Super

Name: Super
Brand: Melbourne University Publishing
Price: 18.99 AUD
Availability: PreOrder

The Policy History of Australia's Retirement Savings Scheme

By: Emily Millane

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eBook | 13 October 2026

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Available: 13th October 2026

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'I wanted individual workers to have something more than wages alone, an opportunity to access markets. To invest beside the likes of Warren Buffett and not simply be left with a house and a car only, as the Liberal Party always left them.'

Paul Keating

Super tells the improbable origins of Australia's multi-trillion-dollar superannuation system, one of the world's largest private pension schemes. It explores super's nineteenth-century beginnings, dissects its triumphs and failures, and exposes the fierce political battles that created mum-and-dad investors.

Compulsory superannuation is one of Australia's boldest economic and social reforms along with Medicare. It is a masterclass in systemic change amid political turbulence, demonstrating how industrial action filled a space where political activity failed. Over thirty years on, has superannuation achieved the promised retirement security for all, or has it widened divides by gender, race and class? Who pays for superannuation, and who gets left behind?

Super draws on interviews with the key players behind this big economic reform - including former prime minister Paul Keating and former ACTU secretary Bill Kelty - and their ambition to transform Australia's system into one of the best in the world.