This government has tried a variety of initiatives in an effort to assist older workers to stay at work and older jobseekers find work. There is no one answer to this issue. Often it is about changing the values of employers or equally getting employers to have a major shift in their thinking about workers over the age of 45. I own the largest and fastest growing job board in Australia for mature age jobseekers - www.olderworkers.com.au (more than 21,000 registered with us nationally) and their issues are often complex and diverse. Certainly the two major issues are 1). Ageism and 2). JSA's not being properly trained or interested in assisting jobseekers over the age of 50; in fact they tell us they are often told to their face that they are too old to get a job. Then of course there is the old chestnut that still keeps coming up "we can only send employers what they ask for". Are they asking for workers under the age of 45-50? I think slowly but surely employers are starting to make that shift and realise that the over 50's still have their brain and can be very valuable employees in their business. Certainly the market forces will set the agenda but government does need to continue to work on how it can help to make it happen.

Astute assessment by King. I am a director of a large NFP agency on the Sunshine Coast and the writer met me last year re the Gov´s older worker initiatives. The implementation failure of the Gilliard administration on mature age employment.