Steve Fielding (Victoria, Family First Party) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—In relation to the Australian Business Investment Partnership Bill 2009, I move amendments (2), (4) and (5) on sheet 5785 as revised:

(2)    Clause 7, page 5 (line 4), after “Limited”, insert “, and approved by the Minister,”.

(4)    Clause 8, page 6 (lines 8 to 11), omit paragraph (3)(b), substitute:

             (b)    is an arrangement of a kind:

                   (i)    that all the members of ABIP Limited agree, in writing, that ABIP Limited may enter into; and

                  (ii)    that the Minister approves in writing, provided that:

                      (A)    the time provided for by section 46B of the Acts Interpretation Act 1901 for the disallowance of the Minister’s approval has expired and the approval has not been disallowed by either House of the Parliament; or

                       (B)    the Minister’s approval has been specifically approved by resolution of each House of the Parliament.

(5)    Clause 8, page 6 (before line 12), before subclause (4), insert:

     (3A)    An approval under subparagraph (3)(b)(ii) is not a legislative instrument, but is a disallowable instrument for the purposes of section 46B of the Acts Interpretation Act 1901.

These amendments go to, I suppose, an area that has been a little contentious—what ABIP can actually refinance, or what types of loans they can provide. The whole premise of ABIP as it was put forward in the public’s mind was about helping commercial property funding. The idea here is that there is a tightening of funds and there could be some circumstances where commercial property comes up for refinancing. They are very complex issues. One partner of a syndicate might, for various reasons, pull out. It could be because an overseas bank or financier, having had restrictions or limitations placed on them, is unable to refinance their portion of a particular loan for commercial property.

The whole idea was that the focus would be on commercial property. In the legislation it also said the financing could be for other things, and I think that makes it too open ended. Parliament would be giving broad approval without knowing what these other things were actually for. I do not want to overly focus on the other things as we could get quite emotive and raise a few items that could be considered other things. I think it is very prudent that, if you are going to have up to $28 billion of funds from the public purse, there needs to be some confidence about what it is going to be used for. What we have to do is make sure it is for commercial property, but if ABIP and the minister believe they need to do financing in areas other than commercial property, then it really has to come back to parliament basically to make sure that approval is given before ABIP actually makes the loan. That is what those amendments (2), (4) and (5) on sheet 5785 are actually doing.

Question agreed to.