• Stephen Lunn

08 February 2010The federal government's Intergenerational Report stretches the boundaries of forecasting, writes Stephen Lunn in the Australian

TREASURY must have a love-hate relationship with its Intergenerational Report. At least once every five years the bureaucrats have the opportunity to play demographic Nostradamus as they are tasked with imagining Australia 40 years hence. But they must also know the publication of their prognostications could prove embarrassingly fanciful.

Judging by the three Intergenerational Reports produced so far, in 2002, 2007 and then again this week, fear might outweigh soothsayer thrill given how wide of the mark some of the earlier projections turned out to be.

Take the estimates of Australia's population in 40 years. Back in 2002, when Peter Costello launched the first Intergenerational Report, which was tasked with trying to understand the impact of an ageing population on the country's future, it said by 2042 there would be an estimated 25 million people living in Australia. Just eight years later IGR3 projects a 35.9 million population by 2050...

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Photo: Andrew Jeffrey