Older Australians need a comprehensive plan from the Australian Government, demonstrating that all areas of Government are thinking and acting in a coordinated fashion to improve the lives of mature age and older Australians.
The issues identified in this submission impact many older Australians and the measures outlined here to address these issues have the potential to improve the lives of a large and growing proportion of Australians.
This Senate Inquiry is on an issue of importance to many older Australians - mobility scooters. Indeed, Scooters Australia claimed in 2009 that the overwhelming proportion of mobility scooter users are in the 70+ age group and in fact, in the previous few years, most purchasers were aged over 80.
This year's Intergenerational Report makes much of the need to control the economic impact of the ageing baby boomers. It is expected that by 2056 one in four people living in Australia will be over the age of 65 and 1.8 million of them will be over 85.