Sinodinos reinforces investment objectives

The Federal Government has sent a further signal that it wants to see superannuation funds, including self-managed superannuation funds (SMSFs), utilised for infrastructure investment in Australia.

The signal has been sent by the Assistant Treasurer, Senator Arthur Sinodinos, who used an address to an industry function last week to suggest that the forthcoming Financial System Review to be chaired by David Murray could act as a catalyst.

"…David Murray's inquiry will be looking at some of those capital allocation issues as well, particularly in the life of the development of superannuation in Australia," he said.

Sinodinos said that while the Government did not want to mandate how those [superannuation] funds were used, the Government could create an environment which "optimises the use of that savings pool".

The Assistant Treasurer said there was a lot of debate around the extent to which superannuation was allocated and suggestions that too much was being directed towards equities rather than other asset classes.

"If we are looking to develop other asset classes, how do we do that? We talked before about retail corporate bonds. I'd look at the self-managed super fund sector which has now got a third of Australian's super savings. They're looking for infrastructure projects — retail infrastructure projects — so I'm keen to get ideas on how do we package that up," Sinodinos said. "Maybe when we solve the broader issue of how super funds can invest more in infrastructure assets, maybe out of that something will come."