AUSTRALIA: Live fast, die old and claw back every cent you paid in tax

. SYDNEY, NSW / The Australian / Opinion / June 10, 2009 The Wry Side By Stephen Matchett OLD age has always ended badly. But at least the elderly impressed people in the past. Some said making it to 80 was something to celebrate, as if surviving was not all about self-interest. Others argued old people had wisdom to impart, ignoring the obvious fact that the only difference between a young ning-nong and an old one is wrinkles. And then there were those who were polite out of self-interest, working on the assumption that if they were nice to the old, then young people would be kind to them later on. That and the fact that nothing beats nanna when it comes to cheap childcare. But the main reason the community made a big fuss about the elderly was that they were a luxury society could afford, what with the way nobody much made it into their 80s, living modestly on pathetic pensions and discreetly dying before the health and welfare bills mounted up. Not any more. Today's baby boomers show every intention of whooping it up indefinitely and living beyond their means, by, well, keeping on living. And this is going to cost money by the bucket. More money than British MPs claim on their expenses. More money than Wall Street knew how to lose. More money than Kevin Rudd can give away, but knowing how the PM likes to demonstrate he can do anything, let's not encourage him. The cost is going to come from income support. The boomers have not saved anywhere near enough superannuation and to maintain the lifestyle they could never afford while working, but lied that they did, they will have to appeal to the compassion of politicians. And if that does not work, they will use their voting strength to threaten MPs into supporting plusher pensions. But this will not come cheap, what with the way the number of people aged 65 and over will double to 25 per cent of the population by the middle of the century. And long before then the cost of pensions will increase, growing from 2.5 per cent of gross domestic product now to 4per cent-plus in 2035. The problem is people have grown up assuming they have a constitutional right to live forever, and have a good time doing it. After all, dancing the hippy-hippy shake requires knees that don't. And if all these scary numbers aren't scary enough, try these spooky sums on for size. Health care now costs $100billion a year, or 9per cent of GDP, which will increase 2 1/2 times in the next 25 years. And it will take more than a walking frame to move this amount of money from taxpayer to Treasury. And so fewer and fewer working people will pay for the health care and pensions of more and more older Australians, leading to less a generation gap than a chasm, across which the aggrieved will shout at each other. On one side, people producing wealth will ask why they should contribute a truckload of tax to pay for pensions and health care. Especially when government will warn they should not expect the same as they grow old, basically because their grandparents have got a firm grip on the social security budget and will let go only when their hands go limp. And on the other side of the divide, the elderly will argue they have a right to endless operations because they paid their taxes - as if taxation was all about double-entry bookkeeping, with everybody making sure they get out in old age as much as they put in when young. It will be a hard debate. Nothing upsets interest groups more than somebody else getting a bigger slice of the public pie. And politicians will inevitably avoid the issue - no sane MP wants to take sides against a big bloc of voters. And so we will do what we do now: spend ever more money on the loudest lobby group. And there are no prizes for guessing which one that will be. Because youth and enthusiasm stand no chance against age and cunning - especially when the old have more money, thanks to their pensions. Copyright 2009 News Limited