Australia’s approach to retirement incomes policy has three pillars: means-tested age pension, compulsory superannuation, and voluntary saving.
The key issue for public policy is whether compulsory super is the best way of improving
retirement incomes and reducing future demands on the federal budget from an ageing
population compared to alternative policy measures.
Compulsory super is not well integrated with the other two pillars of retirement incomes
policy: the age pension and voluntary saving.
Addressing adverse interactions within the three pillars and between the three pillars
and the tax system is a preferable policy approach to further increases in the compulsory
contribution rate.
