The tax concessions bought in by Howard and Costello for the Superannuation system are so generous and so huge in money terms that they can only be described as a local tax haven.
The sheer quantity of money involved - $40 billion overwhelmingly benefiting the wealthy - being above and beyond any proper purpose of retirement policy, is an act of theft by the Liberals on behalf of their wealthy constituency. It is an example of Kleptocracy.
This is not the stuff of an academic policy debate. To bring into close, grotesque view, this week tens of thousands of people with retirement income from superannuation of $5,000 for the week, were exempted from paying tax of $1,700. Can they not live on $3,300 this week? The one million people living below the poverty line could certainly do with an extra $10 in their pocket.
What we have here is structural greed.