This report seeks to enhance our understanding of how long Australians are currently living and how this has changed over time. It looks at whether, with increasing life expectancy, other measures of longevity are also rising to provide insights into whether we can expect Australians to continue to live to increasingly older ages.

Population ageing is expected to result in significantly higher government spending in many OECD countries in the coming decades. This paper sheds light on the macroeconomic consequences of population ageing for government revenue in a framework consistent with the OECD long-term model.

It is intended that this publication will serve to increase the accessibility of valuable evidence and experiences to policy-makers within Australia. The University of Queensland and the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust also hope that it will encourage more partnership approaches toward developing public policy that are informed by broad groups of experts, including Churchill Fellows.

This paper presents new population projections for Australia and the states and territories for the period 2021-2041. The paper describes the input data used, projection assumptions made, and an outline of the projection model.

The objective of this paper is to provide order-of-magnitude estimates of the possible effects of population ageing on government finances across OECD countries, and to discuss reforms to fiscal federalism and intergovernmental relations with the purpose of funding expenditures at all levels of government.