Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I introduced the Foreign Acquisitions Amendment (Agricultural land) Bill 2010 with my colleague Senator Milne, from the Australian Greens. I am very grateful for the work she has done with me on this bill. I am also grateful for the comments from my colleagues on both sides of the political fence, from both the government and the opposition, some of whom believe that we need significant reform in this area. I am hoping that that undercurrent for reform will eventually be reflected by legislative change in this field.

Australian farmers produce everything from wheat to wool, from bananas to beef, from pineapples to poultry and from milk to maize. Agriculture and closely related sectors earn $155 billion a year, which represents a 12 per cent share of the nation's GDP. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the total area of agricultural land in Australia, as at 31 December last year, was 398 million hectares. But until the introduction of this bill, it was impossible to tell how much of Australia's agricultural land was owned by foreign entities. We now know that 11 per cent of Australia's agricultural land, some 45 million hectares, has some level of foreign ownership, with some 0.3 million hectares having an unknown ownership status. We also know that the state with the greatest proportion of land of foreign ownership is the Northern Territory, followed by South Australia. But I still cannot tell you what areas of land are owned by foreign entities or what sector they are relevant to. It is also not clear the extent to which either state owned enterprises or entities that have close links to state owned enterprises have ownership of our prime agricultural assets. There are a number of reasons why we simply do not know. Firstly, that data is not kept. Apparently it is not a function of the Foreign Investment Review Board to maintain this sort of information. How the Foreign Investment Review Board is supposed to assess investment proposals without this information I am not quite sure. And how the government is supposed to be able to identify policy reform needs without this insight is beyond me. Secondly, investments by foreign entities less than $231 million in value do not require an application to the Foreign Investment Review Board. That means that a business from, for example, the United Kingdom, China, India or Europe could buy a farm to the value of $230,999,000 and not be subject to review by the FIRB. If it is the United States it is over $1 billion by virtue of the free trade agreement.

But $231 million can buy a lot of prime agricultural land. It is an extremely high threshold and what it means is that many foreign investments are made without the government ever being made aware of such an investment. We may well be selling off prime agricultural land with no way of knowing to whom and what the long-term national interest implications are of that. Indeed, a foreign business could buy a number of farms up to $231 million in a piecemeal fashion and the government would never know.

According to the media reports, the buy-up of Australian agricultural assets has become more aggressive since the global food shortage of 2008. In December last year Hong Kong based company Nexus bought a 4,060-acre property in rural Queensland for $25 million. Nexus also bought a 500-hectare property on the Sunshine Coast for $20 million last year. There have also been reports of Chinese companies with a question mark as to the extent of their involvement in or links with state owned enterprises in China acquiring dairy assets in Tasmania. A recent report named China, South Korea, Japan, India, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States as the buyers who have become most aggressive in their purchases. This is not a criticism of those countries at all. In fact, I think those countries are showing long-term vision for their own national interests in terms of security of global food supply. These countries are looking to protect their own food security and they cannot be faulted for that. But we have to acknowledge that our poor foreign investment requirements put our own agricultural industry at risk, particularly in the longer term.

I should stress that foreign investment is by and large unambiguously a good thing for a small, open economy like Australia. It can provide a significant boost to our economy. But there must always be a focus on Australia's own agricultural security and long-term food security. For this there needs to be a way to monitor what foreign investments are being made to this unique and very important sector. This bill provides for that. It does not stop foreign investment in Australian agricultural land. All it does is lower the threshold from $231 million to enable greater awareness about who is buying what so that appropriate policy decisions can be made. That is a very important point that I must stress. This bill does not stop foreign investments in Australian agricultural land. What the bill does is ensure that foreign investments are properly assessed, information gathering is increased and transparency is improved, and that there must be a national interest test.

This bill, which I introduced with my colleague Senator Milne from the Australian Greens, is extensively based on the Overseas Investment Act of 2005 from New Zealand. For a number of years there has been an Overseas Investment Office in New Zealand to oversee foreign investments. It is similar to the Foreign Investment Review Board here in Australia but, dare I admit it, Mr Deputy President, especially during rugby World Cup time, I think we have a lot to learn from our neighbours across the Tasman. It pains me to say that. Under the New Zealand regime a foreign investor requires approval from the government for an investment in rural land if it exceeds five hectares. New Zealand recognises that rural land is special and therefore any applications by foreign entities to purchase it need to be subject to serious consideration. There are even tighter restrictions if the land is near a conservation reserve or adjoins a foreshore. This bill mirrors the legislation which operates well and effectively in New Zealand.

The evidence heard by the Economics Legislation Committee on this bill was quite instructive. The evidence from New Zealand's Overseas Investment Office indicates that they have national interest test criteria. That is something that this bill mirrors. In contrast, Australia's national interest tests are guidelines only. I think there is an issue there about the vagueness and the lack of transparency in the way the Foreign Investment Review Board currently does its work. That is not a criticism of the Foreign Investment Review Board per se but a criticism of the framework upon which it operates. Ms Toni Moyes, an analyst at the New Zealand Treasury, said during the inquiry hearing that the legislation is based on the guiding philosophy that foreign investment is welcome in New Zealand but it is also a privilege. Ms Moyes told the committee:

New Zealand has a long history of regulating investment in farmland, which reflects the traditional view in New Zealand that land ownership should not be concentrated in the hands of a few but should be able to be widely dispersed amongst the population.

The New Zealand model is robust, it is transparent and it is effective. Furthermore, the Overseas Investment Office provides extensive detail about all applications received, whether approved or not. Contrast that with what happens here with the Foreign Investment Review Board. That is why I welcome the inquiry by the Rural Affairs and Transport References Committee into the Foreign Investment Review Board. This bill does not seek to deter foreign investment; rather it simply aims to enable greater scrutiny against the benchmark of the national interest. We have a working model across the Tasman where it is effective. It should also be noted that the 200 applications a year in New Zealand are dealt with effectively and efficiently. They are dealt with in a way that is fair and on the rare occasions that there has been a judicial review of those applications the evidence given by the Overseas Investment Office is that those cases were largely dismissed; in other words, the Overseas Investment Office's decisions were upheld.

As a result of the Senate committee inquiry it was noted that, given the difference in land size between Australian and New Zealand, five hectares is not an appropriate threshold. So an amendment to this bill has been circulated in consultation with my colleague Senator Milne. It will amend the bill so that the threshold is lowered from $231 million to $5 million. This is a monetary threshold rather than a spatial one. When the first Foreign Takeovers Act was introduced in 1975, the rural land threshold for scrutiny was $1 million

I believe a lower threshold is important if Australia is to be truly able to make informed policy decisions about our agricultural future, and $5 million is an appropriate threshold. It is roughly in line with the original $1 million threshold, taking into account CPI increases and the like.

Farmland is not our only concern. International investors are becoming increasingly interested in the Australian water market. A recent ABS survey found that nine per cent of the water entitlements for agricultural purposes in Australia are owned by foreign businesses. But there is an issue about the nature of the survey. Whilst I welcome the survey and whilst it is an improvement on the level of information we have, I think there are some flaws in the survey. I emphasise that that is not a criticism of the Australian Bureau of Statistics. They were constrained by the instructions given to them by government. For instance, the survey may tell us what percentage of land is owned by foreign interests or in which land foreign interests have a share. For instance, the study found that 24 per cent of the Northern Territory's agricultural land is either partly or wholly foreign owned. But it does not tell us what the value of that land is in terms of its agricultural output.

That defect is even more pronounced with water entitlements. There is a global figure that nine per cent of water entitlements have a foreign investment component, but we do not know what those water entitlements are. Are they, for instance, general-security water? If you look at the Murray-Darling Basin there is a huge difference between high-security water and general-security water. Owning one per cent of Australia's high-security water is much more significant than owning five or 10 per cent of general-security water or low-security water. There is a very big difference in that. These are issues that are of real concern.

The ownership of water has real potential to distort our water market. Water entitlements are not something to be played with. In Western Australia—and I note that Senator Bishop has an interest in this matter—31 per cent of water entitlements for agricultural purposes are partly or wholly foreign owned, which is the highest for any state in the Commonwealth. This is a very serious issue for farmers, who are only now coming out of the worst drought this country has ever seen.

This legislation will prevent us from selling off our backyard before we realise what we have done and it is too late. This bill will also put into legislation a national interest test based on the New Zealand model. The government currently uses guidelines around national security, competition and other government policies, the impact on the economy and the community, and character of the investor. But the test needs to go further. This bill sets out detailed criteria by which the Treasurer needs to consider applications for foreign investment. Applying these to potential investments in Australia will enable greater scrutiny to be applied. There are specific matters to consider such as whether the foreign investment will have an impact on competition, global security and market outcomes; whether it is likely to result in the creation of new job opportunities; whether Australia's economic interests are adequately safeguarded and promoted, including looking at issues of aggregation and vertical integration; and whether the acquisition will result in increased processing in Australia of Australia's primary products.

The fact is that we do not know enough about the current level of foreign investment in Australia, particularly in agricultural land, and we do not have a mechanism to monitor it. This bill will require the online publication of applications for interests in Australian agricultural land and for the status of these to be updated as the applications proceed. If the Kiwis can do it, why can't we? This process will give us the information we need about the current state of play so that we can be informed to make good policy decisions for the future.

Again, this bill is not about saying no to foreign investment. This bill is about improving transparency and increasing the information we have access to about who owns our backyard. It is about strengthening the process and allowing more scrutiny, rather than letting things go too far, when it is too late to do anything about it. This legislative framework works well in New Zealand and will significantly benefit this government's information about who owns what, where and why so that we can have a sensible, informed policy debate about this.

Wouldn't it be useful to know at the click of a button whether or not a particular company has already bought two dairy farms in one town and is planning to buy another two dairy farms, considering the impact that could have on the local market? Wouldn't it be good to enable the government to indentify that this behaviour might be having a serious impact on local Australian dairy producers? Quite simply, without this bill we will never have all the information we need to make informed policy decisions when it comes to Australia's agricultural sector.

This legislation is important. It is important to overhaul the current rules. It is important to lower the current absurd threshold of $231 million before the Foreign Investment Review Board can even begin to look at an investment. It is important to acknowledge that the recent ABS survey, whilst useful, begs more questions than it answers. That is why it is important and in the national interest, in the interests of our long-term food security, in the interests of our farmers and in the interests of preventing market distortions that this bill I introduced with my colleague Senator Milne be passed and supported by the Senate.

