With talk of cashless welfare payments being the go for some welfare recipients as a way to control waste and misuse, there has been little effort to control the huge amount paid out in Aged Pensions and related welfare.
The estimate for welfare expenditure in 2019/20 is $192 billion of which $51 billion will be go towards Aged Pension payments, this is expected to mushroom to $72 billion by 2025/26. Such levels of growth in Aged Pensions is unsustainable in the long term. With Australians living longer and being healthier than in the past some steps need to be taken to curb the Aged Pension outlay. At present it is proposed that the eligibility age be increased from 65 to 67 for those born after 31st December 1956. This will be achieved by indexing the eligibility age by six months every two years, with no plan to extend it beyond 67. To fast track the age increase an index of six months per year would be ideal with no set end age, eventually seeing the eligibility age go beyond 70 and even 75. The second economy I see is the progressive removal of most cash payments, being replaced with food stamps and vouchers. With so many healthy old people on the pension a 'Seniors National Service' scheme is in order, where there is a requirement of a minimum of 20 hours work per week for those that can do a little, just a bit of weeding here, a dab of painting there, nothing too strenuous. A payment of $2/hr for work performed as a bonus on top of the $20 pension payment on the cashless debit card would be ideal (no alcohol, no gambling, no drugs of any kind). The PBS and other subsidies given need to be reduced or removed. As many aged pensioners are cash poor, but asset rich (home ownership) that also needs to be looked into as a method of cost saving. This should all be voluntary, and those who wish to opt out and support themselves should be able to do so.

Big Green Man, sour grapes because he can't get the pension. Greens just hate old people. Raising the eligibility age to 67 is not 'proposed' it is fact - already applying. If the public hadn't kicked up, it would have been 70. The Green Handbook, from which this screed was copied, is out of date: and as nasty and anti-social as the Green authors of it.

ttbn, with your conservative politics I thought you would be the first to embrace anything that would reduce the nanny state, save government expenditure for the taxpayer, and make people more self reliant. I bet like many of the Usual Suspects on the Forum you are an aged pensioner.

BTW how's it going with your 'Great White Hope', Corny Banana and the much touted Australian Conservative Party, my stuff should be right, far right out of their handbook, don't you think. Did they give you a refund on your membership?

Paul,

When you hit seventy, let us know how you're going on your $ 2/hour compulsory work scheme. Nothing huge, only twenty hours a week. Rain or shine.

Oh, I forgot, you'll be on a generous superannuation scheme. Yeah, bugger all those other old bastards. Let them weed the environmentally-friendly gardens of their betters in the inner-city.

Joe

Dear Paul,

Quite the opposite: the age-pension age ought to be reduced to 18 and be unconditional - this is called UBI (Universal Basic Income).

This should be funded by taxing income from the first dollar, cutting drastically on "public servants", their salaries and entitlements, and removing all other forms of state-welfare.

I am saying this, Paul, despite the fact that I would personally be severely disadvantaged, as I am unwilling to accept even one cent of government's tax-payer money under any circumstance.

Older people are already volunteering quite a bit and so it should be. With their extended experience they know better which activities actually help real others and which are in fact useless and even harmful. One who does not need income to survive, would never take up a job that is useless or harmful, but only do things that are good, that actually contribute. We should try to lessen as much as possible this unhealthy knot that connects between meeting one's basic necessities and work/slavery.

I am also terribly concerned about such suggestions to remove cash and replace it by electronic surveillance. We should rather get our life simplified and less dependent on electronic devices. Electronic payments also support big corporations and inhibit human-to-human live transactions in outdoor markets and the like.

A much easier way of reducing the huge costs of pensions would be to put the hundreds of thousands of ex bureaucrats, commonwealth, state & local government on the age pension, & cut the cost of them being on many times the age pension. After all since the ratbag Whitlam, they have been on ridiculously high wages, so there is no reason to over pay them after they retire.