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

Senator Heffernan says so will he. That is what we need to make sure that we get a constructive move to a more prudent and provident national interest test. I welcome support; the more support the better. In South Australia there is an issue in the wine industry. We have a Chinese state owned enterprise buying up a large section of the South Australian wine industry. They are going to change the name of the wine to Great Wall. They are going to send the wine back to China. That is going to make life a bit tough. We are starting to remove the mechanisms of commerce and send direct.

You say that is all right, but it is not all right. How are you going to track this? It is going to be an issue of transfer pricing. How are you going to completely shine a light on asking, 'Exactly what is the profit you made in Australia and what is the profit you make back in China and is the Australian taxpayer getting a fair return from this?' How are we going to do that? What happens when there is a challenge? We are going to have to be awfully brave souls to say we are going to take the Chinese government to court. That will be a very interesting day.

I am always very proud of the fact that in my area you have about 5,000 to 6,000 people and only a couple of years ago it produced $640 million worth of cotton. Then you have grain, you have cattle, you have grapes, you have onions, you have wool and right down to kangaroos. Everything sits on top. There is an annual renewable income in that small section of our nation of between three quarters to $1 billion a year. That is not a bad return. In fact, if the whole of our nation did that per capita, we would be the richest nation on earth.

What worries me a bit is that more than half of the irrigation country in my area is either directly foreign owned or implicitly foreign owned by a trust in the Cayman Islands or by Chinese partially state-owned spinning companies. This is the reality. So when someone says to me, 'We are only five per cent, four per cent, two per cent or one per cent foreign owned,' it is an absurdity. I look into my own backyard and say, 'That is not the case in my district. It is not happening there.'

The reason they get around it is because in the assessment guidelines—Senator Heffernan would know a lot about this—they do not pick up some of the mechanisms and processes of ownership. We have other discrepancies, such as where someone is deemed to be a mining interest—this is the classic around the Breeza Plains—and are a huge owner of an agricultural asset but do not register as a farm because they are nominally a mining interest. It is an absurdity because it obviously is an agricultural asset. We are not doing our job for the Australian people if we ignore these issues.

I went to a peak body dinner some time ago in Melbourne, where I was really quite disturbed by hearing one of the senior speakers say, 'We should not be too worried because the future for the Australian farmer is to actually be off the land and to be merely a service provider in a corporate owned foreign entity.' I do not have a vision for Australians swinging off a spanner in a foreign owned farm. I want Australians to own the farm. I want Australians to be on the farm. I want Australian families to be on the farm. I want us to direct policy so that they can get us a better return on the farm. I want us to address the issues as to why we are not getting a substantial return at the farm gate. I think that, as we move towards this eternal election campaign, is an issue that should become part of the dynamics of the discussion. I want to see Australian families in Australian houses and in Australian suburbs. I do not particularly want them to rent; I want them to own, because I think that is a good thing. I think that would be a semblance of security.

I remember very well one of the early things—and I have said this before—that my father used to say to me when we used to have shooters come onto the place. I used to get annoyed, because I found them a nuisance and they would be in the paddock where we had lambing ewes. I would get annoyed and I would see them making their way across my property. I wanted to get them off. I wanted them out. My father used to say to me, 'A person can't love their country if they are never allowed to set foot on it. Just leave them alone. A person cannot love their country if you do not let them set foot on it. Leave them alone; they are not actually hurting you. That man is out with his son shooting foxes—just let them go.'

The extension of that is: how does someone love their country when they do not actually even own it anymore and, in fact, they see that the ownership of their nation has passed to the hands of another nation's government? That is the absolute essence of the divestiture of the Australian people. The Australian people, in all their many and varied colours and creeds, have a right to believe that this parliament and the mechanisms that are associated with it first and foremost look after their interests.

I want to also note that not one application to the Foreign Investment Review Board that is pertinent to land has ever been rejected—not one. This is an absurdity. I want to also state that, even when this Senate chamber has asked of the Treasurer of this nation—who is merely a servant of the people like we are—to explain to us clearly why the sale of the largest farm in our nation in value, Cubbie Station, was not contrary to the national interests, he never, ever did. He just completely ignored the request of the Senate. It is not even holding the Senate in contempt; he holds the Australian people in contempt. He says, 'I do not have to listen to you anymore.'

This is the culture of the current establishment. It seems peculiar to me, because I always thought they would be more sympathetic to a greater role of looking after the Australian asset. I thought that that would be more of their ilk. In this instance, they are more of the views of Dr Craig Emerson—he has infiltrated them. They have this zealotry and puritanical pitch. I do not know to what constituency and I have no idea to what effect. If they say that we are xenophobes then so is every other nation in South-East Asia.

Now we have the absurdity that the only countries that have greater foreign ownership than us are the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Philippines and Indonesia. We are No. 5. There has to be a bell that rings there. Even Mr Coleman, from the Foreign Investment Review Board, clearly stated that there are issues in regards to state owned enterprises. If there are, let us do something about them. Let's not be bullied, let's not be corralled, let's not be intimidated and let's actually stand up and do something that is right for the Australian people.