Potential Takeover, page-97

I am not sure you have understood the purpose of the preferential treatment given to retirement savings in superannuation: It is to give people a tax break to encourage them to put aside some money so they can have a dignified retirement (and reduce the cost of the age pension).

It is not intended to be a general tax shelter or, even, to extend preferential treatment to retirement savings beyond enough to enable people to live modestly. It isn't at all intended to ensure a lavish retirement, although, of course, people are fully entitled to save and subsequently spend as much as they please outside the preferential tax treatment of the superannuation system.

And it is most certainly not intended to provide a tax shelter for the accumulation of dynastic wealth. Australia does not impose death duties and it is hard to see any government bringing them in, whatever the Productivity Commission may say, so your savings will pass to your heirs without any deduction when you die. Again, you are entitled to accumulate as much as you please of after-tax money to pass on in that way. But that is not what the superannuation system is for.