The Australian superannuation system has generally underperformed its investment return goals by a large margin over the ten years since 2000.In the past twelve months, public sector funds have performed well while industry funds recorded a lower rate of return than retail funds for the second year in a row.Total superannuation assets increased by $150.0 billion or 13.9 per cent to $1.23 trillion in the twelve months to 30 June 2010, of which $107.7 billion was contributions - $72 billion from employers and $34.3 billion from members themselves.The numbers come from the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority. It released annual data for the 2009/2010 financial year yesterday and will release the fund-level performance "league tables" in the next week.The self-managed sector now attracts more than $20 billion per year in contributions. And it now has more than $50 billion more in total assets than retail funds. The retail funds sub-sector includes products offered by bank-owned fund management firms, AMP, Axa Asia Pacific and numerous boutique outfits.Public sector funds had the best year amongst the sectors, with an average rate of return of 9.8 per cent and solid contribution growth of 13.8 per cent.Retail funds averaged returns of 8.7 per cent for their members and grew their assets by 11.2 per cent. Returns on industry funds trailed slightly, and for the second year in a row, at 8.5 per cent.Industry funds did well in growing their total assets by a market leading 17.9 per cent, with small and self managed funds close behind at 16.9 per cent.In the ten years since 2000, big super funds have returned an average of 3.3 per cent to their members each year.The low-fee public sector funds have done the best for their members, delivering them 4.2 per cent per year on average since 2000.Industry funds have returned 3.9 per cent and retail funds 2.5 per cent per annum over the last ten years.Many default balanced/growth option super funds have investment targets of 200 - 300 basis points over CPI.Funds, in turn, set targets for their asset managers and investment consultants which often involve a cut of the alpha return.