I am one of many older Australians striving to find work in a market that fails to recognise our invaluable experience and skills because of ageism. Regrettably, this is more than just an issue of finding employment - it broadly impacts health and our financial stability. Despite the progressive increase of life expectancy and quality of life for older Australians, the reality is we are expected to retire and live on pensions that were set at a time prior to AI and its impacts. 

Currently, the age of eligibility for the Age Pension in Australia is 66.5 years, and it's planned to incrementally increase to 67 by the year 2023 (Source: Department of Social Services, Australia). However, considering the contemporary improvements in health care and life expectancy, this system is now dauntingly obsolete and fails to serve its intended purpose. We need an urgent reevaluation and adjustment of the pension age which reflects the reality of older Australians, focusing on our needs, interests, and capabilities.

Adjusting the age pension back to a reasonable age for retirement and helping those that cannot find work will hopefully assist many who are homeless and facing poverty, we need to be able to access superannuation with the cost of living and the impacts on many of us who are not old enough to retire but still need to find employment this is becoming increasingly more difficult as jobs become more scarce. We need be able to access better funding. Changes to the pension were made at a time when jobs were in abundance cost of living was not through the roof and AI did not exist this has now changed and the pension age and access to superannuation needs to be reassessed. 

We call on the Prime Minister and cabinet ministers and the opposition and not for profit sector to back these changes and at least bring the pension age back to a reasonable age where continuing to work is still an option. Ageism is rife which makes it harder to find work many of us are facing homelessness because we cannot find secure employment.