In the 1980s, Australia's retirement income system became the subject of ongoing reform. A number of the reform objectives were quite revolutionary but some remain much further from realization than was expected, with major consequences for future retirees. In this sense, Australia's retirement income revolution has faltered. This paper (1) outlines the main features of Australia's retirement income system prior to the 1980s, (2) presents the reform objectives and explains the sense in which they were "revolutionary", (3) describes some of the major changes, their achievements, and how and why a number remain further from realization than expected, (4) considers two more recent objectives and (5) outlines the challenges that remain.F or the past two de cades, Aus tra lia's re tire ment in come sys tem has been sub ject to a pro cess of on go ing re form. The main ob jec tives of the re form pro cess emerged dur ing its early days in the 1980s. A num ber of these ob jectives were quite rev o lu tion ary within the Aus tra lian con text. While there is no doubt that there have been ma jor changes in the ar chi tec ture of Aus tralia's re tire ment in come sys tem, some of these ob jec tives re main much further from be ing re al ized than was ex pected in the early, "hal cyon" days of the re form pro cess, with ma jor con se quences for fu ture re tir ees. In this sense, Aus tra lia's re tire ment in come rev o lu tion, though far from hav ing fizzled out, may certainly be described as having faltered.© In ter na tional So cial Se cu rity As so ci a tion, 2005In ter na tional So cial Se cu rity Re view, Vol. 58, 4/2005 Pub lished by Blackwell Pub lish ing