<tl;dr>Does your online brokerage service allow you to buy/sell ASX-listed Australian Goverment Bonds? (For example, GSBG15 series maturing April 2015?) One of the ideas that is circulating around in SMSF circles (Trustees, advisers, service providers et al.) is the idea the Superannuation regulation will, at some point in the future, be amended to require a certain percentage of all complying Superannuation funds be allocated to infrastructure projects or government bonds. As SMSF Trustees (or Directors of Trustee Companies) we are required to comply with the laws and regulatory requirements imposed on SMSFs. So, as distasteful as it may be to offer financial credit to the government, we have little choice but to be pragmatic about this matter. I've discovered a possible solution that'd allow SMSFs to satisfy any future requirement with minimal additional effort; ASX-listed Australian Government Treasury Bonds (AGBs). They are Australian government bonds traded like other ASX-listed securities. Here's the ASX-spiel for AGBs: http://www.asx.com.au/products/bonds/exchange-traded-agbs.htm Here's the spiel from Treasury: http://australiangovernmentbonds.gov.au/etbs/treasury-bonds/ Which brings me to the more immediate question; I'm currently trying to locate a low-cost online brokerage that would allow SMSF Trustee to buy/sell eTBs? I know right now neither E*TRADE or Halifax currently quote or transact in these eTBs. Called the other e-brokerages CSRs, but they either can't or won't answer this simple question. Frankly hope the day never comes, but we should know better. Better to be prepared for the worse and hope for the best, then the other way around. Edit: Fiscally, skimming billions from every superannuation funds into government bonds lower the yield on Australia's government debt, flatten the yield curve and reduce the cost of servicing government debt. Voluntary-but-mandatory investment in infrastructure would allow Canberra to move infrastructure spending 'off the books' into the 'private sector'. Both would leave more of the tax dollars for their latest vote-buying scheme, 'conferences' in Barbados, $60,000 bookshelvess, or their latest hare-brained pet projects like 'Land rights for LGBT whales' etc.
If it gets to the point we're we are forced to buy government bonds to fund government liabilities or more debt then I'll be on my way to a country with no extradiction treaty with Australia
