The decision has been taken and obviously cannot be reversed, and most of the people who get money from their super fund will desperately need it and use it well. However, when the fog clears, the truth will sink in that we mortgaged our children’s future to protect the health of our ageing parents. To make it worse we did it without asking either group for their permission.

Our children and the nation need the permanent capital base that superannuation provides to rebuild the economic infrastructure that has been so badly damaged by the crisis. The government will be severely constrained in what it can do as a result of the vast expense of the various programs it has had to fund to keep our nation together.

Whatever some people tell you, they can't keep borrowing or printing money without some vicious long-term consequences. The rebuilding of the nation needs long-term capital and the best place to get that capital will be from our own world-leading pool of savings. There will be other ways of financing long-term projects but we need to recognise that if it isn’t from superannuation the people at the front of the queue will be the Chinese.

The geopolitical battle looming in the wake of COVID-19 is not a fantasy and if we stop our retirement savings from investing for the long-term we have lost a very important battle. If you want successful innovation to stay in Australia and not go overseas you need a well-funded venture capital industry. If you want world-class infrastructure it needs to be funded by long-term pools of capital. Today it is only superannuation funds that do, and a very few public companies that ignore the pressure of the next earnings report.