The problem of an ageing population has finally begun to ring alarm bells in Canberra and across Australia. With baby boomers ageing and looking to retire, the remaining workforce is starting to shrink. Coupled with a wave of internal migration by retirees to the sea causing great stress to regional and coastal councils, this issue has major implications for Local Government. To focus attention, the Australian Local Government Association (ALGA) recently released a discussion paper – An Older Australia: Identifying Areas for Local Government Action – to encourage debate on the issue.
An online discussion forum has also been developed where key questions are put forward about how Local Government can respond to demographic change. It also looks at identifying opportunities to meet challenges and start delivering results.
ALGA President, Mike Montgomery, said ageing Australia was a critical issue and he encouraged people to use the discussion forum to work through the issue.
“The first step is making people aware of the issue and the need to take action,” he said. “It will require enormous efforts of all three levels of government to start to address the issue.”
An ageing community extends from the large number of children born following the Second World War who are now reaching retirement age. This group, born 1945–1960, are now leaving the workforce – some voluntarily and some not. Many are not returning to any work or not able to find work.
There are not enough young people to replace this group. The end result will be fewer people in the workforce supporting a greater number of retirees or pensioners – a growing tax burden for all, and less funds for other needed services.
The Federal Government has signalled that it plans to encourage people to work longer but this is only one part of a deeper problem. Encouraging people to stay in the workforce past retirement age will only partly address the issues. Given that workers have had to work more flexible or longer hours, taken on new skills and do more with less over the past 20 years, it is not surprising that many will be looking forward to retirement with nothing short of glee.
The solution may be making the workplace more attractive and less stressful. Indeed, to address the ageing population may mean a complete shake up of how we work in Australia. At a bare minimum, employers are simply going to have to rethink their attitude to employees over the age of 50 years. Councillor Mike Montgomery said the ALGA had identified some further issues involved in an ageing population. He said there were other disturbing trends particularly for regional Australia.
“For younger Australians, the statistics are striking,” he said. “Young people aged 15 to 34 are almost three times more likely to earn more than $50,000 a year in the metropolitan regions compared to those who live in Australia’s lifestyle, rural or production zone regions.
“As a result, younger, skilled workers are leaving the disadvantaged regions for the core metropolitan areas. At the same time, older, less skilled workers are leaving the metropolitan regions for ‘lifestyle regions’, such as the New South Wales North Coast and Queensland.”
This aged migration phenomenon is partly a response to low incomes and weak employment opportunities for the over 55 age group in our inner cities. The impact of these changes is reflected in the number of people in coastal regions now on the Disability Support Pension (DSP).
The problem is likely to grow in the coming years. Demographer Bernard Salt, who is the author of The Big Shift and a partner with KPMG, said the number of people moving to coastal areas had risen to 69,000 in the year to June 2003 – an increase of seven per cent on the previous year.
“These new figures show that Australia’s love affair with the beach is still running hot and is likely to be with us for many years to come,” Bernard Salt said. “The percentage rate of population growth in coastal areas outside capital cities (1.8 per cent) was 50 per cent higher than the national average (1.2 per cent) during the year to June 2003.”
Bernard Salt said that the sea change areas were now emerging as major population centres. “The Gold Coast, for example, now has a larger population base than Canberra and the Sunshine Coast has replaced Hobart as the tenth largest urban centre in Australia,” he said.
He said the sea change shift was similarly evident in NSW, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and Western Australia.
Kelvin Spiller, CEO of Maroochy Council on the Sunshine Coast, said the new figures clearly showed the need for urgent action and a new approach to planning to avoid the long term degradation and possible failure of coastal communities around Australia. Kelvin Spiller is the convener of the Sea Change Task Force of high growth coastal councils, which was formed earlier this year to tackle the issue of rapid population and tourism growth in coastal areas.
“Unlike most outer suburban areas, the towns being targeted by ‘sea changers’ have been caught largely unprepared,” Kelvin Spiller. “They do not have sufficient embedded infrastructure, such as roads, water mains, sewerage and electricity, to cope with the growth in demand.”
For more details on the ALGA paper and discussion board contact Alley Peck, telephone (02) 6122 9421. For details on the Sea Change Task Group contact Executive Officer, Alan Stokes, on (02) 9908 2401.
