Sydney: It was reminiscent of one of those cheesy $2 mugs: “old prime ministers never retire, they just lose their briefs”.
Towards the end of an interview with Neil Mitchell on 3AW radio, Malcolm Turnbull was asked if he would ever retire.
Not from the prime ministership, but from a job.
The proposal that the Australian pension age should rise to 70 is one of the few so-called zombie savings from the 2014 Abbott budget that has survived the intervening three years. The UK government has just increased the age to 68. Governments and economists like those people at the World Economic Forum keep telling us that, given we will live longer, we must work longer because our pension systems are unsustainable. Of course the PM, being self-evidently well off, was not worried so much about his pension as his state of mind. Turnbull quoted his friend, the psychiatrist Ian Hickie, who warned him of the dangers of retirement for the mind, particularly the mind of old men.
“One of the big challenges for older men, middle-aged and older men, is that they work very, very hard, in particular and they’re not very good at coping with stopping work,” Turnbull told Mitchell. “So one of the things that he [Hickie] says [is that] people should actually not retire. “Obviously a particular job comes to an end but the important thing is to keep active and engaged and involved and, you know, that’s where things like men’s sheds are very important — I think it is important to stay involved and engaged.” Which is all wise advice, except when it comes to Turnbull’s nemesis Tony Abbott, who would like to see Turnbull moved into the retirement phase sooner rather than later. “Obviously you’ll leave [the prime ministership] one day,” said Mitchell. “Yeah sure,” said the PM. “Tony Abbott will make sure of that,” says Mitchell. “All good things come to an end I suppose.”
