Early Retirement

On the mainland, as we are all aware, people have rather selfishly started living too long, so that the Government was eventually forced to steal their state pensions and compel them to work until they drop. It seems the colonies have the opposite problem, with uppity Aborigines demanding their state pension at an earlier age because of their lower life expectancy. Australians of immigrant and convict descent live an average of about seven years longer than their Indigenous compatriots, and an enterprising Queensland man has reached the federal court with the argument that, at sixty-five, he can expect to die three years younger than a non-Indigenous man of the same age and should therefore get his pension three years earlier. It is no doubt fortunate for the taxpayer that, should the federal court prove itself an enemy of the people by finding for the vexatious plaintiff, the government's retaliation will be three years less expensive than it might have been.