Billions of Dollars of Aussie Retirement Funds to be Gambled on Britain’s Failing Net Zero Push • Watts Up With That?
Essay by Eric Worrall
Betting retirement funds on the honesty, consistency and fiduciary skill of Nut Zero obsessed politicians – what could possibly go wrong?
Australian super fund puts billions into backing Britain’s energy transition
Business and environmental groups urge Labor to supercharge incentives to lure capital
Katharine Murphy Political editor @murpharooMon 27 Nov 2023 09.30 AEDT
The behemoth Australian fund IFM Investors will sink £10bn (A$19bn) into infrastructure and energy transition projects in Britain by 2027 as part of a new memorandum of understanding with the Sunak government.
The decision by IFM – which is owned by 17 Australian industry super funds – comes as a coalition of business and environmental groups calls on the Albanese government to supercharge tax and other financial incentives to ensure Australia can attract sufficient capital to drive the domestic transition to net zero emissions.
The MoU between IFM Investors and Britain’s minister for investment will be signed at the Global Investment Summit in London. Kemi Badenoch, the UK’s business and trade secretary, characterised the commitment from IFM as “a very important investment for the UK’s innovative energy and infrastructure sectors”.
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What is the point of lending money to a nation whose currency is in danger of crashing? To be fair, Britain has an excellent track record of repaying debt, but if they wreck their economy through gross economic mismanagement, all the good intentions in the world can’t fix that.
There are already unequivocal signs the British economy is in trouble. British energy poverty is skyrocketing. Inflation is running red hot, 4.6%+.
Inflation is fever of the economy, frequently accompanied by political delirium – in my opinion, a fair description of British energy policy. The British government’s solution to this inflation, this unequivocal symptom of national policy trauma, is more of the same.
Britain’s national debt also exceeded 100% of GDP according to official March 2023 figures, though it dipped down to 97% last month. Of course this official figure may exclude some rather important future liabilities, possibly unfunded pension liabilities according to some analysis I’ve read, though I’m not an expert on the financial practices of the British Civil Service.
In my opinion if Britain continues down this path, it is only a matter of time until Britain does so much damage to their own economy they default on their debts, either by suspending repayments, or a technical default in the form of trying to print their way out of trouble, repaying nominal GBP debts using hastily debased currency, fulfilling their financial obligations in name only.
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