Australian life expectancy forecast to reach 89 for women by 2066

Treasury’s Chalmers calls AI ‘defining influence’ on 40-year economy

Treasury’s intergenerational report, to be published in full on Monday, projects life expectancy at birth will reach 89 years for women and 86 years for men by 2065/66 — up from about 86 and 82 years respectively at present — according to an extract released Sunday.

The report identifies artificial intelligence as the “defining influence” on the Australian economy over the next four decades, with Chalmers warning the technology carries “very substantial risks.” Much of the economic progress forecast in the report relies on emerging technologies such as AI, though previous Treasury advice has suggested AI could provide significant productivity gains across the public and private sectors if the nation kept pace with the global shift.

Australia’s universal healthcare system and the impact of medical research were the key drivers of rising life expectancy, Chalmers said. The report laid out the case for further investments in Medicare, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and the recent rollout of urgent care clinics, he said.

Treasury forecasts show population growth slowing to 0.9% a year over the next four decades, down from 1.4% annually in the previous 40 years. The nation’s population is predicted to reach 39.3 million by 2065/66, 1.8 million lower than the 2023 forecast. The Guardian, summarizing the report’s projections, reported that Australian households will shrink as more people live well into their 90s. Much of the slowdown in population growth was tied to lower fertility rates as women continued to have fewer children.

“Almost half the decline in fertility rates is actually because fewer people are having three or more kids and what that reflects is mums having fewer kids later in life,” Chalmers said. “Our job is to make it a little bit easier for people to make that choice if they want to,” he added, noting Labor’s policies to subsidise childcare, increase paid parental leave and lift mandatory superannuation contributions.

A growing and ageing population would also be at the centre of long-term budget pressures, Chalmers told News24’s Sunday Agenda program. Future government debt is expected to be slashed by half a trillion dollars compared to forecasts in the 2023 report, though much of the economic improvement depends on emerging technologies.

“There are elements of the intergenerational report which are confronting, but it’s not a pessimistic report … because Australians are genuinely better placed and better prepared for all of this accelerating change that we are seeing,” Chalmers said. “Overwhelmingly, the fiscal story is a little bit better; but still, lots, lots more work to do to manage some of these pressures and risks,” he said.

In a press conference on Sunday, Chalmers said AI would play a central role in Australia’s future but the government would work to “minimise the very substantial risks.”

Albanese is visiting the United States this week to discuss a “global framework” for the rollout of AI, urging the “big two giants” — the US and China — to work in the interest of humanity. “We want to see cooperation. We’ve seen that in the past with new technologies, even on nuclear weapons, for example, we saw agreements and protocols put in place through the nuclear non-proliferation treaty,” Albanese told ABC’s Insiders on Sunday. “So I think we want to see progress between those two countries, but … I think middle powers such as Australia have a role to play here as well,” Albanese said.

Trump said he would appoint an AI tsar overnight and create an “AI Force” to help monitor the technology, though he gave almost no details about either plan. Trump called the fears surrounding AI a “hoax.”