Mark Bishop (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to make some comments on the Foreign Acquisitions Amendment (Agricultural Land) Bill 2010. Before turning to my more formal remarks, I just want to put on the record that twice over the past 24 hours I have taken the opportunity to read this report. It was drafted under the committee chairmanship of former Senator Hurley and the Senate Economics Legislation Committee secretariat. It is a most thorough report and it is well worth reading because it reduces to a small number of pages some of the difficult arguments that have been put around in this debate, notwithstanding the relatively small number of witnesses who chose to make a submission and give evidence. It is a most thorough report and I commend it to those who are interested in this particular discussion.

One of the features of the independence of the Senate is, of course, that it provides an open forum for senators to publicly express concerns on any matter, which often would otherwise not be heard. It is a fact enabled by the lack of a government majority, and we in government and those in opposition must tolerate it. The downside of it is that many of those concerns essentially are minor and may have little merit. In fact, they may simply be a waste of time. Often we find that due to a lack of discipline and focus the Senate can become hostage to narrow and ill-informed acts of populism. So it is with this private members' bill, I must say at the outset.

It is very easy, especially for an Independent or an opposition party, to represent any narrow, sectoral view on the basis of no care and no responsibility. Yet, when the populist view is exposed to analysis, we see that it often fails the critical policy test. That is not to say that the interest represented by Senator Xenophon and Senator Milne, the sponsors of the bill, is not genuine or that the interest is not widely noted and widely supported. But the problem with populism is that it is rarely well informed of all the facts, the context or the broader considerations at a national level. So we are constantly bombarded with a load of ideas about what the government should do or should not do. That is the greatest asset, in one sense, of a democracy but also the major cause of conflict in political debate where so often fact and analysis is challenged.

We also know that the great majority of government legislation passes through this chamber unaltered. Few pieces of legislation stumble and, then, only for political reasons when opposition parties for their own interests judge that there is a significant advantage in pandering to a particular populist view, regardless of fact and analysis. The list of examples is endless, ranging from new railways—fast or slow—to turning the rivers westward or stopping Vegemite and Weet-Bix being sold to foreigners. We do understand that out there in the community there will always be some ill-founded fear of foreigners to be used in political manipulation, and governments fail this test simply because they regularly fail to sway that populist sentiment.

Opposition, however, are clearly not always that fickle, as evidenced by the bulk of legislation passed without objection. Their own long-held and researched policy position is often the same. This bill, however, is not in that class of policy, but Senator Xenophon will be able to return to his interest group and say he tried. I think his remarks foreshadowed further and different attempts. But having wasted our time he will claim his credit as well as a headline, which is the main game.

This bill seeks to seriously limit the amount of Australia's farmland which can be purchased by foreign investors. It seeks to completely change national policy and the rules which apply to all foreign investment, which have had longstanding, apolitical support. It proposes that any bid to buy interests in agricultural land of greater value than $5 million be subject to the application process of the Foreign Investment Review Board and the decision of the Treasurer. This is at least better than the original proposal to make the limit five hectares, as is the case, the report informs us, in New Zealand. Further, it requires that the Treasurer publish online the application of interest and update that information as the application proceeds. These arrangements are proposed to apply to both the acquisition of farm real estate and any interest in agricultural land, such as management rights, leases of more than five years and profit-sharing arrangements, which are common in the agricultural industry.

However, the bill, as I said in my introductory remarks, has been thoroughly examined by the Senate Economics Legislation Committee and totally rejected. The committee applied the following questions: whether the current screening arrangements were inappropriate, whether there was advantage in retaining the inherent flexibility associated with a national interest test that is not overly prescriptive, how this fits within the existing screening arrangements for other investments in Australia and how this would impact on Australia's international obligations under Australia's various free trade agreements. The Senate Economics Legislation Committee concluded that it was essential that Australia remain a country that welcomes foreign investment, that it should continue to be an attractive place to invest, that any changes to foreign investment policy or legislation should be considered in this light and that the proposed national interest test applying only to agricultural land would effectively create two separate national interest tests. The committee continues to hold the view that the current regulatory framework for assessing investment proposals is adequate or indeed, from reading the text, more than adequate.

The committee also identified the need to maintain consistency with Australia's FTA and OECD obligations, freely entered into and repeatedly endorsed by appropriate committees of this parliament—that is, the commitments Australia has made to screening thresholds for business acquisitions in its free trade agreements with Singapore, Thailand, the United States and Chile and, when in force, the recently signed investment protocol with New Zealand. The changes in the bill to screening thresholds would violate our commitments under these free trade agreements. If Australia were to adopt the proposals contained in the bill before the chair, our trading partners would be allowed to retaliate. This could be in highly sensitive areas for Australia, including in agricultural sectors such as beef and others where we engage in large volumes of and receive large dollars for exports. The FIRB—the Foreign Investment Review Board—already screens foreign governments or government related entities that attempt to acquire rural land. This bill will not change that.

Having said all of that, let me supply some of the detail concerning foreign investment which underpins the committee's conclusion because the statistics that are publicly available and some of the additional materials that were supplied by Treasury to questions on notice are remarkable. Foreign investment is essential to Australia's continued economic growth and prosperity, including in the agriculture sector. In terms of the current debate and the matters raised by Senator Xenophon and Senator Milne, I think it is worth having a good look at where that investment goes.

Broadly speaking, about 30 per cent of FDI, foreign direct investment, goes to mining, around 20 per cent goes into manufacturing, 10 per cent flows to the wholesale and retail sectors, and around 15 per cent goes to the finance and insurance sectors. In 2010 dollars, these investments were worth around about $350 billion. The agricultural sector represents just 0.14 per cent of the total stock of foreign direct investment. To put it in another way, in 2010 it represented an investment of approximately $670 million out of $350 billion. Of course, this is not the full picture of foreign investment in agriculture or, more latterly, agribusiness. But on the surface it does look like the agricultural industry is mostly Australian owned—in fact, Australian dominated; the figures in the report are well in excess of 98 per cent.

So what are the known facts? Over 50 per cent of Australia's land area is used for agriculture. One-fifth of this area is attributed to the Murray-Darling Basin, which is responsible for almost 40 per cent of the value of agricultural production. Farmers produce more than 90 per cent of our domestic food supply. Australia exports approximately 60 per cent of its overall agricultural production volume and around about 75 per cent of its gross agricultural production value. On these figures, it is safe to assume that a great many rural and regional communities around Australia are reliant on agriculture and food production. But of course, there is more to agriculture than only farming. As well as primary producers there are wholesalers, processors and businesses that support food production. So, while farmers make up around 70 per cent of the sector, the value generated in revenue terms occurs amongst enterprises beyond the farm gate, where the value adding occurs, of course. As with other sectors, foreign investment makes a contribution. As with any investment, it provides opportunity and most importantly it provides jobs—large numbers of jobs. For that reason we should consider very carefully changes that discourage or make it difficult for investment dollars, FDI, to flow into this country.

Senator Xenophon in his second reading speech mentioned media reports of the buy-up of Australia's agricultural assets becoming more aggressive since the global food shortage of 2008. Those same reports suggest there is growing community concern about the level of foreign investment in agricultural land. I do not doubt for one moment the sincerity of the media reports of many people's views. However, again I would caution against accepting that populism.

There is no evidence the current law on foreign investment in Australia needs changing. We should not be pandering to simple xenophobia or disguised claims for protection. We have a market economy which farmers generally widely support, including of course the value of their land—and we had an instance of that discussion earlier today—and to which they have adjusted over recent decades of reform. In this discussion, we do need to look at both the big picture and the total picture. The government, in response to the requests for more information and accurate information, has commissioned comprehensive research of foreign investment in agriculture that looked at not only Australia's agriculture land but also, importantly, water entitlements and agribusiness. We have also asked the ABS and the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation, along with ABARES-BRS, to undertake a project that will give us a better picture, a more detailed picture, a fuller picture, an accurate picture, of the foreign investment landscape.

That project, in response to concerns generated over the last 18 months, has four particular components: firstly, the role and history of foreign investment in the development of agriculture in Australia, including assessing the impact which foreign investment has had; secondly, the domestic and international factors driving foreign investment in Australian agriculture; thirdly, the various ownership structures of agribusiness firms for subsets of the Australian agriculture industry, including businesses such as meat processing, sugar refining, dairy marketing, and other high-profile sectors, and changes in those structures over time; and, fourthly, measures used in other countries for monitoring and regulation of foreign investment in agricultural land. We want to know, firstly, the role and history; secondly, factors which drive investment; thirdly, the various ownership structures present in the industries; and, finally, the value-adding that occurs in industries and changes in those structures over time.

This important work commenced in November last year and, when completed, will inform our thinking in this area. While that is going on, the ABS Agricultural Land and Water Ownership Survey, ALWOS, has been completed. The data was released earlier this month. Surprisingly, despite media reports, the data shows that foreign ownership levels in Australia's agriculture sector are very modest. The overwhelming majority of Australia's agricultural businesses—99 per cent—are entirely Australian owned. In terms of agricultural land, 89 per cent is entirely Australian owned. As far as water entitlements are concerned, 91 per cent is in Australian hands. The results of this survey reinforce my view that this bill at this stage is simply unnecessary and not warranted by the available evidence. It does not make a sufficient case for change; although, as the government has conceded, we do need to learn more about the impact of foreign investment in the agricultural sector.

The overwhelming impression I have—and one which has been informed by the economics report behind this bill, is that we should not yet take the easy solution of jumping to conclusions. This type of research has not been undertaken since 1984. So it is important that we get the facts straight about what is a very important debate and what one suspects is going to continue to be an important debate until the facts are researched, published and established in this area. As a country, we have traditionally been reliant on foreign capital to build and develop our businesses in all parts of the economy. It would be foolish indeed to ignore the significant risks for Australia in making changes such as these that could discourage or hinder foreign investment.

Foreign investment—it goes almost without saying, in my view—is critical to ensuring our continued economic growth and prosperity, including in the agricultural sector and the value-adding industries attached to that sector. Given the strategic importance of the agricultural sector is likely to increase in the future—and the level of demand and the level of investment that is coming in suggest that is the case—Australia's foreign investment policy settings need to be right.

This bill is pre-emptive. It does not address some serious issues that must be considered prior to any changes being made in this sector. We should also be mindful that foreign investment is only a minor matter—an important matter but nonetheless minor—in the broad policy sweep of primary production. It is a distraction with major implications for foreign investment policy and should be rejected. In due course, if this matter goes to a vote, the bill should also be rejected.

Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The coalition does not support the Foreign Acquisitions Amendment (Agricultural Land) Bill 2010 introduced by Senators Xenophon and Milne. I say at the outset that, with the exception of the gratuitous attacks on the opposition, I agree with much of what Senator Bishop has just said. Foreign investment is very important for Australia—it has been in the past and will continue to be in the future.

