The Down Under Lounge

[Miss Chicken]

ShelterBox provides emergency aid to people who are homeless due to natural disaster or conflict.

A ShelterBox consists of a large hard plastic box in which there is a tent that can be used by up to ten people. Other equipment in each box can include ground sheets, water purifying equipment, a small portable stove, tools (saw, hammer etc), mosquito nets, washing line, containers for water, pots, plates , colouring books and pencils for children etc. Each family receives a certificate stating that they own the tent.

So far boxes that I have partially funded have gone to North Korea (typhoon), Bolivia (flooding) and the last three to Iraq for families fleeing from ISIL.

Video - http://youtu.be/nyM_sk8tjEo

 

[Botany Bay]

A late happy birthday from me as well.

Well Tony Abbott may well survive the week yet.

Latest Fairfax poll :
2PP ALP 51 COAL 49
PV ALP 36 COAL 42

Wow.

People like what they're hearing from Abbott on national security?

The prospect of Bill Shorten PM has focused minds?

The punters have basically factored in Turnbull as PM?

Interesting one, for sure.

 

[Australis]

They must get some right idiots doing these polls.

 

[Marc]

A late happy birthday from me as well.

Well Tony Abbott may well survive the week yet.

Latest Fairfax poll :
2PP ALP 51 COAL 49
PV ALP 36 COAL 42

Wow.

People like what they're hearing from Abbott on national security?

The prospect of Bill Shorten PM has focused minds?

The punters have basically factored in Turnbull as PM?

Interesting one, for sure.

there's probably the some impact from the the terrorism related bullshit that's flowing out of the government (and we all know the conservatives love a good scare campaign to boost their support, just wish people would wake up to it), Then there's Abbott's "efforts" to saved the two dickheads from the Indonesian firing squad (aided by the some crap reporting from news limited with the latest garbage saying it will take them 6mins to die).

Shorten's continued MIA isn't helping but the researchears at IPSOS do believe that the voters have are factoring the replacemenbt of Abbott by Turnbull.

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/nat...more-time-20150301-13s0ox.html?skin=text-only

Abbott shouldn't read too much into things though - Rudd was in a better polling position when he was dumped (Labor still lead in the polls but his approval rating had slumped).

The other thing will be whether this is reflected in other polls. News Poll was out last monday and it show some improvement in the government's standing but it still was trailling badly. (primary was tied but Labor still lead 53/47 on 2pp, Abbott's job satisfaction was 25%, his disatisfaction tied with Gillard at 68% for second worst on newspoll record and Shorten lead as preferred p.m 43/55).

 

[Australis]

I'll work 'til I'm 75... if Joe Hockey does.

 

[Miss Chicken]

A group of female protestors, 'dressed' as men, have tried to sneak into the LNP International Women's Day event which is, as one would expext of the LNP, is being held in a Men Only club.

Link to the story and photo of the disguises below

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2015/03/06/female-protesters-dressed-men-try-crash-lnp-event

 

[jaz'a]

I don't get the fuss about increasing the working age.

When the age pension was first nationalised the pension age was 65 and life expectancy 55. Prior, under the states, life expectancy was 50 for the early providers. (Granted, expectancy for a 15 year old was 64).

In the 70's the age of retirement was still 65. Average age of death was 70. 65 was old.

Today the average age of death is 84. That is only going to increase. The idea of retiring at 65 and having 2 decades of retirement seems ridiculous to me. This is doubly true for those who don't have enough super accumulated to support themselves - expecting the younger generation to support them for 20 years is unreasonable and something they didn't have to do for the generation before them.

I work with people in their 60's. They're not old. None of my family in their 60's are old. None of my friends in their 60's are old. They're all physically and mentally with it and fully capable of working. Every person I know in that age group that can't work have reasons other than just "I'm old".

I agree with Hockey. Increase the age of retirement. Retirement as we know it is a new invention and it's one that as a society we can't afford. If someone can afford to retire before then, good for them. I see that as no different as someone who is rich been able to retire at 45 now. Sure it sucks for those of us that can't but that's life. Life isn't fair. Suck it up.

I'd actually go further. Increase the age at which people can draw down on their super as well. It's one of those issues that actually makes me reconsider my voting practice. Economically it just makes sense. At the moment the Liberals want to do enough damage to other areas that I'm not willing to do so yet but I wouldn't be surprised if it changed in the future if it remains solely a Liberal policy. As unpopular as it is, I don't think this issue is going to go away and eventually both parties will have to support it. At least I hope so.

