Opening up early access to super for housing would have a negative effect on the balances of even those members that don’t dig into their savings, with funds forced to adopt more conservative investment strategies and hold more liquid assets.
The circa $88 billion industry fund for workers in health and community services reckons that alleviating the affordable housing crisis will boost its other investments by easing the cost of living and inflation.
Studying Japan’s future role with FEAL scholarships
CARE Super’s head of investments, Greg Nolan, and Retirement Benefits Fund of Tasmania’s CEO, Phillip Mussared, won the top investment education scholarships presented by the Fund Executives Association Ltd last week.
The scholarships, sponsored by Aberdeen Asset Management and the Centre for Investor Education (CIE), involve attendance at one of CIE’s international forums, this time at the event in Tokyo in April.
Nolan said that with the emergence of China, the significance of Japan had been “somewhat downplayed” but the country remained one of the most significant factors in determining the level of economic growth in Australia.
“It is essential to understand Japan’s experience over the last 20 years and the role it will play in Australia’s growth over the next 20.”
CIE’s Gabriela Darley said Japanese funds to be represented at the forum included: Government Pension Investment Fund of Japan, Japan Post, PFA, Nippon Life and Nissan.
Last year, the international scholarship was for one fund executive.
Seven domestic scholarships were also announced by Michael Baldwin, FEAL’s chief executive. Recipients were: James Thomas, AMIST Super; Mark Elliott, EISS; Grant Harslett, Maritime Super; Paul Kessell, Professionals Associations Super; Janelle Mostacci, REST; and David Schneider, UniSuper.
