Motley Fool Money · Saturday, September 5, 2026
A listener named Devin questioned whether Australia's Future Fund qualifies as a sovereign wealth fund, prompting a discussion on the show. The hosts clarified that while the Future Fund is a government investment fund designed to grow national wealth, its purpose differs from the commonly cited Norwegian model, focusing on specific obligations like public service superannuation rather than broad national savings.
“Could it possibly be that you don't know about this fund? Or is the reason you don't mention this because the intent of which it is built differs to that of the infamous Norwegian iteration and therefore does not scratch the itch?”
“So, yes, in the context we're talking about here, a sovereign wealth fund from for our purposes is very much just a national fund designed to preserve and grow national wealth at some sort of scale and at some sort of broad, um, for broad application.”
“And yes, the Future Fund is a government fund invested in in assets to grow over time. So yes, it absolutely is a sovereign wealth fund, the same way as my hyper leverage Bitcoin gold, China ETF is an ETF.”
“So it was a very, very, very smart thing to do. But it was a very narrowly defined SWF. So if we want to talk about sovereign wealth funds, we talk about broad and narrow ones.”