The federal government’s decision to have the fund invest in housing and green energy has ruffled Coalition feathers.
[…]
But [treasurer Jim Chalmers] has broken a bipartisan practice that had lasted 18 years: resisting the temptation to ask the fund to do anything other than chase financial returns.
It opens up a debate about what Australia does, and should do, with the hundreds of billions of dollars it has squirrelled away.
I do find it funny (though perhaps understandable) that so many of the investments are in pretty (ethically) shit companies because they align with the financial objective of making the most money. It also means that, seemingly, the Future Fund has used its shareholder vote against the interests of Australians on company climate policy.
Also TIL we’re a Tencent investor.
@MHLoppy The Future Fund is not Australia’s rainy day fund. It exists purely to try to cover some of the Public Service’s huge unfunded pension liabilities.
Unfortunately, there is nothing in it for the rest of us for a rainy day.
I’d say a targeted rainy day fund probably still qualifies as a “rainy day fund”, but I suppose the wording choice could have been clearer.
Stop pissing around Mr Chalmers and set up a genuine Sovereign Wealth fund like Norway funded by new royalties on oil/gas/coal/ironore/gold/lithium and all the other wealth generated by mining that is being stripped out by international and national mining companies.
It’s always been a football in that LNP and now Labor want it to solve investment issues. Same with Super.
