Australia's growing population means ballooning aged care
Australia's population is expected to hit 40 million within 40 years and with it a ballooning aged care economy. The picture painted by the federal government's latest forecast of the decades ahead.
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00:00 Australia's future is looking grey.
00:05 Australia's population is ageing and that presents many challenges for the Australian
00:10 economy but with those challenges come opportunities.
00:14 The Government will this week release the latest intergenerational report, a regular
00:18 look into the national crystal ball at what the country might look like four decades from
00:23 now.
00:24 Our population will grow more slowly, our people will live longer and healthier lives
00:30 and our care economy will become an even more central focus in the decades ahead.
00:36 Australia's population is set to grow from roughly 26 million to more than 40 million
00:41 by 2062.
00:43 That's a slower pace than in decades past, with a lower fertility rate and migration
00:48 contributing less to population growth.
00:51 Australia will be older too, with twice as many people aged over 65 and three times as
00:57 many people aged over 85.
00:59 We have 30 more years of living than we had expected back in 1909 and we didn't actually
01:06 see longevity coming.
01:08 With those extra years comes extra cost, supporting a larger, older Australia.
01:14 I'm optimistic about the future but we need to adapt and understand the big challenges
01:21 which are underway in our economy and our society.
01:23 I do get a sense from the early reports of this intergenerational report that this is
01:30 essentially a Trojan horse for higher taxes.
01:33 This isn't the first time governments have warned of the challenges of an ageing population
01:38 and it comes with the usual invitation to hold what are called difficult conversations.
01:43 But when higher taxes come into play, the degree of difficulty really goes up and so
01:47 far Jim Chalmers has carefully avoided any endorsement of those.
01:51 [BLANK_AUDIO]