ASFA

Treasurer Jim Chalmers appears to have set himself another impossible task: ending the super wars. But legislating an objective for superannuation and urging funds to take part in nation building projects will only inflame them.

Superannuation funds are rapidly offshoring their assets as FUM grows faster than GDP, according to new data from NAB and ASFA. Coming early to the barbell strategy party has also paid off.

It’s big super’s “once in a lifetime opportunity” to build the future. But as funds look to invest in nation-building in Australia and the Pacific, they’ll want the government to share some of the risk.

ASFA wants the YFYS performance test benchmarks tweaked to account for the exclusions and negative screens that faith- and values-based funds use.

The spectre of early release still looms large over the industry, and super’s true believers want its purpose legislated to prevent Australia’s retirement savings from becoming a crisis piggy bank.

The last nine years of government have been characterised by a deep-seated suspicion of the country’s largest investors. But with Labor back in power, the super wars are almost certainly over.

Labor can do little to change the past. But a win in May could usher in a new era of co-operation between big super and the government. There were no surprises in shadow finance minister Stephen Jones’ speech to the 2022 ASFA conference. There is little that Labor can outright promise the industry aside from…

The recent surge in demand for fossil fuels doesn’t mean the green energy revolution is dead. But investors need to proceed with caution lest they lose their mandate to manage the transition. There are two schools of thought on what Russia’s invasion of Ukraine means for fossil fuel production and consumption. Either it will hasten…

While Liberals and Labor have sparred for decades, it seems that many Australians believe the ideological conflict waged over superannuation is mostly moot. The super wars have raged unchecked since the introduction of the superannuation guarantee (SG) in the heady days of 1993. But the ideological battles in Parliament and the press have been waged…

APRA’s orthodoxy on scale and its importance to funds has been disputed by all comers, with “massive and passive” a common refrain. But the regulator is hoping to prove that bigger really is better. One of the more controversial moments of Helen Rowell’s career as APRA’s superannuation executive was the claim that any fund below…