Report from
the Chair

I am Greg Combet, the Chair of the Future Fund.

One of the reasons that I'm so proud to have been appointed Chair is the values and the purpose of the Organisation of the Future Fund. It invests for the benefit of future generations of Australians. The Future Fund is investing in total nearly $300 billion and it has a tremendous economic and social benefit for people.

While in the past financial year, it's particularly pleasing to report that the Future Fund achieved a 9.1% return, well in excess of its benchmark. But more important than that, the 10 year return of 8.3% per annum is in excess of the benchmark of 6.9% per annum over the decade. So these are very good results.

Well, as well as managing the Future Fund, we also manage six other funds that various governments have asked, to be looked after and invested, and that provides important financing for medical research, the Indigenous Land and Sea Corporation, for social and affordable housing, to help communities with drought and disaster relief and a number of other purposes. So these are very important funds. They currently total about $64 billion and generated about $12 billion in earnings over recent years to help all of those purposes. And these funds also support the important work of Australia's National Disability Insurance scheme.

One of the interests that I have, coming onto the Board of Guardians is to have a look at where the investment opportunities might lie in the future to aid the energy transition. Obviously, those investments, need to be consistent with proper commercial judgement and fit into a diversified portfolio, but the Future Fund’s already a significant investor in energy assets, and I'll be interested to see whether we can add to that.

Over the past financial year, I think when we reflect upon it, we've started to come out of that post pandemic, you know, period of increasing inflation and rapidly increasing interest rates, and admittedly interest rates rose in that environment off the back of historically low rates.

But I think heading into FY25, we can see that inflation is abating, and of course there's a fair bit of speculation and expectation in markets that rates will be coming down in the not too distant future. That's good news, but we can't lose sight of the fact that there are still very significant challenges, globally, that impact on markets. Things like geopolitical risk, climate change, demographic change, changes in technology, the rapid growth of artificial intelligence. These are all very important things that can impact on financial markets. The way that's looked at here, and certainly the way that I look at it, is that they not only present risks, but they present opportunities. 

And, so one of the things that I'm particularly interested in is how we can find, further economic investments, for example, in the energy transition, a major transformation taking place in many different advanced economies.

So the Future Fund has a great track record of looking at market trends and dynamics, for example, geopolitical changes and challenges and thinking about what that means for financial markets. And I think, that's going to inform our approach ahead.

I think when you're thinking about the top priorities for the Board of Guardians, there's really only one, and that's to deliver on the investment mandate. CPI plus 4 to 5%. Obviously many other issues are considered, but that's what we've been charged to pursue and deliver, and that's what we will focus on.

I've spent many years, in various forms of public service representing people, fighting for fairness and justice, but in particular trying to contribute to public service in Australia to help benefit people and that's what motivates me, and what motivates me in particular to try to contribute to the Future Fund in the years ahead. You know, the purpose of the organisation is strong and clear, and I feel very committed to it.