Alaskan Sarah Palin reputedly could see Russia from her house but that's nothing to Joe Hockey's telescopic vision which allows him to see a staggering 150 years into the future.

Actually, Palin's foreign policy credentials were an embarrassment but she didn't utter the phrase attributed to her, merely noting that Russian territory is visible on a good day from US (Alaskan) soil.

Similarly, Hockey was strafed on social media on Monday for claiming on 3AW that Australians born today will live until they're 150. Again, he said no such thing. Rather, he said it was "remarkable that somewhere in the world today, it is highly probable, a child has been born who will live to be 150".

Remarkable yes, but "highly probable"? Well, experts will differ but some say it is very possible. After all, many people have lived well past the century mark already with one or two making into the 120s. Who can gainsay medical technology or assert that it will not advance sufficiently over such a huge slice of time?

It is a marker however of how poorly this government is travelling (largely under the dead-weight of Hockey's first budget as it happens) that the Treasurer's words are so breezily misquoted, his argument, so unhesitatingly pilloried.

Yet his logic is sound. As the Intergenerational Report to be released in February will no doubt warn, Australia is facing a demographic dilemma. Already burdened with a structural revenue shortfall against permanent spending obligations, the continued ageing of the population will only make that shortfall worse.

The number of Australians paying income tax to support those no longer working and paying no income tax is declining, and it won't be addressed simply by jacking up the retirement age.

Greater life expectancy is unalloyed good news but it must be tempered against the massive public policy implications in health-care and housing costs for people living for decades into retirement with all the quality-of-life requirements that entails.

Politically speaking, Hockey, who struggled to sell his budget strategy last year, faces his own temporal challenge: he must animate the future in the public mind in order to prevail in the present. That's an irony for a government dragging its heels on climate change because its full effects are not yet apparent.

While the 150-year-life may seem fanciful, Hockey hopes to make the case for action now to address problems that will only get worse if not confronted.

Luckily for the government, he is no Sarah Palin. But cabinet leaks, and backflips on barnacles suggest 2015 is off to a shaky start.

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