In terms of our economic development and our capacity to maximise our economic opportunities into the future, we are a large country with a lot of opportunities, we are sparsely populated and a lot of the important parts of our economy are capital intensive. Without being able to attract foreign investment we would not be able to properly develop all of the economic opportunities at our disposal. So I agree with much of what Senator Bishop has said. Where I disagree with him is that when public concerns are raised—and clearly in this whole area of foreign investment in agricultural land there is a level of public concern—to characterise an attempt to be responsive to those concerns as populism is, in my view, quite arrogant. One does not have to agree and one does not have to do what is asked by those sections of the community that express concern, but one should take those concerns seriously and one should constructively and positively engage in debate and not just dismiss any attempt to address those concerns as populism.

The coalition is not unsympathetic to the underlying issues that this bill has raised. Foreign investment in agricultural land—in fact, foreign investment in general—is a legitimate issue of public policy debate. I say again: foreign investment is important. It has been important in our past and it will be in the future. The current legislative and regulatory framework is adequate to ensure that any national interest considerations are properly taken into account—and that is where I also agree with Senator Bishop.

The report by the Senate Economics Legislation Committee—which was chaired by a former colleague Senator Annette Hurley and a great senator from Western Australia as deputy chair, Senator Alan Eggleston, whom I know Senator Bishop holds in very high regard—goes in some detail through all of the policy issues that are raised by this bill. Like Senator Bishop, I do commend this report to all senators as they are considering these issues.

The coalition takes these issues so seriously that we have established a working group to investigate options to strengthen the rules governing the sale of Australian agricultural land and agribusinesses to foreign entities. The working group is chaired by the Leader of the Nationals, the Hon. Warren Truss. Other members are senior shadow ministers Julie Bishop, Joe Hockey, John Cobb, Barnaby Joyce and Sophie Mirabella. The working group is currently in the process of examining the adequacy of policy settings and delivering positive outcomes for Australia from foreign investment. The coalition believes that foreign investment is integral to Australia's economic future; however, our policy in this area must ensure that foreign acquisition of farming land is undertaken in Australia's national interest and that the food security of our nation is maintained into the future.

The coalition, as I have mentioned, will not support this legislation. We will continue to go through our internal policy process, and we will not support any initiative like this until we have finalised those processes. The coalition, in November 2010, called on the government to commission the Australian Bureau of Statistics to compile data on the foreign ownership of agricultural land, because one of the issues that has come up in this debate is that there is a complete inadequacy of information and data in this area. According to figures released by the ABS on 9 September, as at 31 December 2010, 99 per cent of agricultural businesses in Australia were entirely Australian owned, 89 per cent of agricultural land was entirely Australian owned and 91 per cent of water entitlements for agricultural purposes were entirely Australian owned.

It is important, as Senator Bishop observed, to have all of the facts before us as we are considering the issues around foreign acquisitions and foreign investment in agricultural land and other assets. All states showed high rates of Australian ownership of agricultural businesses, ranging from 99 per cent in Queensland to 96 per cent in Tasmania. So the problem is perhaps not as extensive as Senator Xenophon and Senator Milne might want us to believe. The state with the highest proportion of land held entirely by Australian owned businesses was Victoria, with 99 per cent of its 12 million hectares being Australian owned, while the Northern Territory had the lowest proportion, with 76 per cent of its 59 million hectares being Australian owned. According to the ABS, the survey results are broadly comparable with levels of foreign ownership collected in the agricultural census of 1983-84. So it would seem that, despite perceptions to the contrary, there has not been much movement in the level of foreign investment over the last 30 years.

Again, it would seem that the issues are perhaps not as acute as Senators Xenophon and Milne might want us to believe. However, it is true to say that the statistics are probably only part of the story. In particular, even if 99 per cent of agribusinesses are wholly Australian owned, it would be good to know if the one per cent that are partly or wholly foreign owned are the largest agribusinesses, what their share is by volume, not just by number, and whether this foreign ownership is concentrated in any particular type or part of agriculture. Hence, more data is needed.

The coalition has called for more work to be done on establishing a public register of foreign ownership of agricultural land and agribusinesses. We are interested in getting more data on the public record about foreign ownership of land. This process must involve the states, who are responsible for land titles. This all goes to making sure that we make decisions on the facts and the figures in front of us, rather than merely on emotion. We cannot entirely ignore emotion—we cannot ignore any level of concern—but we need to respond to it properly. It should be noted that Queensland has had such a register for around 30 years. The opposition has called on the government to task the Productivity Commission with reviewing this whole issue. In particular, the Productivity Commission should consider whether the government needs to lower the threshold for notification to the Foreign Investment Review Board of rural land and agribusiness acquisitions and whether anything needs to be done to safeguard the nation's food security. These are matters that are covered in the bill, but we have concerns about the thresholds proposed and the codification of the national interest.

The bill seeks to impose a low spatial threshold of five hectares. The Senate Economics Legislation Committee report, which we have talked about, questioned the appropriateness of a spatial threshold. That the Treasurer could be called upon to make a determination of national interest on an area as small as five hectares would be unwieldy, to say the least. While it is good to see that Senators Xenophon and Milne have sought to remedy this, it does not go to our position on the bill. The proper level of threshold does require further consideration.

There is a proposal in this bill to codify the national interest test by defining issues that the Treasurer must consider. We take the view that this would actually constrain the Treasurer's discretion. Codification of this sort could also lead to an increase in litigation on matters of foreign investment. The Foreign Investment Review Board has recently begun publishing broad guidelines on some of the considerations used in determining national interest. But these remain non-prescriptive, providing guidance to applicants without constraining the necessary and appropriate discretion granted to the Treasurer under the Foreign Acquisitions and Takeover Act 1975.

We think that the coalition's policy, through the working group and through the notice of motion that we have previously submitted, puts forward a more considered and comprehensive policy approach and will provide a better outcome. Senator Xenophon says he has the country's interests at heart, but there are some major areas which are not covered by this bill. For example, it does not address the impact of foreign ownership of agribusinesses, which we believe is a greater problem than the purchase of agricultural land. It does not provide the much-needed extra information, which is currently severely lacking, to make sure we can make informed decisions.

Land transfers are of course the responsibility of the states. Changes in this bill would require a major revamp of the state's databases at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars—that is a preliminary estimate. The states would of course resist these changes and expect the Commonwealth to pay up. There would be significant ongoing costs to assess every acquisition of over five hectares with some level of foreign ownership. It would require a large increase in the bureaucracy to make these assessments. If these costs were passed on to the market through fees they would add significantly to the cost of purchase.

It is true that, in these sorts of debate, we have to tread very carefully. While we have to recognise and be responsive to public concern, we also have to make sure that we have a responsible debate that is based on facts. There are significant national interest issues at stake. There is absolutely no way that we would ever be part of any push that would seek to limit foreign investment to the extent that is proposed in this legislation. Senator Bishop raised some valid points in relation to international commitments. In its report, the economics committee raised some serious concerns that this bill might be inconsistent with some of Australia's international trade agreements. I am refer in particular to evidence given by Mr Mahony, who expressed this concern:

One thing is that, while I am not an international trade lawyer, it seems to me that there are questions about whether or not this kind of legislation is at least in the spirit of our international obligations and relationships, particularly our evolving investment protocol with New Zealand.

That is kind of a technical matter. The import of that is not just a technical or legal one, which I am not that concerned about. Obviously my concern is with the effect on innovation in the region and the effect on agriculture and the Australian economy generally—its capacity to innovate.

There are various other concerns, of course. In answers to questions on notice, Treasury expanded on some of the requirements under Australia's free trade agreements. Australia has free trade agreements with ASEAN, New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand, the United States and Chile. Australia has made commitments relating to national treatment and its screening thresholds in relation to the business acquisitions in its free trade agreements with Singapore, Thailand, the United States, Chile and, when enforced, the recently signed investment protocol with New Zealand.

We also have OECD obligations. Again, Treasury expanded on how the changes proposed in this bill could impact on our obligations with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. As a member of the OECD, Australia is bound by the OECD Codes of Liberalisation of Capital Movements. The code seeks to promote open markets by providing a balanced framework for the gradual liberalisation of investment.

All these issues serve to bring the committee to the view that this bill may actually be in breach of national treatment obligations as part of Australia's free trade agreements. While there are some legitimate issues yet to be considered, we have to be very careful not to go beyond certain bounds. Ultimately, continuation of strong foreign investment in the Australian economy is in our national interest, subject to the appropriate national interest safeguards. There are well-established processes to assess the national interest. Let us consider very carefully how those processes can be improved, but let us not go beyond the line of what is responsible, and this bill is crossing the line.

I have touched on some of the provisions that we do not think meet the right-balance test, and there are others. This is not a piece of legislation that the coalition is in a position to support. In fact, we oppose it. In that sense, we share the views expressed by government senators who have participated in the debate so far. With those few words, I thank the Senate for its attention.

Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this afternoon to address the new geopolitics of food, and that is precisely what this bill, the Foreign Acquisitions Amendment (Agricultural Land) Bill 2010, is about. I am quite alarmed at the contribution of the government by way of Senator Bishop's remarks—accusing people who are very concerned about what is going on with the acquisition of agricultural land and water rights as being populist, as taking a narrow sectoral view, as being rarely well informed of the facts and as not confirming the facts and analysis. He even suggested that this is wasting the Senate's time.

Senator Bishop may wish to acquaint himself with some facts rather than maintaining the ideological position, which he outlined here today, of not wanting to actually address this and suggesting that we already have the facts. Oxfam released a report today saying that 'land grabs' are leaving poor families 'hungry and homeless'. The report says:

Around the world, including in Australia, we are observing a mad scramble for land. A growing global economy and population, climate change, food insecurity and changing diets are driving governments and investors to acquire land outside their own borders for future food supplies.

That describes what is going on internationally, and Oxfam is raising it because of massive land grabs, mainly through Africa and in the poorer developing countries.

Those land grabs are being carried out by countries that profoundly changed their position as a result of the food riots and scarcity in 2007 and 2008. As a result of the extreme weather events of climate change and as a result of peak oil and rising oil prices, as well as the displacement of agricultural food crops with biofuel crops, we had a situation of massive food inflation. As a result, countries like Russia, Argentina and Vietnam limited or banned the export of wheat and rice so as to be able to feed their own people. That left those countries that import food short of food. They had plenty of money, but they had no food. That is precisely what triggered the Arab spring. Actually, the riots in Tunisia started because people could not afford to buy food, because Russia had banned grain exports and those countries in the Middle East are major importers of food.

