Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Nick Xenophon Team) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support the passage of this bill. In the recent election campaign in July this year, the Nick Xenophon Team ran on a ticket of increased government transparency and support for Australian made. The Australian people expect more transparency, and this bill, I believe, makes some inroads on that policy theme.

The debate on the sale of our national water interests naturally involves the debate on foreign investment in Australian agriculture as a whole. I am not opposed to foreign investment in our country but I am opposed to 'selling the farm' to the highest bidder when it means that much of our prime agricultural land will end up in the hands of international interests. And I do not apologise when I say that the best investment in Australia is that which comes from Australians. The government must balance the need for investment with the national need for sovereignty and security.

The Nick Xenophon Team policy on foreign investment is clear; we believe the Foreign Investment Review Board should lower their threshold so that any sale over $5 million is scrutinised. And I look to the New Zealand framework, which ensures any sale of land over five hectares is scrutinised to consider the benefit to the nation. It is an approach that we should aim for. New Zealand considers a number of set criteria for the national interest, taking into account whether a proposed sale will result in the creation of new job opportunities in New Zealand, and whether the sale will increase New Zealand exports or will add to market competition. I believe that they have it right and we should follow in a similar framework. Our government regularly looks to New Zealand for public policy approaches, and I would encourage it to look at New Zealand's foreign investment policy for review.

While the foreign ownership of land register is a great initiative, the statistics the government released earlier this year were, in my opinion, less than satisfactory. The Australian public now knows that 13.6 per cent of our farmland is owned by international interests, but where is the detail? What is the dollar value of that land? Where is the detail on the total number of farms owned? Where is the easy public access? Where are the region-specific statistics? We have taken the first steps towards greater public access, but it is limited. We could provide, and we should provide, much greater transparency.

The introduction of a water register allows the government to kill two birds, effectively, with one stone: learn from the mistakes with the rollout of the land register, fix the anomalies and make sure that the water register is sufficiently transparent from the beginning. The Australian people expect and deserve this kind of transparency. They deserve to know the details of foreign ownership in Australian land and water.

I am proud to say that my amazing electorate of Mayo is home to a significant volume of highly arable agricultural farmland. We have dairy farmers, cherry growers, apple growers, winemakers and everything in between. There are so many jobs to be found in food production, and it is my hope that South Australia will transition from being the 'automotive manufacturing state' to the 'agricultural and food production state'. But, if these farms are not in Australian hands, how can we guarantee that they will create Australian jobs?

Every week I speak with constituents in my electorate who are concerned at how much land is being sold to foreign investors. There is a genuine concern among regular Australians that we will lose our food security. My colleague Senator Nick Xenophon has spoken about Australia being able to feed the world. I agree with him. But we cannot feed the world if we cannot first feed ourselves, and without being in control of our own food security, and our water, we are at risk of not being able to feed our own country. In recent years, we have been so focused on a mining boom that I fear we will be missing out on the benefits of the great dining boom.

Once the land is sold overseas, there is no government ability to control how our land is used and where food produced on the land is sent. Henry Kissinger once said, 'Who controls the food supply controls the people.' In my opinion, whoever controls the country's water controls the country. In this country, our water is everything. We are lucky in Australia to have some highly valuable agricultural land, but we have many regions that do not have water, and water is the source that determines that value and opportunity. It is our lifeblood.

We need a strategic approach to foreign investment, rather than the inconsistent approach we have now. We should not be increasing the profits of overseas businesses just to water our crops. With more information we can have a more informed decision-making process. A register such as this is a good start, but we need to do more, and how we can do more, and how we can do this much better, is through greater transparency for the Australian community. Our community deserves to know.

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