After a spate of stories about whether the pension could be targeted to find savings for the federal budget, Federal Age Discrimination Commissioner Susan Ryan had a radical suggestion. How about reducing the cost of the pension by keeping older people in the workforce, if they’d prefer to work longer? So we asked Ms Ryan for 10 practical ways we can cut the […]

Raising kids is an expensive business, especially if they don’t move out of home until they’re sprouting grey hairs themselves. But payback for these KIPPERS (Kids In Parents’ Pockets Eroding Retirement Savings) could be on the cards if Australia follows the lead of Germany, where children can be held liable for their parents’ healthcare if their parents can’t cover the […]

Should the full value of your family home be included in the age-pension asset test? That’s one of the options being considered by a Senate committee investigating cost-savings in the federal budget. The Business Council of Australia’s president, Tony Shepherd (pictured), who also chairs the committee established by the Abbott Government, submitted the proposal to scrap the long-standing exemption to […]

Should publicly-owned companies such as Australia Post, Medibank Private and electricity networks be sold off? Would consumers benefit? That’s been one of the hot topics of recent weeks after the competition watchdog suggested it in a newspaper interview about an upcoming federal government review of competition policy. “There is no doubt in my mind that energy prices, particularly in NSW and Queensland, […]

Fifty seems to be the magic number. I spent 50 years in advertising and something really funny happened from the time I turned 50, which was 22 years ago. Even when you work in the advertising business you have 20-year-olds doing television commercials that are best appealed to 30-year-olds. I had been more successful than anyone else in advertising in […]