Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Foreign Acquisitions and Takeovers Legislation Amendment Bill 2015. In doing so I would like to put out there from the very beginning that I love foreign investment, my city loves foreign investment and our country has loved foreign investment since 1788. One of my previous bosses, Richard Ferry—a great real estate agent and raconteur around Townsville—started his life as a jackaroo but ended up working for Elders. He was at Charleville, standing under the wing of a DC-3 when Lord Vestey came through to inspect his sheep flock when Lord Vestey owned most of western Queensland and basically all of northern Australia. We have loved foreign investment since then.

The beauty of foreign investment is that it crunches the time for you. In Australia today we do not have enough cash in our society to fund our own mortgage system, let alone to build the roads, bridges and other infrastructure we need to become a powerhouse into the Asian century. We need that foreign investment to be able to build the things we need, so that we can improve our trade routes and raise our productivity. It would crunch the time for doing the Bruce Highway from the 60 years we would have to wait until Australia could afford it down to just the 10 years that Minister Warren Truss is talking about at the moment. Those are the sorts of things that foreign investment can do. It can raise these things. It also brings the impetus to make sure we are staying on top of those things.

Foreign investment is vital to developing northern Australia as well and to creating the economic growth and the jobs that north Queensland needs, but we need to have the right safeguards in place to protect our national interest whilst welcoming foreign investment. This bill ensures our investment framework walks that line. The big thing about this is that it was a commitment that we made going into the 2013 election. It was one of those things that we said we would do, and here it is—hey presto! Surprise, surprise—we are actually doing it.

This bill implements a number of changes to the foreign investment framework, including the key previously-announced commitments of lowering screening thresholds and establishing a land register for agricultural investment, to increase transparency. One of the things people talk to me about in my city of Townsville is who owns what. We want to know. People want to know and want to be aware of it. They are not anti foreign investment; they are not anti any particular country; they just want to know what is going on and what is happening in their communities, because of a lot of the things that we see. One of the worries we have in my city is that the profit no longer stays in the region. We have to make sure that our farms and our agricultural land are managed and that they prosper, so as to make sure that jobs in the towns, and then the cities, are fostered.

It will impose a stricter penalty regime to allow pursuit of foreign investors who are breaching the rules. You have seen the Treasurer, Joe Hockey, doing that in Sydney on a number of housing purchases. It establishes fees on foreign investment applications so that the taxpayer will no longer fund the cost of administering the application screening, and it will transfer responsibility for regulating foreign investment in residential real estate to the Australian Taxation Office, so that we do know who is buying what and why. And there are measures to modernise and simplify foreign investment legislation.

The Labor Party support the register but oppose lowering the screening thresholds, even though we won the election with these as our policies. They oppose the application fees because, once again, Labor will stand in front of absolutely anything that does anything towards bringing money into the government. They oppose the penalties for people who flout the rules. So, again, what Labor stand for is flouting of the rules and getting away scot free from anything. As to the 'additional red tape on foreign investors', I do not see this as additional red tape; I see this as just changing numbers on the existing red tape, and I think everyone is there.

I have recently been to China and have had conversations with Chinese investors in Australia. They are quite comfortable with this. They understand the difference between international relations and local politics and what we have to do as a country. China have a lot of laws themselves that we disagree with, and yet we are still able to manage a relationship between the two peoples and between the two countries.

This fulfils the coalition's election commitment to lower screening thresholds and create a foreign ownership register of agricultural land.

The package of bills will make important changes to strengthen the integrity of our foreign investment framework, ensuring that Australia maintains a welcoming environment for investment that is not contrary to its national interest. The Treasurer has been in front of the people in relation to this. This is what happens inside Australia. This is not about our relationship with any other country; this is something that we are doing for Australians to make sense to Australians. For years we have wanted to know who owns what in this country, and we have never been able to. This legislation actually makes that possible.

These bills implement the reforms that were announced by the government on 2 May 2015 to ensure that, from 1 December this year, the Australian foreign investment framework is more modern, simpler and better targeted to changing demands and community expectations. That is what we are reflecting here: the community expectations. These changes will deliver a robust regulatory framework, increasing community confidence and providing a predictable and welcoming environment for investors. As I said, when I speak to people who have come to Townsville, Charters Towers and the Burdekin—and when I was in China—they understand the difference between international politics and local politics. They understand the need for locals to be catered for, as every sovereign nation does around the world. The bills are about welcoming essential foreign investment that is not contrary to our national interest, investment that strengthens Australia's economy, creates new jobs and unlocks innovation.

The Foreign Acquisitions and Takeovers Legislation Amendment Bill 2015 represents the most significant overhaul of the Foreign Acquisitions and Takeovers Act 1975 since its introduction, almost 40 years ago. It provides essential changes to simplify the system, strengthen the framework and ensure that the rules are enforced. I will just digress a little bit here. I heard the previous speaker, the member for Kingsford Smith, talk about the Standing Committee on Economics, which looked into this. I think credit must go to Kelly O'Dwyer, the member for Higgins, for the work that she did on this in maintaining the debate and getting the result that the people actually understand. People understand exactly why we are doing this and the outcomes from it and that we are still able to organise everything that happens around the world without having to worry about this.

The bill introduces additional, stricter, civil and criminal penalties to ensure that foreign investors and intermediaries do not profit from breaking the rules. We have seen the stories in Sydney, particularly in the housing market, in relation to people not following the rules, and we have seen a Treasurer who is prepared to act. I think that one of the things that Joe Hockey will always take with him on this is his statement that he was prepared to act. We have a government that says what it means, means what it says and follows through.

