Yuyutsu,
Why do you live in Australia?

Yuyutsu,
When today's old age pensioners were young, they paid for the old then just as the younger now pay for us & the younger after you will pay for yours.
In basic English it's called future investment. It smacks of utter ignorance if not right-out stupidity to claim that the the old age pensioners are on welfare. Welfare is what many of today's young are on for not wanting to work i.e. getting paid for not contributing anything.
Let's have you pay taxes & levies etc for 50+ years & then say you don't feel eligible for the old age pension.
You'd need to be a total moron, stupid beyond all imagination not to understand ! If you think your taxes are wasted you're partially correct because they're wasted on people such as yourself by the looks of it !

People have lost jobs. Businesses have shut down, many for good, thanks to the Covid hysteria. But part-pensioners have also suffered, for the second time during the current Coalition regime, the first time when Morrison was Treasurer, and the fabulously wealthy Malcolm Turnbull was PM.

This time, the Morrison government decided that part pensioners needed to 'preserve' their assets - i.e. the savings pensioners managed to scrape together and the funds that (rightly) preclude them from a full pension. The 'brilliant' forecast was that the stock market would plunge.

What the government did was to halve the minimum payout that the self-funded private funds were paying out each month. Thus doing the savers a 'good turn' - supposedly.

The problem was that the forecasters got it wrong - again - and the stock market boomed, meaning increasing assets, and an almost weekly reduction in the Age Pension, without any increase from the private funds. The situation remains the same today. Inhumane and insane.

Couldn't expect the knowalls, ageists, smartarses and pensioner-haters to be aware of that, of course.

Dear Is Mise,

«Why do you live in Australia?»

Well I had to park my body somewhere and other places had even more oppressive regimes.

One thing for certain - I have not come here to steal from or rob anyone.

---

Dear Individual,

«When today's old age pensioners were young, they paid for the old then»

It is wonderful to support vulnerable others, it has much merit, nothing wrong about it.
I never said that they should not have paid what they paid,
only that it is shameful to accept moneys that were taken from others without their consent.

«just as the younger now pay for us & the younger after you will pay for yours.»

They won't.
I pay for myself and will never accept such payments that were taken from others by force. When I no longer have the funds to support myself then it is my time to die.

«In basic English it's called future investment.»

When you invest, the onus to return the fruits of your investment is on the one(s) you handed your investment to - not on innocent others who were not involved, who in fact were not even born at the time.

«right-out stupidity to claim that the the old age pensioners are on welfare.»

I made no such claims.
I noticed that this is not the first time, that you seem to have this tendency to read your own thoughts rather than what I have actually written.

«Let's have you pay taxes & levies etc for 50+ years & then say you don't feel eligible for the old age pension.»

I have not even mentioned the word 'eligible'.
There is no dispute that older people with insufficient funds of their own are eligible for aged pensions.
But "eligible" does not mean "obliged" - actually accepting the offered pension is a right, not a duty!

Yuyutsu,
How do you feel about flood relief, bushfire and drought, aren't the recipients of those in the same category as pensioners?

Dear Is Mise,

Unfortunately, anyone who chooses to accept benefits of money taken from others without consent, is in the same category.
To avoid being in that category myself, I refrained from applying for several government refunds that I was "entitled" to.

So long as government payments are tainted by such money, those of us who value their moral integrity may only seek relief payments from charities, family, friends and insurance companies.

With some goodwill, this situation could be corrected by making personal taxes voluntary.
I have given it much thought and believe that it can be done, had government listened to me, in a manner that would cause practically no loss of revenue.