The Future Fund has passed a significant milestone.
It's 10 years old, doubled in size and, at $123 billion, is larger than Peter Costello envisaged when he established it in May 2006.
But the former Liberal treasurer, now chairman of the fund which aims to cover the unfunded liabilities of public service superannuation, has warned of a difficult investment environment ahead.
In its latest quarterly update, the fund returned 4.8 per cent in the past year, just shy of its legislative target of 5.5 per cent - CPI plus 4.5 per cent.
But over the past decade it has returned 7.7 per cent, adding $62.3 billion to the original government contributions of $60.5 billion.
"Over that period there has been big events, big dislocation in financial markets, so I think that is a very pleasing result," Mr Costello told a media briefing in Melbourne on Thursday.
However, the fund's managing director David Neal believes there is a growing sense of unease across the investor landscape over the waning impact of monetary policy.
"That creates some fragility to any future shock," he said.
Mr Costello thinks what has been forgotten in the US, Europe and Australia is structural policy, like trade and budget policy.
"I don't think we can take any more weight in monetary policy," he said.
"Interest rates are practically zero ... we are running out of shots and it's time to move on to other areas of policy."
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