The result was that countries that have outgrown their own land and water resources—such as China, India, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar—basically set out on a global land and water acquisition plan. That changed everything, because they intend to buy land and water from other countries from which to feed their own people at times of food insecurity. They will also send their own workers to those countries to produce the food and, if necessary, they will employ security forces to protect that food. For example, Pakistan has already advertised 400,000 hectares of land for sale, with a security force.

It is anticipated that we will be living on a planet that is suffering climate change, with a massive population increase. Countries now recognise that the trade system as it currently applies around the world is inappropriate. When we have food shortages as a result of extreme weather events, if countries then decide to ban exports of food then some countries will be unable to feed their own people. That is what I meant by the 'new geopolitics of food' when I stood up to speak. Australia has a big responsibility globally. We need to feed our own people but we also need to maximise our food production so that we control where that food can go—so we can put it onto the international market but also, if we choose to, we can direct it to humanitarian causes or we can respond to make sure that food is able to go where food is needed, not sell our land and water resources so that other countries, like Qatar, China, Saudi Arabia and so on, outsource food production for their own people using Australian land and water, and therefore take away from Australia's national security and sovereignty in terms of being able to make decisions about growing our own food and directing it onto international markets.

As to Senator Bishop saying that Senator Xenophon and I do not have the facts or analyses: the whole point of this bill is to get the facts—because, as Senator Xenophon said in his second reading speech, you cannot find out right now how much agricultural land and water is already in foreign ownership. That is something that the Greens highlighted at the last federal election. We called for a national food security plan for the protection of agricultural land, not only from foreign ownership but also from issues like encroachment from urban expansion. And we wanted to make sure, as I said this morning in relation to the expansion of coal seam gas, that we start protecting land for food production in Australia, because it is essential to us and to other countries.

That is where this bill is going. What it does is create a national interest test to be applied against proposed acquisitions of agricultural land. New Zealand has a national interest test for the acquisition of agricultural land. Is anyone saying that people in New Zealand are populists with narrow, sectoral views and are xenophobic or whatever? No, they are not. Everybody accepts that New Zealanders have a national interest test. When anyone applies to buy land in that country they have a five-hectare limit and then it is assessed if it is greater than that. What Senator Xenophon and I are saying is that, in the Australian context, if the application for land is worth more than $5 million then it should be assessed, there should be a national interest test applied. Secondly, we are saying that any interest in Australian agricultural land greater than $5 million be subject to an application to the Treasurer and that the Treasurer be required to publish online the applications of interest in Australian agricultural land and the status of the applications as they proceed. So it is not saying anybody cannot acquire land or water rights; it is saying: let's actually get the data and see what is going on.

As a result of the concerns that have been raised by the Greens, by Senator Xenophon and by many people in the rural community, the government was put under the hammer here to actually start going out to find out what is going on around Australia—and that is why, in November last year, the government asked the Bureau of Statistics to look this up, having not done it since the early 1980s. What a disgrace it is that no-one was keeping any record in Australia of that.

Senator Bishop went on to talk about national averages and so on, but let me put some facts on the table. What that ABS report said was that already 9.4 million hectares in the Northern Territory are more than 50 per cent foreign owned. I will say that again: 9.4 million hectares. In Western Australia 3.1 million hectares are already more than 50 per cent foreign owned. And what is of considerable concern to me is that a third of water licences in Western Australia are foreign owned. You have to say to yourself: we are getting into a situation here where we need to look to the future, look to the security of growing food here and exporting food.

Let me give you an example of why countries are buying up water rights and agricultural land. The Saudis, for example, used to produce most of their own wheat. But they have overused their underground aquifer; it is currently drying up. So the Saudi Arabian wheat production fell by two-thirds and by 2012 it is estimated that wheat production in Saudi Arabia will cease altogether. So this is a crisis for developing countries. And this is a crisis for poor people in developing countries because those countries are recognising that they are going to have to get food from somewhere. That is why I say it is a new geopolitics. Food is going to drive national security concerns in this century, and the sooner this parliament gets on top of that, and recognises that the current trade arrangements, the current rules, do not actually provide for equity and justice and fair allocation, the better. That is why Oxfam is out there today saying, 'Look what is going on in these developing countries; we in the developed world have a responsibility to stand up in the FAO and in other international forums and start talking about these issues.'

As to the accusation that the committee report suggests that what Senator Xenophon and I are doing somehow contravenes the free trade agreement: there is no evidence of that whatsoever in the report. It is a lovely thing to stand up and say it, but there is no evidence for it. What it says is:

The committee is concerned that the bill may be in breach of 'national treatment' obligations as part of Australia's Free Trade Agreements …

And then it goes on to talk about the threshold of five hectares. Senator Xenophon and I have changed the threshold of five hectares, so it no longer applies. Furthermore, it was the committee's view that it 'may' be in breach. It did not say it 'was' in breach, and there is no legal evidence to support the claim. So it is a view that it is in breach. If it is in breach in Australia, why isn't it in breach in New Zealand? Why is it that the New Zealanders can have a national interest test that applies perfectly well in New Zealand, and everybody accepts it there? It is clearly a national interest test and it does not contravene free trade agreements—and New Zealand is a party to exactly the same free trade agreements as we are. So I am very interested that that claim is being made. Also, as I indicated before, the general thrust of opposition in the committee's report is that further data gathering and research are required on foreign investment in the agricultural sector before any legislative policy changes are made. That is the whole point of the bill: to start actually getting the data by requiring that any interest in Australian land or water resources worth more than $5 million goes through this process and goes up online so that people can see what exactly is going on and so that there is a record of it.

As to the issue that we might end up with a national interest test that could be prescriptive and expose the Treasurer to judicial review, the evidence received by the committee in the case of New Zealand is that over the past five years there has been a judicial review of three decisions. In each case the decisions were upheld and in all cases third parties brought the proceedings. None of the proceedings related to a decision that was declined. So it seems to me that the New Zealand approach is working particularly well.

The next issue that was raised was that you cannot have two separate national interest tests—that somehow that is inappropriate. Well, no. Treasury said:

… the Bill also imports into the FATA an elevated degree of sensitivity for rural land which would appear to surpass that applying currently to the most significant of business proposals.

Yes, that is correct, because that is the point of the bill: to settle out separately a sensitivity for rural land, and rural land includes water resources. That is precisely why we are doing this.

To me, the issue here is that the world has changed, and unfortunately there does not seem to be a recognition in this Senate that climate change, extreme weather events and increased population pressures have altered the whole issue of food security globally. That is the fact of the matter. The trade agreements we have around the world do not reflect those changes, nor do they reflect the fact that it is foreign governments, in many cases, that are out there behind companies that purport to be independent or private sector but are actually the face of foreign governments, so it is in Australia's national interest to collect the data.

I will go to one particular example. This is in Victoria. A large investment in prime Western District farmland by the Qatar government has already occurred. Qatar based Hassad Food, which is the agricultural arm of the Qatar government, paid $35 million for more than 8,000 hectares of sheep-grazing and cropping land in Victoria's Western District. The deal includes five homesteads near Ararat and is believed to be one of the largest acquisitions of Victorian pastoral land in recent history—that is from June this year. Local stock and station agents estimate the Qatar government paid a premium of up to 20 per cent in order to secure the controversial deal.

That is the point. It is going to distort land prices in rural and regional areas because, when foreign governments decide they need to outsource food production somewhere else and will pay a premium to get that land and water, local growers will not be able to buy land. Local young people trying to get on the land will be suffering from inflated prices. We have already been through this with managed investment schemes doing precisely the same thing. It is a distortion of the market, and that has already occurred.

If you add to that a recognition that Qatar has only about 65,000 hectares of arable land, that shows why it is so keen to buy land elsewhere. That decision in Victoria this year follows its purchase last year of 2,630 hectares about 330 kilometres west of Melbourne, and the company already holds a $100 million portfolio including 6,800 hectares in New South Wales and a 125,000-hectare holding in Queensland's Clover Downs, which it paid $18.5 million for. So there are already really substantial holdings. The other thing that you are not seeing is where these companies which are the arms of foreign governments are coming and buying small lots of land. Individually they appear to be quite small, but you do not have a record across the country of what collectively or regionally is happening to land ownership.

I think it is in the national interest for Australians to know exactly what is going on but also to have in the back of their minds—it is far from xenophobic—Oxfam's concerns about land grabs globally and what it means for us in Australia to think that the most just and decent thing to do is to control our own land and water resources so that we can make sure that we maximise food production, make choices about where we grow food and put it onto the international market and are able to have control of that food. That is so that, where you have a food security crisis, you do not end up with large areas of land from which a whole lot of food is just directed back to a foreign government, essentially, leaving other vulnerable countries and vulnerable populations around the world starving.

This is why it is called the new geopolitics of food. It has now escalated to a national security issue. Right around the world, governments are thinking about this. New Zealand is one government sitting out there that has a perfectly reasonable system. Senator Xenophon and I are seeking to have this parliament move to just record data—to develop a national interest test and record data—and get the Treasurer to put that data up on the website. Then we can make decisions about whether we want to take further action to restrict or to change the current rules. But what we are proposing does not stop any foreign investment at this point; what it does is start to provide that information that the Australian community needs.

I say to Senator Bishop that he has made a very serious error and has demonstrated his own ignorance by suggesting that concerns such as this are populist and that they do not stand up to analysis. As Senator Xenophon and I are showing, they are forward-thinking concerns. We are anticipating the geopolitics of the next 50 years, influenced by climate change, population growth and peak oil, and what we are now seeing is a significant shift. We will have to put a lot more money not into armies and the military but into supporting people to adapt to climate change and increase productivity in agricultural land around the world so that we can feed people and avoid the conflicts which are inevitable unless we start to do as we are suggesting: look at the national interest and look at our own national sovereignty issues.

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Sustainability and Urban Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Foreign Acquisitions Amendment (Agricultural Land) Bill was presented by Senator Xenophon and Senator Milne in November last year. I notice that we have some young South Australians in the Senate gallery today who are here for a Young Labor conference. There is Dale Colbeck, who I do not think is any relation to Senator Colbeck, Guy Wilcock, Ben Rillo and Hannah MacLeod. Senator Xenophon, if I recall correctly, was a member of the Young Liberals at one time.

Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We all make mistakes.

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Sustainability and Urban Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Talking about mistakes, we have one right here—your bill. I guess we all learn things at university when we get involved in these organisations, but we hope not to repeat the mistakes that have been made in the past and in particular not to repeat the mistakes made in this bill. Currently, the threshold figure to trigger an inquiry by the Foreign Investment Review Board is $231 million. According to Senator Xenophon, that figure is too high and he would like to reduce it to $5 million.

Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The threshold for foreign ownership in China is $1.

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Sustainability and Urban Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Are you saying we should adopt the Chinese system? I notice you appear on this occasion to simply have adopted the New Zealand system, although I think it was pointed out in the course of the Economics Legislation Committee proceedings that that was not an appropriate way to go and you have modified your claim to a dollar amount.

Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You are being ridiculous.

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Sustainability and Urban Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is not being ridiculous, Senator Milne.

Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We have not modified it to a dollar.

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Sustainability and Urban Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, Senator Xenophon was suggesting that we modify it to a dollar—

Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise on a point of order, Mr Acting Deputy President. Senator Farrell has suggested that we modify the figure in the bill to $1 as a threshold. I simply pointed out to Senator Farrell that the figure in China appears to be in the order of $1.

Mark Furner (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is no point of order.

Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He has misrepresented my position and I would be grateful if he could correct it.

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Sustainability and Urban Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If I have incorrectly asserted that Senator Xenophon's proposal was to reduce the figure from $231 million to $1, I do withdraw that suggestion. I thought he was indicating that that was what China did, and Senator Milne appeared to suggest that I was proposing that to the Senate. But we have now clarified that point.

A number of important statistics released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics make clear the situation with foreign ownership in Australia. Senator Cormann referred to these figures earlier, in his contribution to this debate. The first of those important figures is that 99 per cent of all agricultural businesses in Australia are entirely Australian owned. So we are dealing with this bill in circumstances where 99 per cent of all agricultural businesses in Australia are currently Australian owned. Only 0.6 per cent have greater than 50 per cent foreign ownership—

Bill Heffernan (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is a complete horseshit report.

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Sustainability and Urban Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That may be your view, Senator Heffernan—

Bill Heffernan (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Someone has written the speech for you and you don't know what you're talking about..

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Sustainability and Urban Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do know what I am talking about. You may disagree, and you are free to disagree, and you may wish to support Senator Xenophon and Senator Milne, which you are entitled to do, but I think I am entitled to put the facts as I understand them on the table—and that is what I am proposing to do. I have indicated that the ABS reports that 99 per cent of agricultural businesses are currently entirely Australian owned, and only 0.6 per cent have greater than 50 per cent foreign ownership. More significantly, 88.6 per cent of agricultural land in Australia, by area, is entirely Australian owned. Also importantly, only 5.8 per cent of agricultural land in Australia was owned by businesses with more than 50 per cent foreign ownership.

So we are dealing with this piece of legislation that seeks to dramatically reduce the trigger point for foreign investment inquiries, but we have a set of statistics that I think make it very clear that the problem is not as great as Senator Xenophon is claiming. That is not to say we should not inquire into this issue. It is an issue that has been raised out there in the community and I am not saying we should not inquire into it. In fact there are inquiries into the issue and I think we should allow them to complete in due course before we take this bill any further.

As I said before, Senator Xenophon's original bill, which he introduced with Senator Milne, simply picked up holus-bolus the system that operated in New Zealand. There are many things that you might want to adopt from New Zealand, but I do not think their system of foreign investment is one of them. There are plenty of reasons to distinguish the Australian circumstances from those of New Zealand. One obvious one is the size. Simply because the New Zealanders chose to use the figure of $5 million as the trigger point, it does not automatically follow that Australia, which is much larger and has quite a different agricultural history to New Zealand, should adopt that same process. I have indicated that there was a Senate inquiry into this where they looked at all of these issues. I think what we can say about Senator Xenophon's bill is that it does jump to some conclusions. Until all of the inquiries that are currently going on are completed, I do not believe it is appropriate to proceed with this legislation.

Australia does rely very heavily on foreign investment. That has been the history and the pattern of economic development in this country. Senator Xenophon believes that we should reduce the threshold for consideration by the Foreign Investment Review Board but it is also possible that, if we were to go down this track and introduce this new cut-off point, it might have an impact on how other countries see the opportunity to invest in this country and might have an adverse impact on the way other countries view foreign investment. We do not want to do anything at this point in time that might discourage contemplation of foreign investment. We have seen what has happened around the world in the course of the global economic crisis. We have seen what has happened in the United States and what has happened in Europe with the levels of unemployment. When people are getting very jittery about the prospects of another recession around the world, this is not the time to be raising issues that potentially discourage foreign investment.

Any decision that we do take to change our foreign investment legislation should be based on evidence. That is the way to do it. I have already referred to what the Australian Bureau of Statistics has said are the circumstances with ownership at the moment. One of the things we are waiting for is a report that Senator Ludwig has requested. It is a report by both the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation and ABARES, two very distinguished organisations. That report is due to be released by the end of the year. The purpose of that report is to deal with the role and the history of foreign ownership in the development of Australian agricultural land and the factors driving foreign investment in Australia. They are two very crucial and important issues to consider before you would even contemplate proceeding with legislation like this to dramatically change the trigger point for an inquiry into foreign investment. We have set up an inquiry. Senator Ludwig has chosen to do that. I think the most basic thing we ought to be doing is not proceeding with this legislation at this point in time but waiting for that report and seeing what it has to say.

There are a range of issues that I think we need to look at. I am sure that this inquiry that Senator Ludwig has set up will do that. Those issues include: are the current screening arrangements that are in place inappropriate? Are there advantages in retaining the inherent flexibility of the national interest test that is not overly prescriptive? How does this issue fit with the existing screening arrangements for other investments in Australia? The potential is that we end up with two systems of foreign investments, one in respect of the issues that are covered by this legislation—namely, agricultural land—and one in respect of all other investments in this country. If this legislation were to proceed and successfully pass the parliament with the support of Senator Heffernan, we would in fact have two sets of rules. There may be reasons why you would want to do that, but at this stage I think it would be indeed premature to suggest that we should proceed with this legislation without at least looking at what the impact of those two systems of financial regulation might be. Senator Milne was critical of the reference by my colleague Senator Bishop to the free trade agreements. We do have agreements in place. Those agreements have been struck with other countries based on our current foreign investment rules. We need to look at the impact that a change of the nature that Senator Xenophon and Senator Milne are proposing will have on any of the obligations that we have under our free trade agreements.

Senator Heffernan interjecting—

Senator Heffernan, the reality is that the economic performance of this country has defied most of the other OECD countries. There are lots of reasons why you might say that has happened. One of them that we have just recently found out is that we have the world's best treasurer.

Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You can't compare him with the Greek treasurer.

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Sustainability and Urban Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Cash, you may not like the fact that Mr Swan has been declared the world's best treasurer, but it is an indication of the things that have occurred in this country. We have not gone down the path of the conservatives. We tried to make the important decisions on behalf of this country that kept Australians in work at a time when we risked going into recession. You have only to look at what has happened in the United States and what is happening in Europe at the moment. Particularly in the United States, unemployment is continuing to be stubbornly high. Part of our ability to respond in the way we have and the recognition we now have as a country—and I do not think Mr Swan would say it is all his own work; he would want to give credit to—

Bill Heffernan (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Peter Costello and Paul Keating.

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Sustainability and Urban Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would certainly give credit to Paul Keating. I agree with you there, Senator Heffernan.

Mark Furner (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Farrell, can I have you raise your commentary through the chair, please.

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Sustainability and Urban Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you for that helpful reminder, Mr Acting Deputy President. I will make all of my remarks through the chair. It is a little difficult with this constant flow of interjections, and I appreciate some assistance in protecting me from Senator Heffernan. But I do agree with him. Paul Keating was a great Treasurer and he has something in common with Treasurer Swan, of course. They both won that international award. I could be wrong about this, but I cannot recall Mr Costello ever winning such an award.

Bill Heffernan (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He paid off the $90 billion of debt that Paul left us.

Mark Furner (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order, Senator Heffernan!

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Sustainability and Urban Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Hawke-Keating government reformed the Australian economy that made all of the subsequent improvements to the Australian economy possible. If Keating and Hawke had not opened up the Australian economy, we would not be in the position we are in.

Senator Cash interjecting—

I cannot stop him from interjecting.

Mark Furner (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I can.

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Sustainability and Urban Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We have set up this report. We have gone off to investigate. I think Senator Xenophon should wait for that report to come down. There is no urgency about this issue. If he had a sensible approach to the issue, then he would wait for that report. That report will give us an indication about some of the factors that are currently driving foreign investment in this country.

We know foreign investment under a Labor government is booming in this country. We know other countries want to come and invest in our country. They want to create jobs and they want to build infrastructure. So we know they really do appreciate that Australia is a worthwhile place to invest, but let us examine exactly why they are coming to this country. One of the other things that this report will investigate is the economic impact of foreign investment in Australian agricultural industries and agribusiness. It will review the extent to which similar countries monitor and/or regulate foreign investment in agricultural land. So all of these things are important to the future of Australia's investment climate and all of them should be looked at before we go any further with this bill.

Bill Heffernan (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a very rare occasion that I rise in this place and I have noticed that most speeches made in this place are valued by the time they take up rather than their content. Thank you for that great contribution in time there, Senator Farrell. I have two words prepared here as my notes. The Foreign Acquisitions Amendment (Agricultural Land) Bill 2010 has great merit in that we are talking about agricultural acquisition by foreign interests. It puts it on the notice board. I am chairing an inquiry which will report next year on what is going on. It needs to be put into context. We can no longer take for granted what we have taken for granted over many years. That is to do with the shrinking agricultural resources of the planet and the compounding population growth of the planet. To have the argument about how we manage that, we should get the bed stones down. By 2050, unless there is a global catastrophe of some sort, we are going to have nine billion people on the planet and, according to the science, 50 per cent of the world's population will be poor for water. All science has vagary, so obviously we will have to make allowance in any plan for that vagary. It is estimated that a billion people will be unable to feed themselves and 30 per cent of the productive land in Asia will have gone out of production. Two-thirds of the world's population will live in Asia.

The global food task will double by 2050 and 1.6 billion people on the planet could be displaced. Part of that displacement is already underway. Unless China engineers a water solution for the great northern plain, where 260 million people presently live—food production in that region uses water from the great northern aquifer—they will have to move. By 2050 the number living on the great northern plain will reach 400 million. China are engineering some water solutions. They are building a pipeline to move water which is over a thousand kilometres long, has 27 pipes laid side by side and is 4½ metres deep. They say if you have enough money, you can engineer anything. That is part of what they see as the solution. I guess one of the reasons they are hanging onto Tibet is that Tibet is a great water supply—it is more about that than anything else.

