Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party, Leader of The Nationals in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—The National Party has serious concerns about the Australian Stock Exchange and the Singapore Stock Exchange merging—in a takeover. However, we believe that, because the matter is before the Foreign Investment Review Board and those discussions are commercial-in-confidence, it is not the appropriate time for an inquiry. We see a great avenue for the time after FIRB has reported and Mr Swan has given his verdict as to whether he believes this should go forward. We would support an inquiry in the time before it comes back to the Senate to remove the 15 per cent ownership limit. The inquiry would investigate why it would be in Australia’s interests to have the commercial centre of the Stock Exchange moved from Sydney to Singapore, its merchant banks and stockbroking firms taken from our nation and placed in another nation. That is why at this point we will not be supporting this inquiry, but we put on notice that we envisage we will support it in the next four weeks or so—unless Mr Swan does the bleeding obvious and stops this going forward.