Government's Experience+ program a fiasco - young to pay

The Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research's $20 million Investing in Experience (Skills Recognition & Training) program is under enrolled and has not been promoted. It's almost a philosophical problem. If a Government program exists but no one knows about it, does it really exist?

The $15.6 million Champions project, which aims to help employers prepare for the mass transition of the Boomers to retirement, is floundering as the Government launched it too late in the electoral cycle. Prime Minister Gillard's call for a September 14 poll has squibbed employer interest. The Government goes in to caretaker mode mid August and effectively shuts down. Why should employers sign up to a program that will be scrapped if and when the Coalition is elected?

Already we are seeing the first signs of intergenerational tension. Young house hunter Tom Whitty wrote in The Age 'Sick and tired of chasing dreams of finding a home' (April 5, 2013) that the Boomers ride on property prices over the last 30 years has killed off the dream of home ownership for many Generation Y's.

"On the one hand, you have young first home buyers who are somewhat naive, attempting to enter the housing market with huge mortgages without questioning why owning a modest home is near impossible in this city. On the other, you have an ageing population that needs to retire. If the value of their biggest asset goes up when they sell it to downsize, they have more dollars to fund their retirement."

According to the 2010 Intergenerational report, the proportion of working age people is projected to fall, with only 2.7 people of working age to support each Australian aged 65 years and over by 2050. In 1970 it was 7.5 people. Population growth will also slow over the next 40 years. Proportionately, fewer people will have to carry more of the tax load to pay for Boomer public healthcare needs and the majority of that will fall on the shoulders of Generation Y and their kids.

Young people have watched as the generations before them have been showered with one-off senior's payments, family payments, baby bonuses, tax-exemptions on family homes and superannuation tax breaks, while house prices have skyrocketed.

They rightly assumed that they'd earn these government entitlements too. While Australia will remain a strong trading nation, structural changes in the labour market, falling multifactor productivity and falling earnings will force future governments to reel in expenditure.

There is growing unrest amongst younger generations that they will be stuck with not only having to look after Mum and Dad or Grandpa and Grandma, but will be highly taxed to fund their pensions, pharmaceuticals and healthcare needs. So it's in everyone's interest to get the Boomers working and educated about financial literacy.

Back in 1992, Paul Keating introduced the superannuation guarantee in the foreknowledge that the ageing of the population would place pressure the Treasury budgets. It's unfortunate that the Gillard Government lacks the same wherewithal.