Not easy going green: Could Combet's Future Fund play a bigger role in the race to net zero?
The energy transition will take hundreds of billions of dollars and decades to achieve. Private capital won't be able to fund it alone.
Former Labor cabinet minister and trade union boss Greg Combet's address to the National Press Club last week generated a swathe of headlines about the Albanese government’s approach to the energy transition. From postwar-style reconstruction rallying calls on the left to warnings about a 'Great Green Society' on the right and everything in between.
But what has been less discussed is the potentially significant role Combet could play himself as he takes the chair's seat at the $270 billion Future Fund in June.
“Hundreds of billions of dollars in investment will be needed to achieve net zero in Australia,” Combet said in the address, in his capacity as chair of the Net Zero Authority. “Neither government funding nor private capital alone can meet this challenge. It will take both, working together, to secure the opportunities of Australia’s net zero future."
Combet, who was climate and energy minister in the Gillard government, moved into a series of senior roles in the superannuation and funds management industry since leaving office. He has now emerged as one of the key figures in the energy transition in Australia, after being appointed by the government to lead the newly established Net Zero Authority and then after that, to chair the Future Fund.
