The federal government’s decision to have the fund invest in housing and green energy has ruffled Coalition feathers.

[…]

But [treasurer Jim Chalmers] has broken a bipartisan practice that had lasted 18 years: resisting the temptation to ask the fund to do anything other than chase financial returns.

It opens up a debate about what Australia does, and should do, with the hundreds of billions of dollars it has squirrelled away.