Combet also addressed the debate sparked when the federal government last year announced changes to the Future Fund’s investment mandate to have the fund contribute to three national priorities, including energy, Australian infrastructure and the housing supply.
Since May, the fund’s holdings in Australian infrastructure were worth $16.4 billion and included stakes in the Port of Melbourne, Western Sydney Airport, the new Qantas terminal at Perth Airport and a recently added 10 per cent stake in Transgrid which has committed to investing $11 billion on building assets related to the HumeLink transmission line between South Australia and NSW.
Reflecting on the mandate change with respect to addressing housing supply in particular, Combet said the issue concerned him.
“Personally, I’m very worried about the housing issue in Australia and I’ve got a number of step-children and my own daughter from the ages of 20 through to 40, and they can’t buy a home and we’re pretty well-off,” he said.
“We’ve just got to boost [the] supply of housing. So, many in the superannuation world, at the Future Fund, institutions, internationally too, have been thinking for a period of time, ‘well, how does housing become an asset for us in Australia that’s scalable and investible’.”
The Future Fund, a sovereign wealth fund, was set up to help finance public sector pension liabilities in 2006.
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