Robert Oakeshott (Lyne, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is also to the Treasurer. Treasurer, can you explain why, in December 2009, your Foreign Investment Review Board chose not to oppose the 70 per cent takeover of Australian owned Energy Metals Ltd by state owned foreign entity China Uranium Development, with this majority takeover involving control of nine uranium project sites covering a total of 4,000 square kilometres? Treasurer, in light of the unresolved energy security debate in this country around an ETS, unresolved home insulation and home solar hot-water plans, rejection last year of a private member’s bill for a national gross feed-in tariff scheme, a heavily distorted and currently flailing renewable energy scheme and an unresolved and inconsistent position on the use of uranium for domestic energy use—yet, perversely, the expanding of mines such as Angela Pamela and Olympic Dam for export demand, and added to this we now seem to be leaving sensitive waste management issues at these nine project sites to an overseas entity—how on earth, without so much as a press release, can you reconcile this majority takeover as being in the national interest when we look to be copping all the bad bits about this deal and receiving none of the good bits, such as the use of uranium to cheapen household electricity bills in our energy-security mix in the future?

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! In future, the member for Lyne should take care about the amount of debate in his questions. I realise this may be an infectious disease from the member for Kennedy, but I think there is a degree to which I can give leniency.

Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question. The first point I would make is that FIRB approval does not give foreign investors the right to mine or export uranium. It does not do that at all. I think the member may misunderstand this. We have a whole regime that deals with that and that is put in place by the Minister for Resources and Energy. It does not necessarily give them the right to mine at all and it does not give them the right to export.

In a sense, I fundamentally reject the point that the member is making. Nevertheless, let me deal with this very important question of foreign investment in Australia. This country has always required foreign investment to develop, and that is particularly the case in our resources sector. Because we are a capital-hungry country when it comes to resources, we operate a foreign investment regime. This government proudly apply a national interest test and we have proudly applied that particularly in circumstances where state owned enterprises are involved. Where necessary we have applied it. Both sides of politics have done this on different occasions. We all accept the need for foreign investment in this country. If it does not meet those guidelines, we do not necessarily approve it. Conditions may be put on a particular project.

I do not and cannot come in here and discuss the ins and outs of each project. On this occasion, the member says it was approved. It was approved, but that approval does not have the impact the member has suggested, for the reason I said before: it does not give foreign investors the right to mine or export uranium. The right to mine or export uranium is based on our strict uranium policy, our bilateral safeguard agreements and our environmental and safety approvals. That is where all that occurs. This government will continue to apply our national interest test on foreign investment to maximise the benefit that flows to this country in terms of jobs and in terms of wealth creation.