New Zealand, like other OECD countries, has longstanding policies and institutions that distribute resources across the life cycle of its citizens. Central to this is funding for retirement and services consumed mainly by older adults, such as healthcare. Under current systems, taxes paid by younger birth cohorts fund the needs of older birth cohorts, who shoulder a much lower tax burden so long as income and consumption remain the main tax bases. This approach is under pressure on two fronts. The first is population ageing: The number of retirees is increasing because of increased longevity, while the number of younger taxpayers is decreasing because of a falling birth rate. The second is wealth distribution: More wealth is now held by people who have retired (largely thanks to housing booms), while the incomes of younger birth cohorts are stagnating relative to the cost of living. These facts call for some hard choices by policymakers. I will try to identify some of these choices and suggest how ideas and frameworks from political philosophy might help us find a way forward.

Dan Halliday is professor of political philosophy at the University of Melbourne. His research focuses on a range of issues relating to economic justice, including labour markets, inherited wealth, taxation, and credit and lending. In addition to various journal articles, he is the author of The Inheritance of Wealth (Oxford, 2018) and The Ethics of Capitalism, co-authored with John Thrasher (Oxford, 2020). His most recent book, The Credit Problem, co-authored with Marco Meyer, will be published in 2027 with Cambridge University Press. He is currently working on the challenge posed by demographic aging, particularly in relation to how societies distribute resources across the life course.

Contact the host of The 2026 Maurice Goldsmith Lecture