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date: 23 January 2021

Abstract and Keywords

This chapter outlines the creation and development of the Australian Future Fund (FF), showing how and why policy makers adopted this option to manage the challenges presented by the “good economic fortune” that occurred in Australia from the mid-1990s to 2010. It discusses the politics behind the governing structure of the FF, which is copied from its neighbor, New Zealand. Despite its initial emphasis on independence, political influence was inevitable when selecting and appointing the chairman of the Board of Guardians. The chapter examines the two key issues of “ethical investment” and “ethical operation” and shows the difficult balance of demands between diverse constituents; it identifies the space created by the expectation that the FF will behave in a similar fashion of all profit-maximization investors.

Keywords: sovereign wealth funds, Australian Future Fund, legitimacy, fund management, fund governance, regulating sovereign wealth funds

Xi-Chong Xu

Xu Yi-chong is Professor at the School of Government and International Relations, Griffith University, Australia. He is the author of The Sinews of Power (Harvard University Press, 2016), The Politics of Nuclear Energy in China (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010); Electricity Reform in China, India and Russia (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2004); Powering China (Ashgate, Dartmouth, 2002); co-author of Inside the World Bank (with P. Weller, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009) and The Governance of World Trade, (with P. Weller, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2004); and editor of The Politics of International Organizations (with P. Weller 2015), The Political Economy of State-owned Enterprises in China and India (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012) and Nuclear Energy Development in Asia (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011) and co-editor (with G. Bahgat) of The Political Economy of Sovereign Wealth Funds (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010). All the projects were supported by research grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and Australian Research Council (ARC).

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