Treasury Secretary cautions on infrastructure
The Secretary of the Treasury, Martin Parkinson, has warned against seeking to drive infrastructure investment by superannuation funds, including via tax concessions.
Addressing the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA) national conference in Sydney, Parkinson said there was a danger that using policy initiatives to seek to drive infrastructure investment by superannuation funds carried with it the risk that trustees would make such investments for the wrong reasons.
Parkinson also made clear to the ASFA conference that it was the superannuation industry that needed to take responsibility for looking after superannuation fund members, not the Government.
He said the Government's obligation was to get the broad parameters right.
However, in the context of the broad future of superannuation and the age pension, Parkinson said there needed to be a national conversation about what Government could deliver "and what we expect Government to deliver".
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