Publications
Speech to the World Taxpayers Association & Taxpayers Australia Conference, 2004
OCCASIONAL PAPER
The interface between taxation and work has rightly become a central focus of policy debate.
Like most countries, Australia faces an ageing population with a declining ratio of working people to retired people. Amongst other things, the challenge is to ensure that the maximum number of people who can work do so, even if only part-time.
The average Australian baby-boomer, one of the most pampered age cohorts in human history, is fast approaching retirement age. On average,the boomers do not have enough savings to see them enjoy retirement at the standard to which they have become accustomed. Despite the lack of savings, most of them, I suggest, have the expectation that they can retire in luxury at 55 years of age. The public policy challenge will be not just to keep them in the workforce, but to limit the welfare transfers to them— something that governments have had little success in doing so far.