Lift aged pension to 70: Productivity CommissionBY ALEX DUNNIN | FRIDAY, 22 NOV 2013 12:00PMWith Australia's population on track to reach 38 million by 2060, the Productivity Commission has released a research paper that warns now is the time to plan the policy responses that will be needed to cope with these demographic and economic changes. Related News |
Editor's Choice
TCorp reorganises investment team
|In pursuit of a new operating structure and "simpler portfolio environment", TCorp has created four new investment roles and will farewell its head of portfolio construction and head of portfolio delivery.
Major themes to watch in the ETF space
|Speaking at the inaugural Future Investing Forum, experts shared their thoughts on what to expect from the ETF market over the next 12 months.
UK forewarns Australia on wholesale test changes
|After recently backflipping on changing its high-net-worth investor (HNWI) tests, the UK serves as a cautionary tale for Australia as it mulls overhauling its own wholesale investor thresholds.
Jim Lamborn retires from JANA
|Jim Lamborn has retired from the asset consultant after more than two decades on its leadership team.
Products
Featured Profile
Matt Gaden
HEAD OF AUSTRALIA
JANUS HENDERSON INVESTORS (AUSTRALIA) LIMITED
JANUS HENDERSON INVESTORS (AUSTRALIA) LIMITED
Helping investors traverse financial markets and build their wealth during the peaks and troughs is Janus Henderson Investors head of Australia Matt Gaden's game plan. He tells Karren Vergara why in this long game of investing, active management wins.
This cannot be a 'considered' policy change that will be effective in maintaining employees in full employ across the full spectrum of industries in Australia. As an example, I started my working life as an apprentice electrical fitter in 1962 at the age of 16. This year, I turned 67.
In 1962, the electronics technology of the day included vacuum tubes (valves), gas tubes (Thyratrons) and selenium plate rectifiers. The common variable speed drive was the Ward-Leonard DC motor-generator system. We hadn't heard of any silicon semiconductors such as diodes, transistors or thyristors.
Microprocessors? Get real! If anyone had suggested that one day a small box the size of my lunch box would control a locomotive, elevator or a mining shovel and replace a control panel the size of a Toyota minibus, he would have been labelled a wa*ker!
How many employers today are looking for tradesmen with my grounding in those old technologies? None. We have experienced massive and rapid shifts in technology, so much so that our technical education system struggles to keep apace.
The old adage 'resistance to change is directly proportional to length of service' is so true and all employers know this. Any tradesman starting out in a technical role today, has to be cognisant that todays technology will rapidly disappear and be replaced with ever more complex systems. In my time, the changes were slow at first but rapidly accelerated during the 90's.
Today's tradesmen will not have the slow change I experienced to contend with and i suspect that by age 40, they will be struggling and find themselves resisting change due to brain saturation. Will they be kept fully employed to the age of 70? No way.
This policy proposal is simply a proposal to reduce Government expenditure.
This contribution was not submitted by Iphone, Ipad or Dalek (sorry, android) technology.