By 2070 the world will have 12 billion people, barring a catastrophe. China will have around 1.8 billion people. China is through the denial phase on their problem—unlike India that are still in denial and unlike Australia that do not even think about it. We only worry about where we are going to be in the paper tomorrow and at the next election. That prediction of 1.8 billion people in China will include a huge demographic of aged people. Based on their own estimations to feed their people, China have set aside 200 million hectares for prime agricultural production. You cannot buy land there. It is impossible to acquire freehold title in China if you are a foreigner—forget about it. But they know they have already lost 10 per cent in 10 years of that set aside agricultural production due to urbanisation and the problems of water. They are on the move globally to fix that problem as a sovereign solution to protect their sovereignty, control their destiny and control their food task.

They are on the march on the continent of Africa. A further part of the human displacement by 2050 will be about 260 million people who live across the northern part of the continent of Africa, which will become a desert according to the science predictions. The south-west portion of Western Australia is going to fall into the same category, according to the same science. The Murray-Darling Basin has 23,400 gigalitres of mean run-off. I hear people slagging off in this chamber trying to make cheap political points about the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. Bad luck, folks, Mother Earth is the referee of all this. The science is telling us that Mother Earth could remove somewhere between 3,500 and 11,000 gigalitres from the Murray-Darling's run-off due to a two-degree increase in temperature. A 15 per cent decline in rainfall in the southern Murray-Darling Basin will relate to a decline in run-off of up to 35 per cent. In fact, the three years of snow previous to the last year did not actually melt, it evaporated.

The science says that by 2050 we may have under a fortnight of snow in the Snowy Mountains. Thirty-eight per cent of the run-off from the Murray-Darling Basin comes from the two per cent of the landscape that is at the back of us here in Canberra—between here and northern Victoria. So what happens in that particular bit of the landscape quantifies what will happen to a lot of the Murray-Darling Basin. In fact, if the science on the changing weather for Australia is 40 per cent right, in most years there will be zero allocation for general purpose water in the southern rivers of the Murray-Darling.

These are all propositions, and here we are luxuriating in this chamber while trying to score political points on how to manage the Murray-Darling Basin. I do not have the time tonight to go into this because it takes me two hours to do the presentation on the planet's water and Australia's water, and what we should do about it. But we can actually fix the water problem by fixing the model for water entitlement. As the amount of water available falls, you do not have to have a sledgehammer that says, 'We're going to take between 3,500 and 7½ thousand gigalitres out of the system'—which would be the top of those variation years; you can have an entitlement system which we have now instead of a volumetric licence system. As the amount of water available in the system for that year falls disproportionately, the amount of water that has to go to the work and the freight of the river increases. You can actually model that, but no-one has bothered. They are too lazy. Every government of every persuasion, for all time, has buggered up the management of water.

The world is losing one per cent of its agricultural land every year for a number of reasons. Under the science that is predicted, some agricultural land that is unproductive now will come into production and that could include parts of the frozen continent to the north. It will certainly mean changed propositions in Northern Australia. You will have heard Stuart Blanch and Joey Ross and those people in recent days slagging the idea that somehow we can develop Northern Australia. If we are silly enough, as we appear to be, to say there are no development opportunities in other parts of Australia and the science is telling us there is going to be a decline in capacity in the south, and we all rest on our laurels, think of the past, retire to the coast, think agriculture is a mature industry and we only go to Coles, Woollies or Aldi, or wherever, to get our tucker because it is all there, we are dreaming.

By 2050, the food task is going to double. We are going to have to use everything from GM science to smarter technology for water. In Australia, we have a perfect model for efficient water use in Carnarvon in Western Australia. I congratulate Judith Adams for being in the chamber. Carnarvon farmers are 40 times more efficient with their water use than the Ord. They are 20 times more efficient than the Murray-Darling Basin. In 2006-07, they produced $69 million of income from 8½ gigalitres of water—and some of that went to the town supply. Their pressurised root zone irrigation system is based on Spanish and Israeli technology. In the same year, the Ord in stage 1 used 345 gigalitres of water to produce the same income. In the same year, the Murray-Darling was 20 times less efficient.

There is some efficiency that can be applied. That efficiency can be brought to bear in the Murray-Darling Basin. The episode with Cubby—and I think that is about to be fixed—was seriously inefficient. It was the model of a great idea built on the wrong scale in a river system, the Culgoa River, that has 1,200 gigalitres of mean annual flow and 845 per cent variability. They allowed them to build 1,500 gigalitres of on-farm storage, which is completely out of kilter with the capacity of the river system. That is just a little bit of detail on what agriculture is all about.

We produce 73 per cent of Australia's farm income on agriculture in the Murray-Darling basin, which has 6.2 per cent of Australia's run-off. The Timor catchment has 78,000 gigalitres of run-off, the Gulf catchment has 98,000 gigalitres of run-off and the north-east catchment in Queensland has 85,000 gigalitres of run-off—and here we are dreaming that we do not care who owns the place. If I have time I will come to the details of the farcical statistical evidence the ABS gave on ownership. It was a complete, drop-dead farce.

Here we are fantasising about locking up the north when we know that Bangladesh is half its size. Cape York Peninsula is 17½ million hectares. If you take out the coastal communities, there are approximately 14,000 people, 12,000 Indigenous, living in an area the size of Victoria. There are 800,000-odd feral pigs there, 20,000 to 30,000 untagged feral cattle and about 14 to 17 pastoral stations. The rest is either sit-down blackfella country—I can say that because they are all my mates; and I am a whitefella to them—or destined for World Heritage listing.

To his credit, Peter Beattie told me, when I was in the process of chairing the Traveston Dam inquiry—and, by the way, it was a shit of a site for a dam, and he knew it—

Mark Furner (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Heffernan—

Bill Heffernan (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I retract whatever it is you want me to retract.

Mark Furner (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You know what you said and I am asking you to retract it.

Bill Heffernan (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I retract it. I had better not say 'bugger'. It was a 'not a very nice' site. He said, 'Look, Bill, I've got to get the inner-city preferences'—this was two elections ago in Brisbane—'so I've done a deal with the Wilderness Society to enact the wild rivers legislation.' The wild rivers legislation locks up the first kilometre on either side of all those rivers all the way up Cape York Peninsula—17½ million hectares. The average annual wildfire there burns five million hectares. The biggest wildfire they have had burned 11 million hectares. It is a soft entry point into Australia for foot and mouth disease because of all those feral pigs. We are fantasising about locking it up. So the opportunity for Indigenous people up there will not be economic agricultural production for the first kilometre, which is just as good as any riverbed or floodplain down the Murrumbidgee. No, we are saying: 'What we want your opportunity to be perhaps is tourism. You can get your picture taken standing on a stone with a spear for the tourists.' That is what we are saying to our Indigenous people. And bear in mind that there are still approximately 7½ thousand kids in the Northern Territory who do not have a bloody high school to go to. What sort of a disgrace is that?

Go to Bangladesh and try to explain that to the people in Bangladesh. It is predicted that 1.6 billion people on the planet will be displaced by 2070. If the science is only 10 per cent right, that is 160 million people. Bangladesh has 160 million people who live in an area half the size of Cape York Peninsula. Fifty-seven rivers flow into Bangladesh, 54 of them out of India. India is mining the water that comes all the way along the Ganges—right down. India is still in denial. If the sea rises just under a metre and India continues to mine the groundwater which becomes the river water for Bangladesh, by 2050 those people are going to have to move because they are going to be inundated and lose their freshwater—and here we are fantasising about not developing anything in the north.

The CSIRO were not allowed to consider storing or damming water, but that was not because they could not do it. Better than anyone in this chamber, I understand the science of what is happening up there. The bulk of the water falls to the bottom of the catchment, unlike the catchments down here where the water falls to the top of the catchment. It is an event based thing, but you can recharge sandbed aquifers—the Gilbert River west of Georgetown was pegged out for irrigation in 1957.

We have all said: 'Oh, no, it's too hot to go up there. And it's too far away from the market.' Where's the best place to be on a hot day? In the cab of a tractor. It is better than the airconditioning in the house. Why do we think we are we too far from the market? Because we are looking in the wrong direction. Two-thirds of the world's population are just over the water. Two-thirds of the world's population are closer to Darwin than they are to Sydney.

So here we are thinking that somehow we are going to flog through with what we have got. No-one is listening to the science in this debate about agricultural land acquisition. We were briefed the other night by the ABS, and I took the trouble to ring them. As they will tell you, the game has changed. I have heard all these political speeches today—mostly prepared notes that someone else has written for them—but no-one is giving consideration to the seismic change that is occurring in the world through the loss of sovereignty through modern communication, transport, free trade agreements and all the rest of it. And that was my point to Senator Farrell on the free-trade agreements: we gave away a five per cent and a 15 per cent tariff in the American free-trade agreement and imposed a 45 per cent tariff. In 2004, when that was agreed to, we were at 67c to the US dollar. When it was enacted, in January 2005, we were at 70c. We now have a 45 per cent tariff against us on our terms of trade, yet we gave away a five per cent tariff. It is all stupid.

It is premature, this bill. I am sorry, Senator Xenophon, but it is premature. Let's get everyone educated as to what the problem is and let's have a strategic view in Australia of where we are going to be in 50 years time and in 80 years time. Let me give you some suggestions on that. There needs to be true definition of the difference between foreign sovereign acquisition—and the ABS will tell you this if you go and talk to them—and foreign capital. I do not care about foreign capital coming into agriculture because it has been coming in for yonks. Traditionally what happens with foreign capital is that they come in, invest, feel good about it and then strike the variability of our seasons and its impact on production. Next, all their directors want a bonus, overtime and all the rest of it and then they go broke and they pack up and leave. It always happens. They all do it. One of the great institutions of Australia, the family farm, keeps the job going because we do not pay ourselves overtime.

Why shouldn't we be thinking, 'Let's sell our production into the doubling of the world food task by 2050 rather than sell our means of production'? I am sorry to have to use a note at this stage, but I will just quote ABARES talking about who owns the place. This is from the report of the Senate Economics Legislation Committee's inquiry into this bill. First there are some comments from Alan Hill, the Director of Policy for the Western Australian Farmers Federation, then the report goes on:

ABARES also noted that there is currently no database of ownership of Australian agricultural land—

this is only a few weeks ago—

It informed the committee that Queensland is the only State that collects this type of information:

Senator HEFFERNAN—Firstly, would it be fair to say for your organisation—

this is ABARES; they advise the government—

that we really do not know who owns the agricultural land in Australia?

Mr Morris—Yes.

The ABS thing is a political cover. We were briefed on it.

