Your afternoon Briefing: Baby Boomer drain on economy revealed

Your 2-minute digest of the day’s top stories and must-reads.

Hello readers. The ageing population’s cost to the economy is revealed, and former politician, writer and intellectual Peter Coleman dies, aged 90.

Active senior couple with outdoors taking a break after some jogging

Baby Boomer drain on economy revealed

The quickening march of Baby Boomers into old age will cost the budget $36 billion by the end of the decade with a $9bn increase in the age pension alone — an economic anchor worse than Medicare and the NDIS, new figures show.

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The Leader of the Opposition, Bill Shorten during the launch of Labor's Climate Change Action Plan at ACTEWAGL Electric Car Charging Station in Canberra.He was joined by the Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Mark Butler, the Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Cities and Regional Development, Anthony Albanese, the Shadow Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, Kim Carr, the Shadow Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Pat Conroy and LaborÕs candidate for Canberra Alicia Payne. Picture Kym Smith

Shorten ‘won’t come clean on climate policy’

Bill Shorten is under fire for refusing to detail the cost of Labor’s new climate plan, which has been labelled “a new tax” on business. Keep up with all the latest in our live Budget week blog.

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Scaffolding collapse in Macquarie Park, Sydney. 1 April 2019. Picture: Seven News

Worker dies in site collapse

A worker has died and another has been critically injured after a large amount of scaffolding and concrete collapsed at a construction site in Sydney.

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Former Managing Director Michelle Guthrie, at the inquiry in Parliament House in Canberra.Inquiry on matters related to allegations of political interference in the ABC including the termination of the Managing Director Michelle Guthrie, conduct of the Chair and Board, and governance of the ABC at the Environment and Communications References Committee, Parliament House in Canberra. Picture Gary Ramage

Guthrie axing needs review

A parliamentary report into allegations of political interference in the ABC has recommended that the public broadcaster’s board review the events leading up to managing director Michelle Guthrie’s sacking in September and the subsequent fallout.

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Peter Coleman, has been nominated for distinguished service to the print media industry as a noted editor, journalist, biographer and author, to the Parliaments of Australia and New South Wales, and to the community. Picture: Craig Wilson

‘A truly great man of letter’

Former politician, writer and intellectual Peter Coleman has died at the age of 90. His son-in-law, former treasurer Peter Costello, paid tribute to him today as a “warrior for intellectual freedom”.