If someone is unable to work then they can "retire". That is no different to the situation now however where if someone is unable to work at 45 they can access either the pension or their super early, depending on their circumstances.

 

[Miss Chicken]

The problem with it is that even though Australians are living longer they are still aging just as early i.e. they are still getting the diseases of age at the same age as their parents did.

Is it really fair that a manual worker with osteoarthritis should have to continue to work to a greater age than someone with the same condition has in the past?

The government has made it much harder to get the disability pension for arthritis so it is unlikely these people will be able to go on DSP at 65.

I am grateful I was able to get DSP before the new charts came in.

 

[Botany Bay]

The IGR is confronting stuff, and, I agree that the main headline is nothing we didn't really already know : if you are under 40, and want to retire you better get cracking on financing it yourself. The commonwealth is unlikely to be able to help, swamped by health care costs, and interest payments on debt. The report also makes some very rosy, and unlikely assumptions about economic growth. The onus is firmly on us to balance the budget now before the pressures of the ageing population make it an impossibility and the debt pile blows out to an eye watering $2.6 trillion...yes...TRILLION, by 2055.

I'm with Hockey so far, but where he loses me is his breezy suggestion that Australians will have three careers and work jnto their 80's. Sorry, Joe, but there needs to be serious attitude changes in the Australian workforce for this to happen. The prevailing culture here is that if you're not on the management path by 35, you're dead wood. I attempted a career change last year, and applied for over fifty graduate positions as a thirty five year old. I got two interviews. It is very, very difficult to change careers in this country, and I can only imagine what it would be like for a fifty year old. Not all manual labourers and executives want to switch to a career shelving at Bunnings or JB Hi Fi, which appear to be Hockey's solution.

Massive cultural change is needed regarding mature aged workers and the contribution they can make, and the IGR shows it needs to happen fast.

 

[Australis]

I agree with Hockey. Increase the age of retirement. Retirement as we know it is a new invention and it's one that as a society we can't afford.

No.
No.
No.
No.
No.

And Hockey's a prick. Will he be working to 70?
No.

 

[Botany Bay]

Hockey is a multi millionare. He needn't be working now. And, if his colleagues have any say in it, early retirement beckons. Only Abbott's loyalty keeps Joe where he is.

It's misplaced. I have nothing against Hockey personally, but even hardcore Libs will tell you he's been dreadful as Treasurer. More than ever, we need someone with the ability to tell the economic story in easy to understand terms. Someone with authority. Joe lost his a long time ago.

Retirement is still an option, but, as I said, you will need to fund it yourself. Get as much into super as you can, if you can, would be a pretty good strategy for most people, but a chat with a financial planner is probably a good idea.

I'm not in that category. I have young kids and need to work...for a long time!

So what do we need to keep Australians working longer?
We need :
Ease of access to training to new skills.
Labour mobility to get easy access to jobs.
Less immigration while the economy is stalled so employers are forced into looking at older Australians again.
Less red tape, and fewer impediments to employment (penalty rates, payroll taxes).

In other words, big, big changes across state and federal lines.

The nation really needs a Hawke style consensus PM to pull something like this off. Oh, and a treasurer with the skills to build a narrative like Keating wouldn't go astray either.

 

[Australis]

And one other thing: you need the jobs that older people can do. You can't be a tradie in your 60s and 70s. I knew a brickie who had bad arthritis in his late 40s and wouldn't have been able to have kept working much longer.

Those fucking multimillionaires telling us what's best for us. Fuck them. Fuck them royally.

 

[Miss Chicken]

Yes, people cannot continue working for 20 or more years if they have worsening arthritis.

My father had to retire at 49 because of his arthritis. For the next few years he managed on his investments and part time job as a bartender at his Masonic club. Mum continued to work until she got cancer when she was 58. Dad was awarded a DVA pension when he was about 60 because his heart condition was war related.

I got the first symptoms of early onset arthritis when I was about 30. It was bad enough for me to get DSP at 47. I tried to find part-time work for the first four years I was on DSP bUt I couldn't find anything suitable. I cannot imagine how bad my health would be if I was denied DSP (which many arthritis sufferers are now being refused) and I had to work to 70.

