Many experts told us it was wasting around about $1 billion a year in needless reprocessing and using paper and so on. And the SuperStream measures address that, and the Government has said that it will implement those. “So, that’s a tick.

The other one is improving the base model, if you like, of superannuation – that’s the MySuper idea. Again, the idea behind that was efficiency, and in a compulsory system I think the Government owes the people who are forced to contribute to the system a degree of efficiency – and again that’s being embraced.”

Cooper says Australia’s second ranking in the 2011 Melbourne Mercer global pension index shows that the superannuation system is world-class. “What could really make us come first would be getting into the retirement income area.”

The system must provide investment products for retirees that enable them to safely “spend down” their savings rather than distributing lump sums of capital. Shorten says that controlling costs is an integral part of the Government’s plan to raise the SG.

It is not prepared to allow the industry to get fat off people’s compulsory contributions by being inefficient or greedy. Developments such as SuperStream and MySuper are part of the overall package. “Funds can’t guarantee performance, but they can absolutely control what they charge. If we can put downward pressure on what they charge, then, all things being equal, there will be more money for people’s retirement.

“Superannuation hasn’t made too many millionaires amongst the account holders, but it’s made a few millionaires amongst the advisers. “If you imagine superannuation’s the rain in the mountains coming down through the river of financial management to the sea of people’s retirement, I just don’t want people diverting too much of it for their own use on the way from the mountain to the sea. So that’s where the reforms are going.”