Superannuation and the quiet capture of Australian politics

Compulsory superannuation is rightly regarded as one of the great economic reforms of modern Australia. It helped millions of Australians accumulate retirement savings, reduced future reliance on the age pension, and transformed Australia into one of the world’s largest pools of worker capital. It was a serious reform, implemented by serious people, during a serious period in Australian public life.

That should be acknowledged at the outset.

The argument is not that superannuation is bad. It is not that workers should be denied retirement savings. It is not that unions have no legitimate place in Australian life. The argument is more subtle, and more important: a reform designed to secure workers’ retirements may also have created a vast architecture of institutional power that appears to benefit one side of Australian politics more than the other.

That proposition deserves serious investigative journalism before the next federal election.

From Deferred Wages to Political Power