Oh, I have never said they did not act independently, they have...

Oh, I have never said they did not act independently, they have certainly done that. And I agree with Blackhole that they could have been a bit more easygoing with the divestment. It would work out better for them financially. They would achieve higher return for their members than the measly 3% they got instead.

But then they would not be doing their job properly. The Future Fund with all th fanfares is in the first instance a Superannuation Fund for Commonwealth Public Servants.

Yes, at its inception there were grand speeches how the governments will place all their surpluses that were supposed to run in perpetuity to FF and FF will become all thing to all people as soon as there was enough to fund the supper of Canbera's bureaucrats and their office staff, not talking about the hard working Centrelink personnel. everywhere.
ALL this came to an abrupt halt with arrival of GFC, no more surpluses and so, according to Peter Costello no more money went in. Peter rather immodestly claimed today in media that he gave FF every dollar they ever had. That rather denigrates the fine work of David Murray, his board and a team of public servants who worked very hard and often burned midnight oil to achieve the aforementioned 3% pa. That is roughly what you might expect when you appoint a bank manager to look after your money. It is a well known fact that bankers were trained to operate using 3 by 3 rule. Borrow at 3% lend it out at 2 times 3% and be on the golf course by 3 o'clock.

But in fairness, they have followed the time honored tradition of most super fund by spreading the risks using the asset allocation method and it would be too risky to have all or most of their eggs in one basket, even if it was our bellowed TLS that we consider fireproof, indestructible and bound for greatness. Well some of us.

And only way to spread their risk across many investment sectors, domestic and international, cash, fixed interest, shares and property was to monetize their only asset, the TLS parcel they got from Peter Costello to start with. Not that it was Peter's money anyway, it belonged to all Australians and he appropriated it to fix a black hole in government finances, the unfunded liability of commonwealth employees super entitlements. Everything that followed were consequences of that decision.