The bill enables the transfer to the Australian Taxation Office of responsibility for regulating foreign investment in residential real estate, which will further enable stronger enforcement, audit and compliance with the existing rules. I know that there is debate, and this is all about Sydney. But, when you go to places like Cardwell, Charters Towers, Tully, the Burdekin, Ayr and Home Hill, they want people to come in and buy their houses. They want people to come in and build houses. They will do anything to fix those things up and make sure that our communities are growing. So, whilst I understand the reticence and the alarm that people in Sydney are feeling in relation to this, when it comes to my city of Townsville, we welcome people wanting to come here and build and buy houses and units, all the time.

The bill also enables the lowering of screening thresholds for investment in Australian agriculture, to ensure that significant investments in this sector are scrutinised. I think what you are looking for here is people making sure that we know what is going on. No-one is saying no to foreign investment here. We do need to make sure that we know who owns what. In my city of Townsville, that is the No. 1 question. We are not worried about which nationality owns it; we want to know who owns it and what is going on there. I will have more to say about that specific thing in a minute.

This bill introduces fees on all foreign investment applications from 1 December 2015. Fees on foreign investment applications will ensure that Australian taxpayers are no longer funding the administration of the system. Whilst we welcome foreign investment, we put these fees in place. We have to make sure that the Australian taxpayer is not carrying the burden here. If you are coming to buy in Australia, the Australian taxpayer must end up in front in the transaction. There is nothing wrong with that.

It will also provide additional resourcing to Treasury and the Australian Taxation Office to improve service delivery for our investors. It is about streamlining the system. It is about reducing the red tape and moving to the one thing so that you can get the answers quickly.

The Register of Foreign Ownership of Agricultural Land Bill 2015 complements these changes by establishing a register of foreign ownership, operated by the Australian Taxation Office. Foreign investors are required to register essential information about their existing holdings and subsequent acquisitions of Australian agricultural land, providing greater transparency around foreign investment in agriculture. That is important.

With this package of bills, the government are fulfilling our commitments to increase scrutiny and transparency around foreign investment. That is going to be well received, certainly in my community and around North Queensland. We reduce red tape and ensure that Australia remains open for business. Industry consultation has occurred throughout the policy development process and the drafting of this legislation, including releasing exposure drafts of the relevant bills.

Can I just go quickly to the thresholds that are imposed here. The $15 million threshold which will come in now will apply to the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement, and everyone is happy with that. It is negotiated; it is in the agreement; and the Chinese are happy with that. They understand what the rules are. The billion-dollar threshold for previous agreements is in the agreements we struck with those countries at that time. We do not believe in going back and changing the agreements. That goes to why legislation cannot be thrown around and cannot be mucked around.

I want to finish by saying that I have been involved in sales as an auctioneer and as a real estate agent for 25-years. Never in my career—not once—have I taken an offer which was accepted by a vendor where the vendor has said, 'What nationality is the vendor?' To people who fear foreign investment, I say: 'If it is not for sale, they can't buy it.' If they are making the best offer, we expect, as an agent and a representative of the vendor, that we will present the best possible offer to our vendor, and if that comes from overseas that is fantastic. To the people who sit there and say that we should knock back foreign investment in my region and that we should not have foreign investment in our society or the people in my region who fear this, I say, 'You shouldn't fear this, you should welcome it.' This is positive; this is about what we do to set up our country.

I see a bunch of school kids have just walked into the viewing gallery upstairs. I say good afternoon to them, and I say that what we are doing here with the foreign acquisitions and takeovers bill, with the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement and with the agreements with Korea and Japan is not about us here in this room; this is about your future. This is about the future for you, so that, when get out of school, you can go to these countries and you can make your fortune there while still basing yourself in Australia. This is what we are trying to do here. The thing I like about the youth of today is that they are not afraid of foreign investment and they are not afraid of people of other ethnicities—where some of my generation and older do have this fear.

When we look at foreign investment we need to look at it through the eyes of what is going to happen in 25 to 30 years. In the late 1980s, 25 to 30 years ago, my bosses bought their first mobile phone, in the late 1980s and it cost them $2,500 to have it fitted to the car. It cost $2.500 for a car phone, and you would not use it because it was so expensive to use it. To use the fax machine you almost had to have a university degree. Think about how much smaller the world is today. The iPad was introduced into this parliament by the member for Watson in 2010. In a world that is continually getting smaller, what we have to do is understand that capital is more fluid and we need foreign investment. We need foreign capital in this country; otherwise, we will not have the roads, we will not have the bridges, we will not have the ports, we will not have the airports, we will not have the airplanes and we will not have the trade.

If we in this parliament do not do this right now, when you guys finish your university degrees or your apprenticeships—and come out as electricians or landscape gardeners et cetera—and you think to yourselves, 'They are doing a lot of work on the environment in China; we should probably go over there and have a look at this to see if we can add to what they are doing,' you will not be able to, and you will look back on this parliament as people who squibbed it. You will look back on this parliament as the people who put out robocalls from the Labor Party and the CFMEU to people saying that we have to be afraid of foreign investment and we have to be afraid of what the Chinese bring to Australia through this China-Australia Free Trade Agreement. If we do not pass this legislation, we will look back on this time in this parliament and we will find that it was one of the dirtiest, nastiest pieces of work ever done in this country.

I am very proud of these bills and I am very proud of the work done by the Treasurer, by the member for Higgins and by all the people involved in this. My city welcomes foreign investment. My city welcomes the future, and we should all be getting on with it.

See this speech in context