Aged pension, page-16

You make to many assumptions .
"so I'm guessing from your post that you would prefer our ancient oldies to be grubbing waste food from the public rubbish bins and living in parks instead of their own homes".
That is precisely my point there are thousands of cases where people have little experience with money and retire, draw their super and invest in dodgy products ,businesses or their children's homes and blow their super instead an income stream and end up on the pension.
A universal pension set at a reasonable rate would stop this issue and give people security of a pension and money earned out side that would be subject to normal tax rate,not only that it would be fair and not favor the rich more efficient and less drag on the taxpayer.
I have some super in an income stream and I realized because I didn't have super for long enough I would need more income so I started a SMSF ,the tax benefits are great for building wealth and I retired at 60 and sense then I have been able to double the size of my fund because of the zero tax rate and some good investments,now my minimum withdrawal is 150% of my gross retiring salary tax free.
I am only a very small investor but the super and SMSF tax benefits favor rich people hand over fist at the expense of those on lower incomes who have no extra income to put into super or to set up a SMSF.There is no obligation to withdraw funds from super.