Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

or WATT (—) (): Thanks, Senator Pocock. In relation to your first question, I probably can't give too much more detail than what I've already said today, which is that this is something that is being explored by the finance minister in discussions with the Future Fund, as to what the investment strategy of the Future Fund is. I'm sure that Senator Gallagher would be happy to talk with you a bit further if you'd like to have some more detail about that. But, clearly, by me saying that we intend to better align the investment options with the government's commitment to net zero by 2050, this is clearly something that the finance minister is giving some thought to.

For your second question, I must admit I haven't seen that PBO research that you're citing. What we're relying on, as I said earlier, is the advice from the Future Fund. That advice is that, really, we can only have a maximum of $200 million per year to ensure that we don't run down the principle of this fund at any point. I stand to be corrected by the advisers who are here, but my understanding is that we don't see the fund being fully depleted by setting a $200 million mark. Obviously, the amount that the fund earns every year will differ depending on investment returns in the market. Even in the time I was the shadow minister, I remember there were some years that generated a very big return, and some years generated a lower return. But, if you like, the $200 million figure is essentially an averaging out—and I don't mean that precisely; I'm just talking generally. But that is an average amount that we could spend from this fund while maintaining that principle at around the $4 billion mark so that we can keep investing it and generate the kinds of returns that we can then spend every single year.