You know what they did? They sent out 11,000 forms based on the ATO's ABN register of agricultural interests. They did not pick up Shenhua, who bought a big lump of country around their mine to shut all the cockies up. They did not pick up all the blind trusts through the Cayman Islands. They did not pick up the sovereign wealth funds where reporting is compulsory but not mandatory. Some of these sovereign funds have all sorts of blind operations. No, we do not know about the sovereign acquisitions.

The greatest threat to Australia's sovereignty, as Mick Kelty pointed out a few years ago—no-one took any notice—is the effect of climate change and human displacement. The greatest threat now—and if you dig down into ABS, they will tell you—is the concept of sovereignty being displaced because of sovereign wealth funds. The sovereign wealth funds of some countries are acquiring the sovereign wealth of other countries—and excluding those countries from access to their own wealth. That is going to happen—places like China, to their credit, are aware of the future food problem they are facing and they are busily doing this.

If you go back to the ABS thing, the database—guess what? They started with farms that had an income of $5,000. So farms with an income of only $5,000—that could be any of these toy farms around Canberra here—were included in the schedule as some sort of commercial agricultural production. You have to have income of between $30,000 and $50,000 to be able to get a GST return—$5,000 is meaningless. Yet, in the statistical database, the model includes anything that earns $5,000. This has the capacity to completely distort the figures. This is a phoney—I am sorry to have to say that, but it is—statistical, political tool. It is meaningless. Hopefully, when the inquiry that I am going to chair gets going, we will deal with the facts rather than the political fantasy involved behind protecting a government—whoever the government might be after the next election.

I am interested, and all of Australia's farmers are interested, in where we are going to be in 50 or 80 years time. We do not want to leave the farm to a foreign interest if we can avoid it. But you cannot blame the cocky who wants to get out— (Time expired)

Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was quite enjoying Senator Heffernan's speech. I acknowledge that he is one of the few people in this parliament who has direct experience in this field. He also, I think, provides an important analysis that is largely lacking in what we get from the rest of the chamber. The only strong disagreement I had with Senator Heffernan's speech was with his faith that, if we go after the north, we will not simply make the same mistakes we have been making for 100 years. I think that difference is probably fairly well understood.

The other thing that Senator Heffernan said was that this bill is premature. I thought what we just heard from Senator Heffernan was a ringing endorsement of exactly why this bill should be brought on today and I will be sorry to see him sitting on the other side of the chamber when we come to a vote, because, with a few exceptions such as Senator Heffernan, all we hear is the polar opposite point of view. We heard that polar opposite view from our Western Australian colleague Senator Mark Bishop a little bit earlier on in the debate. He just waved his hands and said: 'This is all good. Sell off the country as rapidly as possible with as little consideration, as little oversight, as possible.' That is, perhaps, a rather brutal paraphrasing of Senator Bishop. There was nothing in that speech at all that paid regard to the concerns that we are bringing to the table. We see it in the mismanagement of the mining boom under successive governments and we see it in the way foreign acquisitions of agricultural land in Australia are handled.

I would like to congratulate Senators Milne and Xenophon for bringing this bill forward. It is not a barrier to free trade and it is not a barrier to foreign investment—that is not what we are proposing here. The bill seeks to implement some fairly common-sense changes to the legislative regime governing foreign acquisitions in this country—to strengthen protections of the national interest, to better define what we mean by that and to better equip legislators for decision making.

The major parties, apart from a few honourable exceptions, have not demonstrated any recognition at all of the challenges facing Australia with regard to investment by foreign entities or of the long-term problems that this parliament could face because other countries around the world are playing a longer game than us. The Chinese are playing a 100-year game. We are doing something completely different—we are governing in the interests of the next quarterly report or the next three-year electoral cycle. Other countries around the world are engaged in a deadly serious contest over resources, a contest to which Australia seems to simply insist on wearing a blindfold.

That is why it is important that we have the crossbenches, at least, putting some of these ideas into the public domain—there is precious little innovation coming from anywhere else. Foreign investment can have very positive economic effects, but with these come political consequences—they come with impacts on corporate governance, risks to competition and risks, perhaps most importantly, to food security. I think that each of these things should be strongly considered by the Foreign Investment Review Board before approvals for investments above a certain threshold are granted. Four per cent of our continent is considered good farming land and yet 45 million hectares of it has some level of foreign ownership. Eleven per cent of Australia's agricultural land has some level of foreign ownership and we cannot say where it is or what sectors it affects. One of the things that Senator Milne pointed out is that 31 per cent of Western Australia's water resources are foreign owned. I am simply raising something like that—a third of Western Australia's water resources, in the driest inhabited continent on the planet—to point out that perhaps we might want to introduce some kind of threshold test, some kind of mapping exercise, to work out who has bought it and where the ownership lies but we are accused of xenophobia. I find that counteraccusation absolutely offensive. This is not about xenophobia. It is about basic industry policy and good practice about knowing. If we are insisting on selling the farm, let us at least find out who we are selling it to.

The lack of information about the sectors affected is particularly problematic, because it opens up the possibility of a company or companies from one country completely dominating a particular section of Australian agriculture and cornering the market. Imagine if one foreign company or companies from one country owned, for example, all of Australia's banana plantations or all of Australia's orange groves. Without information about which farming land and what sectors of Australian agriculture are foreign owned, how can FIRB properly assess new investment proposals? How can we in this place and policy makers at all levels of government respond to growing foreign ownership without knowing where it is and what it entails? These are quite serious questions.

At the moment I think FIRB needs to monitor in particular a country's interest in specific sectors to make sure that various markets are not being cornered, to ensure that creeping acquisitions are not taking place which would quite negatively impact on our economy and on the ability of Australian companies to do business and employ Australians. According to Treasury, and this is something that I have spent a bit of time working on not necessarily just in the agricultural context, Australia's Foreign Investment Policy states:

The Government's approach to foreign investment policy is to encourage foreign investment consistent with community interests.

And:

The Government determines what is 'contrary to the national interest' by having regard to the widely held community concerns of Australians.

In 2008, the Treasurer released a set of six principles that are considered by FIRB in determining, on a case by case basis, whether particular investments by foreign governments and their agencies are consistent with Australia's 'national interest'. I will sketch what they are. FIRB needs to consider the following:

They are so broadly framed that I think they leave an awful lot to be desired and they need to be stricter and more explanation needs to be given to each criterion to ensure that a sharper assessment is made of what we mean by Australia's 'national interest', rather than having this ideological assumption that all investment from anywhere at all is good without considering the strategic implications or some of the strategic plans that other countries who take a longer view of things are obviously putting into play.

Australian policy makers appear to have this innocent assumption that the market will provide and the market will look after us—and it will really won't. I think the guidelines should be incorporated into relevant legislation as to things like an investor's operations that are independent from the relevant foreign government. This is the issue that Senator Heffernan was speaking of: sovereign wealth funds or large industrial combines that are effectively owned and run by the Chinese government, to give just one example. They are playing a brand of capitalism different from what we play in Australia and from what we perhaps expect other countries to play.

The current threshold under which private foreign purchases of land in Australia need not be declared is an extraordinary $231 million. That is an enormous sum of money that can buy a vast amount of farming land. Until 1989 the threshold was $1 million. I know the cost of land has appreciated significantly since then, but not by 23,000 per cent. That has not been the increase. The threshold has, in fact, increased by 23,000 per cent if you take 1989 as your base year. That is an absurdly high threshold. It means we do not know what is going on. A foreign company or private citizen can purchase that much worth of farming land and then another and then another—ad nauseam—without the investments being declared or subject to a review by FIRB. So with these kinds of jigsaw acquisitions we are left in a position where enormous tracts of Australian farming land can be bought up.

Senator Milne pointed out, I think very strongly in her contribution to this debate, that this is not only an Australian problem necessarily; this is happening all over the world. Countries are looking just a little bit further down the kerb to see what food insecurity really means and are buying up farming land all over the world and essentially outsourcing their food-growing task. That is having serious implications on the food sovereignty of various countries around the world where access to decent food is simply not guaranteed. In Australia I think we do ourselves an enormous disservice by imagining that we should simply sit back and let this happen, as though we were some kind of Third World country with weak governance and no sense of strategy or industry policy. So I think one of the first things that we need is a lower cap on purchases not subject to declaration and review, to bring more of these acquisitions into question over some form of national interest test. We need data on foreign purchases of Australian farming land properly collated and retained and we need the weak guidelines to be strengthened and entrenched in law. New Zealand has a five-hectare threshold. Obviously, it is a smaller country but they have a five-hectare threshold and extensive data collation on foreign ownership of farm land. It has had no discernible detrimental impact on investment. That is the right thing for us to do now. It is the right thing to do for generations to come. This is not an anti-free-trade measure. This is a commonsense 'let's work out what's actually going on' measure. Our economic wellbeing and our food security absolutely depend on it.

Alex Gallacher (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak against the private member's bill on foreign acquisitions of agricultural land sponsored by Senator Xenophon. From public discussion it is quite evident there are concerns from the community and, indeed, a level of apprehension about the level of foreign ownership and the level of foreign acquisitions of agricultural land. However, the government must remain responsible in their actions in dealing with this matter. As the Assistant Treasurer, the Hon. Bill Shorten, stated in the Weekend Australian on 10 September:

It is vital we protect the national interest and continue to strike the right balance between attracting foreign investment and ensuring agricultural and food security.

I think this is an eminently sensible view from the Assistant Treasurer and this is something that all Australians would like to see as the right outcome in regards to foreign acquisitions of agricultural land. That is why the government should not jump the gun in making significant changes without an adequate picture of the current impact of foreign investment in Australian agricultural land.

The push for regulation seems to be merely based on concerns and not on substantive data, obviously because of the limited data that has been available. The debate requires clear thinking for the government to get a full, historic and current picture of foreign investments in Australian agricultural land. It is greatly recognised that Australia has been able to benefit from foreign investments in all sectors of the economy, and making changes that potentially could discourage foreign investment would not be a smart move by any government. I know all Australians understand that foreign and domestic investment in Australia is vitally important to the economy. These investments support local jobs, economic growth and future prosperity. Any move that jumps the gun in this situation could lead to the discouragement of foreign investment and greatly impact on our already established free trade agreements.

That is why this government is taking this issue very seriously. We will continue to look into the issue meticulously so that we can better understand the situation at hand and have the adequate data needed to make any decisions necessary. The Labor government is committed to striking the balance that all Australians are seeking, which led the Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services and Superannuation the Hon. Bill Shorten and the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry the Hon. Joe Ludwig to commission the Australian Bureau of Statistics, along with the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation and ABARES, to get a better picture of foreign investment in Australia's agriculture sector.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics research project was published on 9 September and showed that a very modest amount of Australia's agricultural industry is owned by foreign investors. The data was collected in March this year after the request was made in December last year. The results were quite surprising considering the level of perceived foreign or business ownership of agricultural land. The result of the publication showed that 99 per cent of agricultural businesses in Australia are entirely Australian owned. The other headline figure was that 89 per cent of agricultural land was entirely Australian owned and, finally, 91 per cent of water entitlements were also entirely Australian owned. The ABS issued a media release which said:

The businesses reporting they were not fully Australian owned may have been either partially or entirely foreign owned and, as such the survey provides information about business, land and water entitlements by the extent of their foreign ownership.

