Aged Pension - Welfare or Entitlement?, page-314

The dole is not supposed to cover the cost of living though. If it did, many more would have less incentive to work. If the government was paying enough dole for me to go fishing, to the beach and play golf all the time why would I want to work?

As for super, the average super balance for a male is a little over $200k and about half that for a female. The average wage now is circa $60k (median wage is higher) 9% of that (round figures $5.5k a year going into super, less taxes, fees, insurance + % earned)
27 years ago wages were lower. contribution amounts lower. Super does not have enough funds in it yet. In time peoples balances will grow.
A 40 year old 27 years ago had 20 years or more less to build super than a 18 year old then did.

The other problem we have is many hitting retirement age and super preservation age are withdrawing their whole super balance and paying of their properties, updating the car, property and helping the kids get into property and having no super left to supplement their pension.

It is also draining the liquidity of super funds, in time we will see changes come to superannuation that will limit withdrawals and enforce superannuates to either purchase a super pension or annuity with their super accounts.
Especially those with less than the $1.6M Cap. Those with more will probably still have a bit more freedom with those funds above the cap limit as they are not subject to the tax free status.