New Zealand was provided in a non-commercial manner.

“It’s social infrastructure that doesn’t command a rate of return in a commercial sense,” he said.

“Other large infrastructure projects by definition are a long time in planning and a long time in getting access, but the underlying philosophy is that some of those assets would be very good for this type of portfolio, so that would be one area where we’d be very interested. But we’re not holding our breath; it takes a long time to get those investments up and going.”

He said the Government was yet to confirm any specific new direction for the fund.

“We’ve advised the government that 40 per cent is a long way north of where we are and that to get there would require some quite significant numbers,” he said.

“We talked to them about some of the
challenges that would bring for specific asset classes etc. They are well
briefed and they are thinking hard about what they want to achieve from that.”