I'm very pleased to be here to launch this report.
This is a report about the benefits of superannuation for Australia and this is very timely. Superannuation, as pension funds around the world have done, has been in for a tough time through this financial crisis. And I've seen one of my roles as Superannuation Minister over the last three months to talk about the long term benefits of superannuation for individuals and for the nation. And this report is very useful to all of us who regard those benefits as very significant and who regard the benefits as something we should be talking about.
I don't want to be party political tonight or partisan in any way so the members of the Opposition who are here I hope will understand the spirit in which I say that I regard the introduction of compulsory superannuation as inarguably amongst the most significant reforms of the Hawke and Keating years and arguably the most significant reform out of all those microeconomic reforms. Out of the tariff reduction and the deregulation and the changes to our economic system that were incurred during the Hawke and Keating years, I think it's arguable that the most significant reform is the introduction of compulsory superannuation and the growing of our superannuation system. The benefits it's had for individuals and the benefits it's had for the nation.
We have a pool of funds at our disposal of $1 trillion dollars. The fourth largest pool of funds under management in the world and it will soon be, even without any Government action, just by its natural growth, $2 trillion dollars and will grow exponentially after that. And this is a great asset.
Of course, as our population ages, we care about the impact of superannuation for retirement incomes of Australians. If it wasn't for superannuation, we would have nowhere near the comfortable retirement incomes that we have in this nation and that is, of course, a very important thing. As I say, as our population ages, that becomes even more important. But as Vince said, the impact on the community and on the nation is very significant as well. And he outlined some of the reasons why that's the case and I certainly agree. I'll mention just a couple.
Firstly, we can't underestimate the importance of superannuation in Australia's resilience over the last two years. As companies around Australia have sought to recapitalise, superannuation has played an absolutely vital role. And in fact, in Australia the proportion of the market that has been recapitalised is higher than any other developed country over the last two years and that simply would not have been possible without superannuation.
Superannuation has also reduced equity risk premiums in Australia. I think that's a given. And also, we hear debates about getting more superannuation funds into infrastructure. We need to recognise that already a very significant amount of superannuation funds go into infrastructure. Some put the estimate at 10 per cent. 10 per cent of a trillion dollars is a lot of money, ladies and gentlemen, into infrastructure in this country. Money that simply would not be invested without our superannuation system.
And perhaps most importantly for the wider economy, superannuation has provided the platform, the critical mass for Australia to be regarded as a financial services hub. The skills we've built up over the last 20 years managing each other's money have meant that we are now regarded as very good at managing money and regarded as a global financial services centre. And without superannuation, we wouldn't for example have been regarded last week in the World Economic Forum Report as the second most developed global financial centre in the world. It simply would not have been possible.
So those skills that have been built up, those thousands of people who work in the superannuation industry, are that critical platform for us exporting our services and being a global financial services centre in Asia, something that I'm very passionate about, something the Prime Minister's very passionate about and the Government's very serious about. That simply wouldn't have been possible.
As Pauline indicated, last week I made the point that as superannuation enters or nears its 20th anniversary, it's time to asses how we can rejuvenate the system. It's time to consider not whether 9 per cent is adequate, but whether we can do better than adequate. Whether we can provide more comfortable retirement incomes for Australians, whether we can grow that pool of funds at the disposal of the Australian economy for the good of the economy for all the reasons I outlined. That means not just a discussion about the superannuation guarantee, it means a discussion about tax, about efficiency, about the whole gamut of things and this report is a very welcome contribution. You're right Pauline, I called for the discussion and you're contributing to the discussion, which I welcome.
So 20 years ago, just a little over 20 years ago, a backbencher by the name of Paul Keating proposed a national compulsory superannuation scheme. Luckily he became Prime Minister a few months later and was able to put it into action. And we as a nation have benefited ever since.
I welcome the role that ASFA plays, I welcome the role this report plays as we enter that national discussion about making a good system even better for the benefit of individual Australians and for the benefit of the nation as a whole. Thank you very much.