Australia is ageing. An estimated 14% of our population is now over the age of 70 – more than one in seven citizens.

This number is growing steadily as life expectancy rises and the baby boomer generation moves deeper into retirement. Yet, in our federal Parliament, the very institution charged with representing the nation, less than 2% of members are over 70.

This glaring gap between the age of the people and the age of their political representatives points to a democratic imbalance – and a cultural blind spot.

Age diversity, like gender, ethnicity and class, is essential to a robust and empathetic democracy. While we rightly celebrate the entrance of younger Australians into politics, we must ask: where are the elders? In a society where millions are managing the realities of ageing —healthcare, pensions, aged care, age discrimination and the struggle for respect — how many of their representatives bring lived experience to these issues?

The under-representation is not incidental. It reflects an ageist undercurrent in political life that quietly, but consistently, nudges older Australians out of public decision-making. Over-70s are often assumed to be past their peak and expected to leave the political stage with grace, while younger candidates are hailed as the future. But a democracy that sidelines the long view and lived memory is a democracy that risks repeating old mistakes.

Other democracies understand this. In the United States Senate, more than 20% of members are over 70. While that presents its own questions, it also ensures that the challenges of older citizens — affordable healthcare, retirement security, end-of-life dignity — are front and centre. In Australia, by contrast, the silence from parliament on these issues is telling.

This is not just about quotas or proportionality. It’s about perspective. Who in Parliament remembers what it took to build Medicare? Who lived through the social housing boom and bust cycles? Who carries the memory of post-war reconstruction, of Gough Whitlam’s reforms, of the economic upheavals of the 1980s and 1990s – not as textbook lessons, but as lived realities?

Our politics is increasingly professionalised and careerist. Many politicians enter when they are young and leave before 60, often to corporate boards or consultancies. The notion of a life of service extending into older age has become rare. Yet outside Parliament, Australians over 70 are running small businesses, caring for family, volunteering, mentoring and shaping communities. Why is that energy missing from the nation’s highest chamber?

One in seven Australians is over 70. But in Canberra, it’s closer to one in 50. That isn’t representation. It’s erasure.

We need to restore a place in public life for the elder – not as a symbol of the past, but as a guardian of memory, wisdom, and long-term thinking. As we prepare for a century in which millions will live well beyond 80 or even 90, it’s time to ask whether our democracy will age with dignity – or grow more blinkered and short-sighted with every passing year.

Let’s reimagine the parliament as a truly intergenerational space. Our future depends on it.