Super must fund retirement first: report A new report has cautioned against using Australia's vast pool of superannuation to fund infrastructure or for other non-retirement purposes. Professor Ian Harper, a partner at Deloitte Access Economics and author of the report, Maximising Superannuation Capital, said the $1.5 trillion superannuation system had been extremely successful in accumulating wealth for Australians' retirement. Australia's superannuation pool is the fourth-largest pool of retirement funds in the world. The Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA) commissioned the report to investigate whether the size of the super pool was distorting investment in Australia. Professor Harper said the report investigated calls to direct superannuation funds towards infrastructure investment, investing in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) or to other purposes to support economic development. "Given the size of superannuation funds under management, many people think that super should do this job - that it should fill in these gaps," Professor Harper said at the report's launch in Sydney. With the superannuation system soon to move from accumulation to the "drawdown" phase as baby-boomers began retiring in greater numbers, Professor Harper said caution was needed in seeking to direct super funds to non-retirement purposes. While not ruling out using super funds to drive long-term economic growth, Professor Harper said there were potential problems, such as major funds not having the expertise to assess the investment status of SMEs, or needing greater liquidity than some infrastructure investments could provide. He also said Australian super funds already invested more in domestic equities than their overseas counterparts, and tended to favour domestic over offshore investment. "It's important for us not to lose sight of the ultimate objective of Australia's superannuation system which is, in our view, funding and supplementing retirement income," he said.