Comment
COTA Budget submission on work issues
VERONICA SHEEN, COTA Australia deputy director, provides an overview of COTA’s Budget submission on workforce policies to the Federal Government.
The Government must act in the 2002 Budget to ensure that there is an improvement in the position of our mature age workers, now and for future generations. Individuals, employers and Australia as a whole, cannot afford the loss of skills and income caused by the premature loss of mature age people from the workforce.
COTA has asked the Government to increase its commitment to helping older people gain and retain jobs. This will help Australia’s economic situation at home and globally, and improve the wellbeing of older people.
We make seven recommendations for an integrated and targetted employment policy for Australia’s workforce. The main priority now is to improve the employment prospects for people over 50. A longer-term objective is to encourage people over the age of 65, health permitting, to remain in employment if they wish.
COTA recommends specialised services to ensure effective return to work strategies, including referral, advice, and assistance with job training and technology. These need to be accompanied by better income support policies for people over 50 that take account of their retirement income needs. In addition, we want speedy implementation of the Government’s election promise to enact Federal Age Discrimination legislation. The Mature Age Allowance should not be abolished as planned, until there is significant improvement in employment for people aged 60 and over.
COTA would also like Government support to establish an Ageing Workforce secretariat to ensure older workers are able to take up opportunities that are available in the workforce and to work with employers and employer groups to help them understand the importance of older workers to business. Finally, Australia needs a culture of education over the whole of life, which needs resourcing by Government.
Our recommendations fit with a number of the most important national agendas espoused by the Government, including:
• managing the challenges of the ageing population
• dealing with our competitiveness in global markets
• improving the social and economic participation in paid employment of people between the ages of 50 and 64.
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