Tim Watts (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

'But not China!' And it belled the cat! This is what this debate is about.

Mr Chester interjecting—

I will come to Barnaby. I will come to the rhetoric about 'not China'. We will talk about Cubbie Station. We need investments in our hard infrastructure like our roads, ports, rail and water infrastructure. Yet the rhetoric and political posturing of this government is unrelentingly hostile to foreign investment. As I said before, there has been a symphony of dog whistles: some forms of foreign investments are welcome, but not Chinese foreign investment.

The Minister for Agriculture defended the former Prime Minister's emphasis on cutting the screening threshold for foreign investment in agriculture, saying, 'If foreign investment wasn't such a big issue, he wouldn't be putting his endeavours towards it.' This is a bit of a non-sequitur, but I can tell the Minister for Agriculture that the reason it is a big issue is not because foreign investment is hurting Australia; quite the contrary. It is because of the political game playing of those opposite—game playing like that of the agriculture minister, Barnaby Joyce, on issues like the sale of Cubbie Station, and the nonsensical rhetoric that implies that the Chinese government will somehow airlift Australian agricultural land back to China or build a pipeline from Dirranbandi to Dalian to somehow steal our water.

It is telling that the opponents of foreign investment in this place cannot actually articulate the harms being caused to Australia by foreign investment in this country. They cannot articulate them because they do not exist. Australia's history has been one of benefiting from foreign investment, and it is something we should all welcome in this place.

The burden of all this political pointscoring will again fall on the Foreign Investment Review Board, which is significantly underfunded and will be asked to do significantly more in future—an extra burden that will hinder the board from performing its key function effectively and efficiently. It is important to appreciate that the board does not have the power to block proposals by foreign investors itself but only makes recommendations to the Treasurer, who makes the final decision if there is reason to believe that a foreign investment proposal is not in Australia's national interest. Ironically enough, the Treasurer is not even required to take into consideration these screening thresholds; he or she can review and block any proposal, regardless of the value. The same applies to the National Security Committee of the cabinet. No controversial investment proposal escapes the interest of the government, regardless of the value, and I would challenge the government to highlight an instance when a screening threshold has allowed a controversial proposal to go through.

The bill also highlights the double standards the government displays when it comes to regulatory burdens. As the shadow minister for agriculture, the member for Hunter, has said, the thresholds for agricultural land included in this bill would be 'a red-tape nightmare' and risk driving investors away when the sector was hungry for capital. The soon-to-be-former Treasurer did not call it red tape, though. In an Orwellian twist of language, he called it 'providing greater certainty for investors'. This gives lie to the rhetoric in this chamber that was often heard from those opposite in the debate about the omnibus repeal bill, sometimes better known as the red tape repeal day bill. Those opposite are perfectly happy with regulatory red tape when it serves their political rhetoric. I am concerned about the message that some of the rhetoric of those opposite regarding this bill sends to overseas investors. I am also concerned about the message it sends to Asian-Australians living in our community—the 16 per cent of Australians who identify as Asian yet are currently being vilified and treated like boogiemen at auctions around our nation. They do not deserve this kind of treatment, and we ought to stamp it out in this place.

It is important to note that this bill differentiates on investment in agricultural land based on an investor's country of origin. The cumulative $15 million threshold will apply to some countries but not others. For example, the existing threshold of $1,094 million will still apply for investors from the United States, New Zealand and Chile while a new, lower threshold of $15 million for rural land will apply to investors from China. As I say, it bells the cat. Why are the Chinese different? Why is Chinese capital different? There have been undertones of xenophobia in this debate—one might call it a xenophobic fear campaign—from those opposite, highlighted by the way the former Treasurer singled out Chinese foreign investors in this bill. Australia has benefitted from hundreds of years of foreign investment, and if we are to succeed in realising our potential in the Asian century we must continue to harness it in order to grow. To do that, we need foreign investment, and everyone in this House should welcome it.

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