Arthur Sinodinos (NSW, Liberal Party, Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Hansard source

As I mentioned before, we have the newly refashioned Significant Investor Visa to direct investment dollars to where they can provide the most benefit—venture capital funds backing start-up innovators. SIVs can produce positive, long-term impacts with additional investment dollars delivering much-needed capital to our entrepreneurs. But the changes do more than deliver money. In the longer term they will provide massive opportunities for home-grown Australian technology and innovation sectors to engage with other countries around the world, developing people-to-people linkages, and grow our entrepreneurial talent base and develop our innovation industry well into the 21st century.

In reviewing the criteria around eligible investments for the investment visa program, our plan is to ask SIV applicants to put more skin in the game for Australia, and we aim to channel the investment into areas that may offer great potential but find it hard to attract investment dollars today. In that context, may I say we are examining, as Senator Day raised the other day, the option of a free trade agreement with Israel, which would seek to capture these benefits. (Time expired)