Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s office employs 2000 people but only one is over retirement age
With just one person over the retirement age among the more than 2000 employees at the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Scott Morrison has conceded the government needs to boost the number of older Australians in the public service.
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While the federal government urges older Australians to keep on working to relieve pressure on the aged-care and pension systems, it can be revealed the Prime Minister’s own department of more than 2000 staff employs just one person over retirement age.
Amid soaring rates of unemployment and under-employment among older Australians, an investigation by The Daily Telegraph has also found Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has just four people over the age of 65 in his department of almost 1000 workers.
“This calls out ageism as it is,” National Seniors spokesman Ian Henschke said.
The government blames the lack of older workers in its top departments on a now-closed superannuation scheme that “financially penalised people if they didn’t retire at 55”.
“The government welcomes the experience older Australians provide for the Australian Public Service,” a spokesman for Prime Minister — and also Public Service Minister — Scott Morrison said on Sunday.
“We expect all departments to hire based on skill and to ensure its workforce reflects the diversity of the people they serve.”
In 2016 the Australian Human Rights Commission recommended the government “adopt sector-wide and agency-specific targets based on workforce data, build performance against these targets into performance management systems and report on progress annually to public service commissions and in annual reports” to help get more older Australians and people with disabilities into jobs.
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But when asked about its response to the recommendations, the government provided a link to its “inclusive recruitment” guidelines — which are solely about employing people with a disability — along with workplace its flexibility manual.
The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (PM&C) does not publish data on the number of older Australians it employs, nor does any part of the Commonwealth bureaucracy.
However, the department does track how many people of indeterminate sex are on its books and figures on those who “identify as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander”.
Labor’s Treasury spokesman Jim Chalmers said: “The Liberals talk a big game on jobs for seniors but they don’t walk the walk.”
The number of people aged over 65 who want a job but can’t get one shot up 17 per cent in the year to the end of September, new research shows. Underemployment leapt 27 per cent.
According to the author of that research, labour markets expert Conrad Liveris, older Australians are trying to earn more because they are short on savings.
“Think about the people who are 65 now — they didn’t have compulsory superannuation for their entire working life and it hasn’t always been at the (current) rate,” Mr Liveris said. “They are caught between a diminishing pension and a not-yet-fully-developed super scheme.”
Two weeks ago Mr Frydenberg triggered controversy when he said Australia’s ageing population was an economic time bomb.
But the Telegraph’s questions to Mr Frydenberg’s office for this story were referred to other parts of the government for a response.
The retirement age is being raised in stages from 65 to 67 by July 2023.
Today the PM was asked whether the Government – and specifically, the PM&C – should be doing more to employ older Australians.
Mr Morrison replied “yes”.
He did not expand on what more the government would consider doing.