IMAGINE THE OUTCRY if Fair Work Australia decided that the minimum wage had to be increased so every family could afford a huge $4000 fridge, the latest wide screen TV, extensive travel and a flutter on the pokies. Business would condemn the Rudd government’s new industrial relations body as a throwback to the bad old days of the 1907 Harvester judgement, when Justice Higgins ignored the economic arguments and set the basic wage at the level needed to support a man, his wife and three children. There is no prospect that Fair Work Australia will be so bold as to revive the spirit of the Harvester judgement. Yet the superannuation industry constantly demands that governments should dictate that all retirees must have enough income to buy a desired basket of goods in much the same way as Higgins did with the basic wage. The main difference is that the super industry’s basket goes well beyond Higgins’ notion of “frugal comfort.”...