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Andrew McKellar interview with Edwina Bartholomew, host, Sunrise on Seven
08 Dec 2021 | Transcript
Event: Andrew McKellar interview with Edwina Bartholomew, host, Sunrise on Seven
Speakers: Edwina Bartholomew, host, Sunrise on Seven; Andrew McKellar, chief executive Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry
Date: 8 December 2021
Topics: Aged pension income threshold increase, skills and training, skill and labour shortages.
E&OE
Edwina Bartholomew, host, Sunrise on Seven: The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry is today calling on the Federal Treasurer to raise the threshold for working pensioners, so that more will be interested in entering the workforce. It comes as the country is in the middle of one of the worst worker shortages in over two decades. And for more, I’m joined by Andrew Mackellar from the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Morning to you, Andrew. What are the current barriers holding retirees back from working?
Andrew McKellar, chief executive Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry: One of the issues that we face at the moment is that if you are on the pension, then you can earn a little bit more income. But once you get above $480 a fortnight, then the pension starts to get cut back quite severely. For every extra dollar that you earn, you lose $50. And so that’s a very severe penalty in the current arrangements, but we know that many pensioners actually want to come back into the workforce, maybe work two days, three days a week. If you can change those arrangements, if you can lift that threshold, it’ll make a huge difference. It’ll be much more attractive for those people to come back into the workforce and we need them at the moment.
Edwina: Plenty of employers crying out for staff, plenty of pensioners want to be involved. So what is the change that could be made today to make this happen?
Andrew: Well, as I say, if we increase that threshold so that you can start to earn a bit more income above $480 a fortnight, really two or three days a week of work at the moment, pensioners are really restricted to not being able to do much more than one day a week. That’s not enough. There are many people who do want to work more and at the moment in the Australian economy, business needs those people to come back into the workforce. We’ve got one of the most severe labour shortages that we’ve had in about two decades.
Edwina: And of course, they’re contributing so much to the workforce from all those years of experience. Aren’t they?
Andrew: Oh, look, absolutely. I mean these are some of the most experienced people that we have. So to encourage them to come back in I think is a huge boost in terms of the skills that we need at the moment. Those people, in many cases, we know there are tens of thousands of people. They’ve taken the decision to retire. They’re on the pension, but then they have a look at their arrangements and they think they’ve still got something to contribute. So look, we want to see this as part of the solution. We think it’s a very effective measure. All of the state and territory and the national chamber of commerce have joined together to make this representation to the Australian government to ask them to think this through.
Edwina: One small change, going to make a big difference. Thank you so much for your time this morning, Andrew.
Andrew: Thank you.
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