Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Senator, in 18 months we have not solved all the problems of the world, but I know Ms Macklin is working on it. I think if you give her another 18 months she may have done that. I guess what I am saying is that there are a range of problems in social policy, if you like, and response to demographics et cetera. What you are highlighting are serious social issues that need to be confronted—that is right. But that was true before we changed the date of access to the pension and it will be true afterwards. Can we fix all of that in this legislation? No. But they are live issues. They are issues that we are attempting to deal with in some of these measures that we have been talking about in terms of retraining, reskilling and support for mature age workers. These are challenges that will be with us whether the retirement age is 60, 65, 67 or 75. We need to attack them, but clearly we cannot solve those as part of this legislation.