Has it done that?

Yeah, it has.

Australia is one of the few advanced economies where age pension spending is actually projected to decline in coming decades.

Treasury updated its intergenerational report this week, which looks out four decades into the future.

It expects pension spending at the federal level to fall from 2.3% of GDP today to 1.8% by 2066.

So on that measure, super is achieving one of its core objectives, that is reducing reliance on the age pension.

But the real question is whether we're getting good value for money with how we're achieving that.

What are some of the main criticisms?

Mm.

On the flip side, we've got a large cohort of renters who are dealing with sharply rising rents and a really tight rental market, and then we've got existing homeowners whose biggest asset is falling in value.

So the political benefits of cheaper housing are not evenly distributed at all.

If prices do continue to fall, the coalition has a ready-made attack line that the Albanese government has essentially encouraged people to buy at the top of the market, and that could have left some of them vulnerable to falling into negative equity.

And that's because last October, Labor dramatically expanded its 5% home deposit scheme, and since then we've seen more than 28,000 first home buyers enter the market through the program.

And so if prices fall substantially and, and the downturn persists, some of those buyers could absolutely end up in negative equity where their mortgage is worth more than the value of their home.

And so a final question then, how are you feeling right now as the Financial Review's deputy economics editor and as a homeowner about what's happening?

Well, firstly, I think probably a little bit of perspective is needed in the debate.