By the look of things, the Abbott government looks set to break its promise not to change the aged pension in next month's budget.

People trust politicians to keep their word, and, if politicians can't be trusted, who can we trust?

If the Abbott government has changed its mind on making alterations to the pension, then at least have enough integrity, like Mr Howard with his GST tax, to wait until the next election so that people know exactly what they are voting for.

Retirement and the pensionable age are very important issues.

Mr Abbott must give the people a choice on what changes, if any, they want to make to retirement and the pension.

For example, people might want to keep the present retirement age in place and fund this by raising the GST to say 15 per cent.

Or alternatively, they may prefer to keep the GST at 10 per cent and raise the retirement age to 70.

The proposal to raise the retirement age to 70 is a backward step. It took decades of strong campaigning which finally resulted in the introduction of a retirement pension for workers.

Now it looks like we are going back to the bad old days of work until you drop.

Also, given that youth unemployment is so high, raising the pension able age means denying school leavers employment opportunities for another three years thus exacerbating youth unemployment.