Comment
A practical recipe for a better Australia
with Brian Shakes
I don’t have to tell you where we Australians are again in our electoral cycle. A cave or a tent in the desert might be the only places one could escape from the relentless pre-election media reporting!
At ARPA Over 50s we have made mature age employment, retirement incomes and the provision of various care services the focus of our policy push for the forthcoming Federal election.
We have found in the past that these pre-election weeks, as the various political parties seek policy input and ideas in the scramble to gain electoral advantage, are a fertile time for getting ideas out there where they can be heard and perhaps adopted.
In terms of mature employment policy we know there are now low levels of official or recorded unemployment, but that many people continue to experience a range of problems in getting back into the labour market. These include lack of preparation for the new labour market, specific skills gaps, particularly as they relate to information technology, employer discrimination and some difficulties with the interface between the taxation and social security systems for people doing part-time and contract work.
In the employment area, our recommendations cover appropriate skills training, but also include recommendations on training for mature people in how to take advantage of the opportunities that exist in the knowledge economy. We want training to be linked to work placement and other forms of hands-on work experience; we’ve seen too many people undertake training courses that are of little use because they have not been then tempered by workplace reality or genuinely incorporated into the trainee’s skills set through practice.
We are also pushing for support for mature age people wishing to start small and micro-businesses or pursue portfolio employment and would like the 2004 Federal Budget Mature Age Employment Package expanded.
Establishing mid-career and mid-life planning courses, like those popular in the United Kingdom, is another recommendation we think has considerable worth.
In terms of income support and taxation issues, we believe that there needs to be still more work done on reducing effective marginal tax rates for people wishing to work, who might be caught in a bind between the taxation and social security systems.
Retaining the 100 per cent asset test exemption for all complying pensions with an asset limit seems to us a sensible move, given that reducing the exemption is likely to reduce the income of some fairly vulnerable, low-income, self-funded retirees.
A related move we would like to see on behalf of the Government – and this is something we have regularly promoted – is changing the benchmark for the age pension from average male weekly earnings, to male total full-time weekly earnings. The growth in part-time, contract and casual work means, of course, that the average rate is now no longer an adequate measure of earnings.
Our desired policy outcomes in the health, community and aged care sectors would see the maintaining of Medicare, as well as of the 30 per cent rebate on private health insurance and the integrity of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. We would also see a better dental care system for people on low incomes, better support for those older people who wish to remain in their own homes and, not least, adequate funding to develop and maintain a high quality residential care system for those who are unable to remain at home.
You might say that’s quite a wish list. But to us, these are not wishes, but real measures to improve the lives of older Australians, their dependants, families and carers.
• Brian Shakes is chief executive officer ARPA Over 50s Association, 9650 6144.
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