(03) 9020 2905Is this where I get to go mental over the endless targeting of us young’uns by our shameful older politicians?
That selfish, silver-spooned, born-to-rule, earth-pillaging Boomer generation running the country now? (You want ageist? Try that!)
Well, I’m not going to. And I don’t think that of Boomers anyway.
Discrimination is “unjust or prejudicial treatment”. I don’t believe it’s systemic, age-wise, in Australia’s financial services sector.
Sure, there are plenty of money rules in which age plays a qualifying role, or acts as a barrier. But discriminatory?
Health insurance is one. If you join after turning 31, you’ll pay a loading. It’s the government saying “sign up early”.
Superannuation’s rules are completely age based. You can’t take a pension before you’re this old. You can’t put money in once you’re that old. But with super, that’s the point.
One thing that’s unfair futuristically in superannuation is that Gen Xers will have to fund two generations’ retirement. Boomers don’t have enough super, so Xers will have to fund Boomers’ age pensions while working. At the same time, they’ll have to fund their own retirements via super.
But discrimination in financial services is probably more suffered by those with little money – the under 30s and the over 65s, which is sort of ageist.
Getting financial advice will become more elitist as a result of changes now being phased in. While they will make the industry more professional, it will also make it more expensive.
My fear is that, even unwittingly, a swathe of people who most need advice will be denied professional advice due to cost pressures.
Bruce Brammall is the author of Debt Man Walking (www.debtman.com.au) and principal adviser with Castellan Financial Consulting.