Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Murray Darling Basin) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities, upon notice, on 6 July 2011:

(1) Does the Government keep a record of water licence holdings and purchases of Australian water licences by foreign interests; if so, what information is collected in this regard; if not, what steps will it take to obtain such data.

(2) What are the current figures, in terms of number of holdings and volumes of holdings held by foreign interests.

(3) What changes in terms of number of holdings and volume of holdings has occurred over the past 3 years.

(4) Does the Government keep a record of the countries that foreign investors in Australian water licences are from; if so, can details be provided.

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities has provided the following answer to the honourable senator's question:

(1) No. State and Territory authorities are responsible for maintaining registers of water entitlement ownership. The Government is taking action to strengthen the transparency of foreign ownership of rural land and agricultural food production to address community concerns. The Australian Bureau of Statistics is undertaking the Agricultural Land and Water Ownership Survey to address the current lack of information available on foreign ownership of agricultural businesses, including land and water entitlements.

This collection will provide data on the following areas of interest:

a. foreign ownership of agricultural businesses in Australia;

b. foreign ownership of Australian agricultural land; and

c. foreign ownership of water entitlements (used for agricultural purposes) in Australia.

(2) and (3) The State and Territory organisations responsible for maintaining registers of water entitlements do not keep information on foreign ownership of water licence holdings and purchases of Australian water entitlements.

(4) No.