ABC Far North | Ian Henschke Interview

Hosted by Adam Stephen courtesy of ABC Far North.

So, how does that actually, how does anyone lose out? Is that situation? So if you’ve got the likes of debt, if you’ve got the likes of the Chambers of Commerce and Gina Rinehart suddenly saying that they support this, do you think it’s a realistic proposition in an election year?

Well, it’s a number one priority. National seniors make it a number one priority in their budgets and mission which will go into the treasury at the end of this week. So they can respond how they see fit. The Labour party will also get a copy of our budget submission and they can respond how they see fit. I see it as Incheon a tax. Basically, it’s a tax on pensioners who work. Because when you take away, the person’s pension and for after they’ve worked for one day, and you only give them this bonus of one day’s work, you are sending a signal an economic signal to someone to say look we like you to work but only work one day because if you work more than one day we’re going to take away your pension.

So it’s a bit like, you know, how we had this philosophy in Australia. We give people let people have a go well, we just have a go. At the pension, if they do have to go. So, it’s a question of how you see the pensions the question of how you see, older Australians. It’s a question of how you see work.

Now, if the New Zealanders can do it and make it work successfully, so they have twenty-four per cent of their over 65’s working happily productive in the workforce and we have got 2.9% of our pensioners working. We’ve got something wrong. The whole thing. even if you add up all the people, the working in Australia, still only got 14% of the over 65’s working. You’ve got, a massive group of people who could be working, and in New Zealand, they are working.

So why don’t we do it right? And actually, you’ve made the case quite clear today. I’m interested in what our listeners think about whether something like this would actually allow them to help but a time of a critical Nation skill-shortage so I put the call out to the listeners. Now, thanks for giving us an overview of what the key priorities here for National Seniors. No worries. Look, I think you’ll find that most people think this is a no-brainer that requires some political will and some political directions will actually change it.

So let’s hope that when they come around and ask people what they want for, the elections is one of the things on their wish list. Ian Henschke is Chief Advocate with National Seniors. He’s been with us on Drive across Regional Queensland. So you finding it. Prohibited at the moment, the current state of play. Would you work more? If you’re over 65, if you weren’t tax, so heavily for those extra days. How do you think you could contribute to the Nationwide skill shortage?