Scott Morrison plays down Josh Frydenberg is pushing older Australians to ‘work until you drop’

Scott Morrison has played down suggestions Josh Frydenberg was pushing older Australians to ‘work until you drop’.

PM Scott Morrison and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg. Picture: Kym Smith

Scott Morrison has played down claims Josh Frydenberg was pushing older Australians to “work until you drop”, declaring his government would back people making “the choices they want to make” as they age.

The Prime Minister said there was nothing wrong with his Treasurer calling for greater efforts to retrain older Australians to keep them in the workforce longer.

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“What Josh Frydenberg has simply said is that we want people to have more opportunities in the future about how they participate in the economy. What they want to do is up to them,” Mr Morrison said.

“And we’ve got an ageing population in Australia, and I think people living longer, being more healthy, having more options, is a good thing.

“It’s a good thing for them. It’s a good thing for our economy. And we want to have policies at federal and state levels that support people and the choices that they want to make as they age.”

Labor and some seniors’ groups have criticised a speech Mr Frydenberg made on Tuesday night, as he declared the ageing population was having an impact on the budget.

“With Australians in work currently undertaking 80 per cent of their training before the age of 21, this will have to change if we want to continue to see more Australians stay engaged in work for longer,” Mr Frydenberg said.

Opposition Treasury spokesman Jim Chalmers said Mr Frydenberg wanted Australians to “work until you drop”.

“This is a government that tried to increase the pension age to 70 and cut the pension. They’re attacking superannuation now,” Dr Chalmers said.

“People are rightly saying ‘hang on a minute, we’ve got almost two million Australians wanting to work or more work, when there’s been a 45 per cent increase in the number of people over 55 years old on Newstart, and when training has been gutted, how are we going to deliver on what the Treasurer is talking about’?”