Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to make a short contribution on the tabling of the rural and regional affairs references committee report into foreign investment and the national interest test. I note that the secretariat are sitting over on the benches. I thank them for their hard work on a report that I know has taken a long time. And I thank the hard-working and dedicated members of the committee, who approached their work from a bipartisan perspective. This inquiry, chaired by Senator Heffernan and supported ably by Senator Nash, Senator Edwards and others, looked at something which is of key interest to Australians—and not just those in regional Australia. It does not matter whether I go to branch meetings or town meetings in country Victoria or to state council meetings in Melbourne, who owns what, where and how much in our nation has become an increasingly contested space. It is a much debated and discussed issue throughout the nation. For instance, talkback radio is full of listeners ringing in—and they are not all from the regions—wanting to put forward their views on who should be able to own Australian land and agribusiness and who should not.

This is a timely report and it makes some very good recommendations which I will briefly touch on. In Victoria we have had some discussion within our own borders as the result of drought and high levels of debt within certain areas in our own local industry. That has meant our own local agricultural industries have sought buyers and they have been more than happy to take some of the figures offered to them, which are way beyond what other farming enterprises—maybe those next door—are able to pay, therefore pushing up the price. It is good for the seller but it is not so good for others in the market. One of the sad things about the foreign investment conversation nationally is that international companies, agribusinesses and, sometimes, nations see investment in agriculture in Australia as a good thing, and sometimes we find it difficult to generate that level of local support when it comes to who is holding our land and agribusinesses. That is something I think talking about this issue can actually raise and encourage.

One of the highlights that came from one of the hearings that I was able to participate in is that we actually do not know what we do not know. In my own state of Victoria we do not collect this sort of data. We want to base foreign investment decisions on fact, not fear. That is very important going forward in this discussion. Until we are collecting the types of statistics that are going to allow us to know who owns what, where and how much they paid for it, we are not going to be able to have a sensible debate about this. We are not going to be able to put it into a context where we can discuss what the national interest looks like and what decisions around the national interest look like. I do not think we should be afraid of basing decisions on the national interest, but we need to be able to be united on what the national interest looks like.

I want to go to some of the recommendations. Recommendation 6 is that the review that Senator Heffernan touched on should specifically consider the definition of rural land and urban land. At present, if there is a foreign acquisition of a property in, say, Sydney or Melbourne it automatically comes to the attention of the Foreign Investment Review Board. But, unfortunately, you can buy 16 or 60 houses in Wycheproof and it will not come to the attention of the Foreign Investment Review Board. So there is a little bit of an inequity in what people are concerned about. I do not think we need to be afraid to stand up for our national interest and be concerned. But until we know what we do not know at the moment in terms of statistics, we are not able to make those sorts of decisions.

When we look at definitions of rural land, it has been incredibly difficult to actually get a concise definition. The definition of rural land is quite a contested space. Is it based on what it is used for? Is it based on geography, demographics or distance from a capital city? For instance, as we increasingly look at the way different land is used, you can have quite highly intensive primary production industry located quite close to urban centres. I am thinking particularly of maybe poultry, for instance—much different to broadacre farms. But we do need to get workable rural and urban land definitions so that we can start dealing with foreign investment.

Other nations have a variety of regimes to regulate and understand the level of foreign investment in their nations. We could be looking—and that is what part of Senator Heffernan's inquiry has done—at articulating and collating the different regimes that exist right throughout the nation on how they deal with foreign investment.

Another recommendation that particularly took my fancy was:

The committee recommends that the government require that any non-commercial production from agricultural land and businesses by foreign government entities (including for the purposes of food security) is undertaken within relevant Australian Government foreign aid programs.

This is a significant recommendation. If you go to the detail behind that recommendation in the report—and I note that the galleries are waiting for speakers a lot more eloquent than I am, but I would recommend to all of you that, when you get home, you download from Hansard this—