Little splits parties on investment returns

There is likely to be little difference in investment returns no matter who wins office at the upcoming Federal Election, according to AMP Capital Investors chief economist Shane Oliver.

Oliver has pointed to Australian history as proof that elections have little impact on returns, saying that over the post-war period the average return for the Australian share market under the Coalition had been 13.2 per cent a year compared to 9.9 per cent a year under Labor.

However he said the Labor Government figure rose to 12.6 per cent a year when the impact of the global financial crisis was taken out of the equation.

"In other words there is not much difference between the two major parties," he said.

Oliver also claimed that conventional perceptions that conservative governments were always better for shares did not always play out, with the period of the Hawke/Keating administrations seeing very strong sharemarket gains while the period of the Fraser administration saw much lower returns.

"Once in government, political parties of either persuasion are usually forced to adopt sensible macro economic policies if they wish to deliver rising living standards to their constituents," Oliver said.

He said that both the Coalition and Labor agreed on the key macro fundamentals of the need to keep inflation down and to return the budget to surplus for the benefit of free markets.