Continuing in the same vein as the previous post, the unions are protesting a two year delay in the aged pension as announced in the recent federal budget,
The Federal Government is facing a protest from two of the country's biggest blue-collar unions against its plans to raise the pension age to 67 by 2023.
The Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) and the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) say it is unpalatable to expect people in arduous jobs to work to that age.
The pension age increase was announced in the Federal Budget and unions say they will fight the decision.
Is anyone surprised? Union officials deciding to fight a measure that will delay their opportunity to feast at the public trough by two years. That's expected though and isn't the real issue here: government and the pension itself. The two year delay is a classic knee-jerk response to the looming old-age crisis and while the government can claim it's a "responsible reform to meet the challenge of an ageing population and the economic impact it will have for all Australians" until the cows come home, it's a policy that will, at best, keep the system running for a few years longer. Unfortunately it does nothing to address the real problem: artificial disincentives to work and save and a heavier reliance on the welfare state.
Why does the government feel the 'need' to get involved in welfare? Quite simply because they created the 'need' to. While in the past family, markets, mutual aid, charity, and work (savings) were ways people provided for themselves, the lure and security of the trough has removed or severely diminished most of those. The whole thing is just one big contradiction: on the one hand, government forces companies and individuals to contribute to a super fund, bemoaning a lack of savings and the looming crisis, while on the other hand they're firmly committed to a policy which continuously diminishes the purchasing power of the dollar! While hypocritically pretending to fight inflation, they encourage massive amounts of credit expansion and constantly increase the amount of money in circulation. There is simply no incentive for the average Joe to save when the government will simply inflate it away (and psychologically obscure this danger with the 'security' of a pension).
Old-age security is too important to be left in the hands of the state but the first step to fixing it isn't to simply delay the pension age. The solution is to bring back incentives to save, cease debasing the dollar and put some responsibility back into the hands of the people. The unions can fight for the pension all they like, but if by the time they hit 65 or 67 it's worth considerably less (as far as purchasing power goes) and reduces them to near-poverty, they might find that the old-age 'security' the state provides them and unions 'won' for them isn't so secure after all.
