Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

It is your view. Okay. Well, the reality is we have got this ludicrous situation where, if you are an investor from the US, New Zealand or Chile, you have a $1 billion threshold. Under your policy, you would have a $15 million threshold for the rest of the world, and the $50 million threshold—which is what Mark Vaile thought was appropriate—would continue to apply in relation to Singapore and Thailand. So we are talking about a smorgasbord of thresholds.

I noticed in Senator Whish-Wilson's contribution that, like Senator Williams, he was talking about transparency and so forth. People might recall in relation to the register—which I think was in the other legislation; I cannot recall in which bill it was—that we supported that. So we are not opposed to more transparency. We are opposed to an ad hoc set of politically driven thresholds which make no economic sense. I appreciate others in the chamber may have a different view. I note Senator Lazarus has a set of amendments. I appreciate he has got a particular position. But we do not think this set of ad hoc thresholds that the government is proposing make sense.

Leaving that aside, because it is the government's policy and the government's bill, I have a question on this. Senator Whish-Wilson, in his articulation as to why the Greens have done this deal, said that he wanted to see—and I am paraphrasing, so I apologise if I have got it incorrect—a FIRB trigger in relation to water holdings and that the government had not yet agreed to it but they were prepared to consider it. I would like to ask the government to respond to that and to tell the chamber what the status of that is. I will just repeat that for the minister. Senator Whish-Wilson, in his contribution, indicated that the Greens would be looking at a FIRB trigger on water holdings. That was the note I took. He is nodding his head, so I do not think I am misquoting him. Given that that is not contained in the letter, I would like to understand what the government's commitment is to the Australian Greens and what deal is associated with the deal that has been tabled.