Australia pension plan looks to invest in Trump's infrastructure projects

Bloomberg:

President Donald Trump’s pledge to fix America’s ailing roads, bridges and airports may get an unlikely boost from retirement savers some 10,000 miles away in Australia.

In face-to-face talks at the White House this week, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull will propose using a chunk of Australia’s A$2.53 trillion ($1.99 trillion) pension savings pool to help unlock funding for Trump’s infrastructure push. He’s being joined on the trip by local money managers who help control the world’s fourth-largest pot of retirement savings.

“There’s a very bold ambition to drive U.S. infrastructure and Australia should be front and center in terms of project design, build, financing and management,” Trade Minister Steven Ciobo said in an interview ahead of the visit.

Trump’s $1.5 trillion public-works plan has hit potholes amid a lack of bipartisan support in Congress and questions over who would pay for the initiative despite his pledge of $200 billion in federal funding over 10 years. Australian officials have pointed to their own success in selling or leasing public assets to finance new construction without incurring new debt -- a concept known as asset recycling.

Joe Hockey, now Australia’s ambassador to the U.S., was a key champion of the initiative when he was federal Treasurer and has been pivotal in promoting it in Washington.

“There’s no doubt when it comes to infrastructure and better rollout of infrastructure, Australia has some examples that may be of use to the United States,” Hockey said Wednesday. Australia could help deploy “private money in partnership with state, county and city governments to give the infrastructure America desperately needs just to maintain its current economic growth, not to fall backwards,” he said.
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There is much more.

It appears the Australian pension plans are in much better shape than the public pension plans in the US.   The Trump administration should listen to their offer.