From the office of ROLAND ROCCHICCIOLI

I am not rushing for a how-do-you-do to Saint Peter; however, I am not entirely sure the federal government shares my unabated passion for longevity. They would gladly see me sitting on a cloud playing a harp!

Mercifully, I am hewn from long-living peasant stock with a certain reticence for shuffling-off the mortal coil. My mother, Beria, lived to 96, and Aunt Edith died at 104. The federal government’s implacability to be rid of me not withstanding—I hope to emulate their goodly spans.

Discriminatorily, the government denies those citizens aged more than 74 the free “poo-on-the-paper” bowel cancer test—theoretically, we are a burden on the public purse. Paradoxically, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare reports the highest incidence of bowel cancer presents in patients over the age of 80. The exclusion is based on the ridiculous average patient assessment—the one-size-fits-all credo. Tough luck if you do not present as the “average patient”—however that definition reads in the government’s bizarre, fiscal justification.

Baby boomers are being bureaucratically ushered to the exit. Bugger that, I say! I have been dealt a winning hand and I’m staying! We number 5.4-million—25 percent of the total population. While we are no longer the most influential generation we are the wealthiest alongside the Millennials. Speciously, we are blamed for every societal malaise. There is something intellectually dishonest in a narrative apportioning generational blame all the while gorging from a table not of their creation.

The cohort most accused of consuming more than its share is the one which created the plethora of consumables. The prosperity—and to which subsequent generations feel so entitled—was not a naturally occurring phenomenon. Literally, the baby boomers rebuilt the world—the infrastructure; institutions; the taken-for-granted cultural frameworks; the scientific and medical inventions; even the technological foundations which the digital generation built upon but did not create.

My mother died of primary colorectal cancer. While I have exhibited no signs of contracting the condition I am classified as predispositioned —and while that may not be of concern to the government it does cause me some medical consternation.

Always, I have paid private health insurance. Now—because of age—I am being penalised for living so long and electing not to be dependent on the public health system.

In an act of ageist animus, the federal government has lowered the private health insurance rebate for all Australians aged 65 plus to 24 percent—a reduction of 8 percent—aligning it with the base rate applied to those under 65. Irrationally, the Health Minister Mark Butler argued the more generous subsidy—solely based on age—is unfair between the generations; funds need to be distributed more equitably. Extrapolating, should we apply the same dubious meanness to the politicians’ generous superannuation scheme which is heavily taxpayer subsidised.

It is ageist and deeply offensive to imply all those aged 74 plus have reached a definitive marker in their operative life and are not deemed worthy of a free bowel cancer test.

It is appropriate for the silent majority to tell the government how we feel. We are being bullied. It must stop! If we are deemed to be of so little value—making so little contribution—perhaps the time is ripe for baby boomers to flex their muscle and make their voices heard at the ballot box.

Roland talks with Brett Macdonald 3BA—Monday 10.40am. Contact: [email protected]