Australia's Future Fund: a future beyond the GFC

Australia’s Future Fund (FF) was created in 2006 as a long-term savings fund designed to meet the Australian Government’s future public service pension liabilities. With the onset of the financial crisis, fewcommentators thought theAustralianGovernmentwould have the capacity or interest to continue investing in the FF. However, in the context of Australia’s rapid, commodity-driven recovery from the crisis there is a growing case that the FF should play a central role in a new fiscal policy framework designed to manage the risks associated with the current resources boom. The paper explores these arguments and the politics associated with implementing such a framework and in so doing highlights the political constraints associated with implementing SWFs in advanced democracies.