Jim Chalmers says the nation’s $3.5 trillion retirement savings pool will play a bigger role in defence and national security as the federal government pushes for more institutional investment as expenditure grows.
“It’s time that super funds step up to the plate and give everyday Australians the chance to invest in their own national security,” said Joe Hockey, the former treasurer and Australian ambassador in Washington DC whose Bondi Partners consultancy advises and invests in defence firms.“Old perceptions that national security is a high-risk investment class are dead wrong.
The defence sector has seen little private investment in Australia; overseas, there has been a concerted push to attract funding. In December, the Biden administration established the Office of Strategic Capital to help finance technologies that would be critical to national security.
Shifting government priorities and defence contracts – along with social pressure – had in any case made the sector unattractive for investors, said Hayley Channer, who heads the economic security program at the United States Studies Centre.