Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Hansard source

limit up to $1 billion. So someone could purchase at $500 an acre a property more than three times the size of the Australian Capital Territory and not have to go before the Foreign Investment Review Board. That is an absurdity—a total and utter absurdity. But I am glad that we now have something to talk about in agriculture. It is the only policy they have got. They are going to fix up the debt by selling off the whole joint. That is how they are going to do it, and I am looking forward to them proudly standing behind that policy at every opportunity. But not one of them has gone out. It is dead silence behind their policy of having a billion-dollar limit before any person has to go to the Foreign Investment Review Board over the sale of Australia's most fundamental asset—our land. Maybe the Leader of the Opposition will stand up today and stand behind his party's policy. Why the silence? Is there something that you are ashamed of?

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