If Keating were ever to return as prime minister perhaps his first task would be to lift the superannuation guarantee (SG) levy from 9 per cent to 15 per cent.

As prime minister it was a policy he proposed in the 1996 budget but never saw enshrined in legislation.

The Howard Government, which won office in 1996, subsequently re-directed the extra 3 per cent into tax cuts.

It's a move that still galls Keating, who believes the extra tax cuts would be better placed into people's superannuation accounts.

"Where in the national savings are these dollars best placed?" he asks.

"In Australians' accounts where they can't touch it till their 60, or is it better left for the National Party to buy back water from their favourite farmers and build bridges to nowhere?"

According to Keating, if the last round of tax cuts had been paid as savings into super then we wouldn't have had the recent interest rises.

The Howard Government's decision to leave the SG at its current rate, however, has the support of the current Labor hierarchy.

Labor retirement policy spokesman Senator Nick Sherry has gone on the record as saying an extra 3 per cent increase in the SG may not be a sensible budgetary move.

"I know that Paul Keating dreams of a 15 per cent superannuation guarantee and at this stage I am happy to dream with him," Sherry said at the recent SMSF Professionals' Association of Australia conference.

Keating calls this attitude a "failure of imagination".

"It's got nothing to do with arithmetic and everything to do with grey matter," he says.

"Imagine what I had to do back then when we started from nothing. We got it done because we had the imagination. Instead we are jammed at 9 per cent when we should be 15 per cent. We can afford it."

Keating challenges his own party to rethink its policy on keeping the SG at 9 per cent.

To make super changes available to everyone, Labor must move the 9 per cent to an initial 12 per cent by paying the next round of tax cuts as savings and not cash, he says.

Underpinning the growth of Australia's superannuation system is the mandatory requirement for every Australian to contribute 9 per cent of their wages to a superannuation account. This has pushed the industry to $1 trillion in funds under management. 

In 1985, however, only 39 per cent of the workforce had superannuation. Keating says it was his Labor principles that drove him to make the scheme universal; a move that was similar to Labor's universal health care system, Medicare.

"Superannuation used to be an elite system only open to public servants and those working at the top of their professions. Like Medicare we wanted all Australians to have access to the scheme. Now everyone including the bloke running behind the garbage truck can have superannuation," he says.

The scheme was first conceived in 1986 by the Labor Party and the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU). Led by Keating and ACTU secretary Bill Kelty, an SG of 3 per cent was first proposed. Keating credits Kelty as playing a pivotal role in the birth of Australia's superannuation system.

"It was Bill and I who really got the show on the road," he says.

The 3 per cent SG was provided through an industrial relations award system. Not all workers were covered by these awards, which meant not all employers needed to comply. As such, multi-employer industry funds were established to cover most industries.

Keating believes these industry superannuation funds have been successful in providing superannuation to all Australians, and have even benefited from the choice of fund legislation implemented by Government on July 1, 2005. 

"The Government introduced choice of fund legislation to destroy [industry] funds. It's strange but true: industry funds have beaten the Government at their own game. They are efficiently run organisations providing low fees to their members. They have won the choice war," he says.

To make the scheme initially affordable, he says the budget had provisions, such as the reasonable benefit limits (RBL), so that people would not abuse the system. On the Government's superannuation changes
In May 2006, however, the Government announced it would abolish RBLs. Indeed, it announced a raft of changes to superannuation, in particular to the end-benefit section of superannuation. The initiatives were widely welcomed and applauded by industry.

"The effective removal of end benefits tax and tax on super pensions is a major step towards the simplification of an overly complex superannuation regime," Investment and Financial Services Association chief executive Richard Gilbert said at the time.

The response by the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA) was similar.

"At first blush the measures to simplify superannuation appear to be positive. From our perspective, removing the net benefits tax has greater effectiveness in the long term as the system improves," ASFA principal policy adviser Brad Pragnell said.

However, for industry funds, JUST, HESTA and Care, the budget changes did little to benefit the vast majority of Australians.

"As it stands the current budget initiatives only impact on people with higher earnings and superannuation account balances," HESTA chief executive Anne-Marie Corboy said at the time.

It's an issue picked up by Keating. In particular, the ability of members to make a one-off tax-free payment of $1 million to their superannuation account before June 30, 2007.

"The Liberals always look after the people at the top. There are not many men who run after the garbage truck that can afford to put $1 million into their super. And how many aged care workers or school teachers do you know that could also afford $1 million into super?" he says.

At the same time, he criticises the sustainability of the Government's axing of super taxes at the back end of superannuation.

"Show me a policy that has to be implemented in 12 months and I'll show you a policy that will fail," he says.

He says policies are only sustainable when people take a long-term perspective.

"If we can leave super untaxed at the back end that's all well and good, but is it sustainable in budget terms over the long term?"

On increasing co-contribution rates
For Keating, the superannuation co-contribution is an important step in ensuring Australians will have adequate retirement savings.

"When it comes to salary sacrifice, 40 to 50 per cent of people cannot afford it so they don't take the option. However, when it comes through as a wage adjustment, such as a superannuation co-contribution, then they'll get there," he says.
Asked about ASFA's draft policy to introduce a 3 per cent soft compulsion scheme, he says: "I would legislate that by tomorrow morning."

On July 1, 2003, the Howard Government introduced the co-contribution. Initially at $1000, it was subsequently increased on July 1, 2004, to $1500 in matched funds from government. 

According to government figures, more than 2.7 million co-contribution payments worth about $2 billion have been paid into the superannuation funds of Australian workers in the three years since the scheme began, with women among the biggest beneficiaries.

Keating believes an expansion of the co-contribution can be achieved through the industrial relations system as part of wage negotiations.  

Pivotal to these negotiations, in Keating's mind, is the role of unions, particularly as the superannuation scheme has its roots in the union movement.

He believes the Government's Workchoices legislation is a barrier that prevents effective negotiation in the workplace.

"Under a collective system, people can come together and negotiate for higher wages and productivity increases. Everyone can tuck in and help. Workchoices makes this virtually impossible," he says. On the Future Fund
In 2007, Labor leader Kevin Rudd controversially called for excess Future Fund savings to be used to upgrade Australia's antiquated broadband telecommunications network. Previously it was understood the Future Fund would remain sacred to funding the liabilities of public servants.

Keating sees this type of debate as inevitable. "As long as there is a big bag of money sitting there with no purpose, we will have this terminal debate on where the money should be spent," he says.

"With so much revenue generated from tax, this government has so much money that they are now trying to dream up uses for it, and the Future Fund is just another dreamt up use.

"I'd rather see the Future Fund money paid into ordinary men and women's super accounts rather than having a group of people in a bureaucracy buying and selling stocks with government money. I don't think that is a good thing."

In Keating's mind the only the only Future Fund is superannuation. "The so-called Future Fund has $50 billion in assets compared to super's $1 trillion. You don't have to be a mathematician to work out where the future is," he says.

The Placido Domingo of super?
There is no doubt Keating still has strong views about Australia's superannuation industry. Although for a man who once described himself as the Placido Domingo of Australian politics, he is surprisingly humble when it comes to describing his role as chief architect of the super system.

For Keating it was just part of the course of public life. "Public life is about public progress. That's the only reward. The rest is just puffery," he says.