The reason you "need" public sector pensions is those jobs already pay below-market.

That made me laugh. Our public sector is now paid much more than the private sector. It used to be the other way around: public sector gets perks and job security in return for lower pay, private sector gets higher pay and no perks.

But then about 40 years ago the commonwealth government introduced an independent remuneration tribunal. The pollies fought this because they thought their payrises would be less than before. The old system was that they voted themselves payrises, which for obvious political reasons they were reluctant to do too often or too much. The new tribunal would determine their pay for them.

But what happened?! The tribunal has been giving generous payrises to all public sector employees ever since. As a result, private sector serfs have fallen far behind. Needless to say, the state governments have remuneration tribunals too.

Looking back now, I suspect the public wailing by the pollies in the lead up to the introduction of the tribunal was kabuki theatre.