<<

What will happen is that we will eventually run out of steam, and have to revisit all our assumptions about "the workforce".

This is exactly what has happened in Greece, where the gradually increasing burden carried by the earners, compared with the takers, has culminated in all-round pain. The fact that is not a sustainable situation only became clear when the GFC acted as a circuit-breaker.

Ireland faces the same problem, only from a slightly different perspective. They enjoyed the boom for a while, ignoring the fact that it was largely artificial, in that it had been made possibly through massive EU subsidies, plus a raft of government tax incentives. Property prices went through the roof as the new money chased a shortage of supply, the supply side responded by speculative building on a massive scale, and once the plug was pulled... whammo.

We are building a similar scenario for ourselves here. We will keep digging stuff out of the ground, flog it at the highest price we can get, and live high on the hog for a while.

The chances of government - any government, that is - being asked by the people of Australia to think ahead more than one parliamentary cycle, is, regrettably, nil.

Let me demonstrate that last point.

Make a list of all the actions a government would need to take to store, or invest, sufficient of the wealth presently being created, to ensure the country's continued prosperity for, say, two more generations.

Then mark each one in terms of its ability to attract votes at an election.

QED.

Didn't the mime tax only apply to those who show a proffit of 50 million.
There is no forced retirement age. You can keep going till you drop on the job.
I enjoy my retirement thanks, and do around 20 hours a week work when i feel like it.
It's great when you own your home and owe no debt.
I drew my super 10 years ago and have not used a single dollar of it, then again i have not gained a dollar of it either. When it gets to big i spend some, like a new car every 5 years.
Retirement is easy for the people that have had to save for everything before you bye.
That will be the biggest downfall of those that live on credit, they will have to settle for poverty.

rehctub
All your suggestions turn on more government.

But there's lots we could do with lesser government. For example, if the income tax were abolished, the government's purse would be the same size it was under Keating. Can anyone really put their hand on their heart and declare that life has got so much better as result of more bureaucracy since then, that it's worth the income tax.

Here are some suggestions:
stop funding military action in Afghanistan, Iraq, and wherever else we've got troops;
stop giving handouts to corporations, and farmers
stop making employment illegal at the market rate; let people work if they want to;
stop licensing every occupation so it is now at the stage where you can't pull a beer in a pub, or work as a builder's labourer, or shoot roos, or engage in virtually any kind of productive activity, without asking the gracious permission, and paying tributes to goverment departments with their hand out
stop penalising employers for employing people. Income tax is a tax on the employees' income. Let the employee adminster it. Superannuation is the worker's retirement fund. Let the employee administer it.
stop funding ads on the television telling people how to live their lives.
stop running programs trying to engineer family life.
stop creating zillions of hectares of anti-farming, anti-mining preserves of noxious pests to satisfy people in St Ives
stop funding companies who profit from overseas trade commissions funded by government
stop handing out billions to corrupt tin-pot dictatorships
stop paying people to look after their own children
stop spending money on trying (without success) to prevent people taking drugs
stop regulating child care services out of existence, thus creating an artificial shortage of services, which they then subsidise...

stop regulating apprenticeships out of existence, thus creating an artificial shortage of apprenticeships, which they then subsidise
stop paying for R&D for farmers; they can pay for itself with the money saved from taxation
stop paying for government bureaucracies to collect reams of statistics, all of which are used to justify expansion fo bureaucracies
stop paying for radio and television stations to broadcast non-stop government propaganda - people can pay for the radio and televeision content they want with the money saved by taxation
stop requiring everyone to register their dogs, cattle and sheep with the government - what next? ferrets? rabbits?
stop regulating what bloody light-bulbs I can have in my own home
stop giving handouts to businesses - if people want their products, they can pay for them; and if they don't, the business has no right to a handout from the taxpayer.
Stop giving government employees flex time and salaries 30% above the private sector.
abolish politicians inflated superannuation, and life-time perks.

That's just for starters. Just go through the phone book and get rid of any governmental activity that stops people from doing what they want, subject to a general ban on force or fraud.

There is no easy answer to this, which is why the government will only
play around at the edges.
I think I heard the other day that the retirement age is to be lifted to 67.
Well that is what I call playing at the edges.
I believe that it will be necessary to cut out the pension to anyone
under about 75. Those between 67 and 75 that have already retired will
have to go back to work.

However finding work for these workers in a time of economic
contraction will be next to impossible. We probably have no more than
five years to work out what to do about it.
As food production will be under strain, it might well be possible
for the state government to set aside land on the outskirts of our
cities for horticultural farms that could employ the older workers.
They could have an entitlement to as much of the food as they can
carry away and their pension could be restored and paid for out of
the sale of produce.

All very draconian but that is where we are headed, so get used to it.