Stephen Jones (Whitlam, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

So we put in place a system of tax preferred savings, preserved until retirement age so that the trustees of those funds could invest that money in good investments to deliver the sorts of returns over the long run—the excellent returns—that superannuation members enjoy today, somewhere in the vicinity of six to seven per cent real. That is what they are enjoying through their superannuation investments today, and they have enjoyed that consistently for most of the last 10 years if they're in a good fund. If their fund is not delivering those sorts of returns, they should seriously consider switching to a fund which does, because that's what they should have been enjoying over the last 10 years.

Back then, there was a ratio of six to one. Wind forward to 2010, and the ratio of workers to retirees had dropped to five to one—that is to say, five workers for every one retiree. Move forward another 10 years, and the ratio of workers to retirees has dropped again, to four to one. By the time we hit 2030, when many of these people, particularly the younger ones—perhaps not the member for McMahon and me but some of the younger ones—will still be here, that ratio of worker to retiree will have dropped to three to one.

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