The intergenerational report to be released Thursday – what does it mean

The Treasurer Joe hockey tells us that we will fall off our seat when Treasury’s Intergenerational Report is released on Thursday.

What is it going to tell us? In summary, it will tell us the ageing population, escalating pressures in the health system and climate change pose long-term challenges for of Australia’s economic growth, living standard standards and government finances.

That is what it told us in 2010, and in 2007 and originally in 2002.

The report was created by Peter Costello when Treasurer. Under the Charter of Budget Honesty the reports are supposed be produced by Treasury every five years.

To date it has been a very political document, on the one hand explaining what the government has done and on the other hand what difficult tasks it has to achieve long-term economic reform to protect living standards.

Expect Joe Hockey to be very aggressive on the impact of the ageing population and number of workers available to support this cohort. Interesting question will be what real long-term policies and initiatives we have in his kitbag to overcome these challenges.

Given that reducing government expenditure per head of population (and especially non working heads) is his primary objective, increasing user pay for ageing services is inevitable. But will he say so?