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Articles on Pensions

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Boxing clever? Osborne delivers. Andy Rain/EPA

Budget 2015: Experts respond

Instant reaction from academics as George Osborne delivers his post-election budget.
By targeting pensioners with savings with its latest budget measures, the government is incentivising them to spend, and spend big. Travel Cruise Fit/AAP

Why pensioners are cruising their way around budget changes

The government’s inconsistent approach to pensioners who save is distorting behaviour, but there is a solution.
For every $1000 of assets the pension will be reduced by $3 a fortnight, under changes proposed in the federal budget. AAP Image/Alan Porritt

Missed opportunities on coherent pension policy reform

The government has dropped plans to index age pensions to CPI and opted instead to tighten income and assets test. These are welcome changes but more needs to be done.
As expected, part-pensioners will be most affected by budget changes. AAP Image/Melanie Foster

Budget brief: will I lose my age pension?

Part-pensioner couples who own their own home and assets worth more than about A$800,000 are expected to lose their part-pension altogether, under proposals in the federal budget.
Social Services Minister Scott Morrison confirmed that the government has abandoned its 2014 budget plan to cut back the indexation of pensions. AAP/Lukas Coch

Government tightens pension assets test to save $2.4 billion

A crackdown on the pension assets test will save the budget A$2.4 billion over the forward estimates, the government says.
Shadow minister for families and payments Jenny Macklin at the launch of Labor’s pensions campaign. AAP/Lukas Coch

Pre-budget battle weapons – a slogan and a slide show

Playing the slogan game might degrade the political debate, but it worked alright for Tony Abbott – so now Bill Shorten’s launched into it ahead of the May budget. Labor has unveiled its “Mr Abbott. Don’t…
Forward planning is difficult when you don’t know how long you’ll be around for. Iakov Filimonov/shutterstock

The government’s new pension service has one fatal flaw

The UK government has launched its new Pension Wise service. The website is designed to help people understand their new pension freedoms that start from April this year. But it has a gaping hole at its…
A closer analysis of ‘generation war’ debates reveals that inequalities within generations remain far more significant than those between them. shutterstock

Generational war: a monster of our own making

The political debate over generational equity, which has been rekindled in the past week, now dominates discussions over wealth, government spending and fiscal sustainability. But a closer look at some…
Australia’s children and grandchildren will not enjoy the fruits of the country’s prosperity as much as their parents. Mate Marschalko/Flickr

Young Australians set to pay for government policy mistakes

Having enjoyed continuously increasing prosperity since the Second World War, Australians have come to expect that each generation will live a better life than the last. But this steady progress may be…
Who needs a pension pot when you could have a Lamborghini? EPA

The Queen’s speech leaves pensions in a royal muddle

Until his recent bizarre comments about people using their pensions to pay for Lamborghinis, Steve Webb was rightly regarded as one of the finest pensions ministers Britain has ever had, and one of the…
How well does the budget “share” the pain around and by what definitions of fairness? AAP/Lukas Coch

Defining what is meant by ‘fair’ in Hockey’s budget

Joe Hockey says that this budget shares the pain. But what is the right share for whom? This budget is like all the others – it lacks a compass that tells us the overall effect of government spending and…

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