 

[Australis]

And employers aren't inclined to emply older people, it's just that simple. The Liberals just don't seem to get it. They dig up a few idiots who are willing to do a photo-op on the news saying "I want to work until I'm ooooold", and that's fine, but not everyone can, and not everyone will get in, and like some of the photo-op jobs, they're for trolley boys, checkout girls, counter-jumpers and barmen. I'd love to take away Uncle Joe's money and job for a year and see how he would like doing that kind of work. Arsehole.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Another factor is that a lot of people at retirement age are caring for grandchildren to give their kids a leg up economically. This is unpaid work that helps young couples maintain two incomes, save for a house deposit (increasingly difficult), helps the traditional carer of children keep her foot in the workforce so she has options in the future. And that's just one area, I know many retirees who do enormous amounts of volunteer work, every possible manner of things. There are many charities and support networks that would collapse if you booted everyone back into paid work until they are 75.

All of this is a vast unseen, unpaid productivity that contributes to society. Unseen and unvalued by politicians.

 

[Miss Chicken]

Good point, teacake.

After my mother survived her first cancer she used to do work in a nursing caring for residents' fingernails. It cheered the old ladies up to have their nails painted. Mum also knitted for charity.

Though I have done charity most of my life I am not really well enough to do it at the present. I hope that after I have spinal fusion I might be able to become more active and return to volunteer work.

 

[jaz'a]

Studies have shown that the things many of you are bringing up are actually not necessarily true.

Volunteer hours? Employment has been shown not to impact rate of volunteering.

Caring for grand children? On average, grandparents who are retired look after children at the same rate as grandparents who have jobs. If this an actual reason to retire, then my mother should have been able to retire at 42 (gotta love teenage pregnancies). Heaven knows, a 18 year old father needs more help raising his kids than a 29 year old father does. Yet nobody supports that. Why? Because she could still work. I see this issue as no different.

Impossible to find work? On average those over 55 spent an addition 4.5 weeks looking for work during 2013. 22 weeks as opposed to a national average of 17.5. Only 10% of people currently retired who have worked in the past 20 years did so because they were retrenched or made redundant (nothing on how many of those looked for work and didn't find it vs those who didn't bother). It's harder but if it was the issue people make it out to be those two figures would be much higher. If we have a cultural problem around hiring older workers then we need to address that not just put people who can work on a pension. I absolutely support having that conversation and working on that culture.

Unable to work? Disability. It has been made harder but if we need to change the requirements in response to increasing the retirement age, then lets address it directly.

Keep work? I couldn't find any statistics on the ABS site about involuntary unemployment by age. At the moment all I have is word of mouth and I'm highly sceptical of that. We tend to talk about the bad stuff and ignore the good stuff. I did find a few reports talking about unemployment. Gender, length of employment, type of work etc were all mentioned ... yet none of them highlighted that there was a significant difference based on age. Seems odd if it was as great as many make out. The only thing I could find is the figure I gave earlier that 10% of people who retired in the last 20 years did so because they were retenched or made redundant. That doesn't actually tell us anything about whether their rate of keeping work is different. I'd be interested if anyone actually has any better data than I could find on the ABS website.

None of these strike me as reasons not to raise the retirement age. Some are completely false and irrelevant (volunteering, caring for grand children). Others need to be addressed but they are not insurmountable.

As for Hockey not retiring at 70.... That just sounds like sour grapes to me. There will always be rich and poor. The rich have always been able to retire (or not work at all) earlier than the poor.

 

[jaz'a]

One concession I would be willing to give is still allowing people to access their super but not allow lump sum payments.

I say no to lump sum payments because we already have too many people who take a lump sum and then go onto the pension once they've done x/y/z. We're giving tax breaks for people to put money into their super so they can avoid going on the pension. Allowing lump sum payments completely undermines that.

That way those who wish to retire early and have the funds to do so can choose to support themselves in early retirement. This will take some out of the job market and reduce the numbers looking for work. It doesn't fix the cultural problems but it will help minimise the issue to some extent. Not perfect by any means.

Sure, it's still unfair. The rich will be more able to take advantage - or at least those who have had well paying jobs. I'm ruining things for myself here. Given I'm unlikely to marry, I am earning not much more than average and I have a chronic medical issue that severely impends me from getting something above an entry level job, I'm not going to have a lot of super. I expect I will be one of those who will end up working much later than others in my generation.

 

[Miss Chicken]

How about lowering the income/asset tests for the pension?

A couple with a family home plus $1,000,000 in other assets should not be getting a part pension.

 

[Miss Chicken]

Impossible to find work? On average those over 55 spent an addition 4.5 weeks looking for work during 2013. 22 weeks as opposed to a national average of 17.5.

I think what these figures overlook is how difficult it is for people who have worked in manual, trade or unskilled jobs to find work once they are not able to do the jobs they have been doing all their lives.

For a start some of these people have poor literacy skills and cannot just find a desk job.