We can dive further into the statistics which showed that only 5.8 per cent of land was owned by foreign investors, while the other 5.5 per cent of land that was foreign owned came from a minority stake of investors having less than 50 per cent ownership. From a South Australian perspective 87.9 per cent of agricultural land is entirely Australian owned with only 0.7 per cent in foreign hands with more than a 50 per cent stake in ownership. The slightly higher levels of foreign investment in South Australia can be assumed to be investments in our sheep, beef and grain farms. The ABS later stated:

The survey results are broadly comparable with levels of foreign ownership of agricultural businesses and land collected in the Agricultural Census of 1983-84. The ABS has not previously collected data on foreign ownership of agricultural water entitlements.

Considering this is the first time a study like this has been conducted in over 20 years this information is going to be vital in the ongoing debate on this topic. Along with the other commissioned reports, it will provide the government with an adequate picture of foreign acquisitions which this bill fails to consider.

The Senate Economics Committee report also made mention of the lack of data suitable for policy making decisions. When discussing the change to the threshold the committee commented:

… the current data gathering and research project should be completed before any adjustment to the threshold is made. Following the reporting of better data, the Foreign Investment Review Board figure should then be reviewed to allow for an appropriate threshold.

There must also be strong consideration given to the fact that Australia's foreign investment screening regime has continued along the path of a strong pro-investment stance. It is my understanding that most proposals are dealt with and approved within the first 30 days.

The government's policies are reflected to balance our interests and must remain balanced under commitments to free trade agreements and obligations to our trading partners. This government will continue to remain committed to ensuring our national interests are protected. That is why the government is waiting for the report to be completed by ABARES and RIRDC before the end of the year. These reports will look into the history and drivers of foreign investment in agriculture, and will also look into the impacts, drivers, structures and regulation of ownership in agriculture. The government feels this is the right course of action to take, especially when looking at the current situation of foreign ownership of agricultural businesses and land. Only after receiving these reports can the government be sure that any changes made will be consistent with a balanced approach. We on this side of the chamber feel and reiterate that the bill is jumping the gun, so to speak, by not taking into consideration many issues.

The Senate Economics Committee report into this bill also had additional issues that need to be addressed, which I am sure will continue to be brought up by this side of the chamber. These include: whether the current screening arrangements are actually inappropriate; that there is a significant advantage in retaining the inherent flexibility associated with a national interest test that is not overly prescriptive; how does this fit within the existing screening arrangements for the other investments into Australia. Creating a separate framework that applies exclusively to foreign acquisitions of agricultural land will create complexity and confusion both for Australian farmers and foreign investors; how will this impact on Australia's international obligations under Australia's free trade agreements; and all significant private as well as—

Debate interrupted.

Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Just to remind the chamber, this is a biannual report that is given to the parliament from the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry recording numbers of cattle, sheep, buffalos and camels that are moved by sea and recording both survivals and mortalities. I remind the chamber that the mortality rate for the six-month period for the cattle that were exported from Australia by ship was 0.1 per cent, one in 1,000 animals. For sheep, it was 0.6 of one per cent, an improvement in fact on previous years and very much below the sorts of levels that would otherwise cause there to be any inquiries.

People often ask what the mortality levels are for animals that remain at home on the farm. I would like to place on record that the figure for adult sheep and cattle in this country is two to three per cent and the figure for lambs and calves—younger animals—is somewhere between 10 and 15 per cent. The statistics show, very validly, that the mortality levels are incredibly low for stock which are moved by sea.

Interestingly, in my own experience and certainly in that of others, the actual gross weight of the consignment goes up during shipping because, in nearly all instances, adult sheep and cattle maintain body weight but younger animals, particularly, gain bodyweight. So the end customer actually gets more than 100 per cent of what they purchased.

The few minutes available to me enable me to actually reflect on the difficulty we are seeing in the north of Australia this year following the suspension of the live cattle trade. Estimates given to recent Senate inquiries are that somewhere between 80,000 and 160,000 cattle will now not leave Northern Australia. That number will be determined by, firstly, the onset of the wet season, at which time cattle very often cannot be moved off stations because the roads are not bitumen and, secondly, the capacity to get stock onto ships. It then raises the question: if those 80,000 to 160,000 cattle which normally would have gone up to the Indonesian market do not go, we are then faced with the prospect, unfortunately, of overstocking on the rangelands. This crop that would normally have gone or those that have gone are last year's calves. Their mothers are in the middle of calving or, in many instances, have now finished calving this year so, effectively, the animals that did not go will be competing with their mothers and their younger siblings, this year's calf crop, on the rangelands this year.

Those are problems we will have to face for a couple of reasons. Madam Acting Deputy President Crossin, you would know from your own experience in the Territory that there have been insufficient funds for many of the pastoralists to actually buy diesel fuel, needed for pumps that operate bores that supply water to stock. The second reason that we learnt of in one of the Senate inquiries was that the pastoralists, for example, did not have sufficient funds to purchase tarpaulins to cover the hay which would be used for supplementary feeding. So, as soon as the wet season starts, that hay will be spoilt and will be of no value.

This debate is, in some ways, relevant to the discussion we have just concluded on the Foreign Acquisitions Amendment (Agricultural Land) Bill 2010, because we are now seeing throughout the north of Australia that the average value of livestock has actually gone down by some 20 to 30 per cent, depending on whether they are steers or heifers. The actual value of the stock for the pastoralists has gone down. Added to that, nearly all of the land held across the north of Australia is leasehold land, not privately owned or titled land, as you would know, Madam Acting Deputy President Crossin. Therefore, we are facing a scenario in which the pastoralists have less equity in their stock and in their share of the land. This, unfortunately, opens up the entire market to overseas buyers to buy up both the unexpired portions of the leased stations and the cattle themselves at discounted prices. Much of the discussion earlier this afternoon was devoted to owned land or titled land, freehold land, in the south of Australia. We have heard discussion on the relevant merits or otherwise of the ABS statistics. A lot more work needs to be done on those. But here we have actually opened up the market for overseas buyers to come in and buy these properties and the stock at discounted prices. (Time expired)

David Bushby (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

Bill Heffernan (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will continue my remarks on this report. Just to put it into context, obviously this is a bill which has been brought on to focus not only Australia but the rest of the world—it is the first time it has been dealt with by a parliament in the way it has in the Australian parliament—on the 35 years of flawed interpretation of patent law which is being acknowledged in the American court system and is now working its way up through that system. It will cost not only public health dearly with lack of research because of the monopolisation but also the future capacity of governments to fund public health.

The Intellectual Property and Competition Review Committee said:

The committee considers that the goals underpinning the national competition policy are well served by a patent policy that rigorously distinguishes between discoveries that advance our understanding of the nature, structure and properties of matter and the inventions that apply this understanding to useful products and processes, and obviously commercialisation. Within such a policy only the latter should qualify for patent protection.

That is generally acknowledged by most people. There are one or two that do not and one or two who argue that the isolation of a gene makes it patentable, but of course there is no material difference between the gene in isolation and the gene in situ. The committee also said:

The distinction is vitally important not only to the people of Australia and the scientists who work and strive to help develop new diagnostics, medicines, therapeutics and hopefully cures but to the integrity of Australia's patents system. As the US said on the issue, the extent to which basic discoveries in genetics have been patented is a question of great importance to the national economy, to medical science and to the public health.

And so it is to the Australian economy, to Australian science and the health of Australian people. It is only by chance that Australian women are not today facing the crisis facing women in the United States. Let me read a little from an article published last month in the New York Times:

In 2006, Professor King and colleagues published a paper showing that Myriad's test, known as the Comprehensive BRACAnalysis, actually failed to detect a significant number of genetic alterations in the two genes.

Myriad then developed a test for these alterations.

It did not fix the patent test it had.

But instead of incorporating it into its main product—

which cost $4,000 for the test because of the monopoly—

it offered it as a supplemental test at a price of $700. Many insurers do not pay for it, and therefore many women do not get it.

Myriad's data shows that for Latina women in particular, 20 per cent of all mutations found are detectable only by the supplemental test.

"The comprehensive testing they are advertising is not really comprehensive," said Ellen T. Matloff, director of cancer genetic counselling at Yale, who is also a plaintiff in the patent lawsuit. "This would not happen in a competitive market. It simply would be unacceptable."

More than 200 doctors, genetic counsellors and other health care professionals have signed an open letter to Myriad urging it to incorporate the supplemental testing into the main test.

Kathleen Maxian says that if that had been done earlier, she might not be fighting for her life against ovarian cancer.

Her sister developed breast cancer at age 40 about five years ago, but tested negative for mutations on Myriad's main test. She was not offered the supplemental test.

Two years ago, Ms Maxian developed ovarian cancer. It turned out that both she and her sister had genetic alterations that were detectable only by the supplemental test.

"If my sister had had that test and had gotten a positive result, I would have gone to a genetic counsellor and have been tested," said Ms Maxian, who is 49 and lives in Pendleton, NY, near Buffalo. She would then have had the option of having her ovaries removed to avoid getting ovarian cancer.

"I don’t want to see this happen to anyone else," she said. "Women should have this test."

Before I sit, I implore you to read and study the dissenting report and to remember that the Australian patent system is not there for the benefit of sectoral interests which have deep pockets and have armies of lawyers and patent attorneys only too willing to look after their own interest. Rather it is there, if this is to be of any relevance in the 21st century, to balance the rights and interests of all Australians.

I will point out to the chamber what happened when Gene Technologies Ltd first got the licence for Australia, just as an instance of this particular patenting problem. Clearly bankers, lawyers, IP Australia and the industry do not want anyone to draw the line between what you can patent on the inventive side and what you cannot patent on the discovery side. It is a 'don't ask, don't tell' sort of a proposition. The federal Department of Health and Ageing agrees with what we are saying, that we have got to learn to draw this line. But the department of industry says, 'No, let's keep going—we are all going to get a big quid out of this.' When I rang the CEO of Genetic Technologies before we kicked this debate off—and I am eternally grateful to this parliament and to the Minister for Health and Ageing, Nicola Roxon, for letting us have this debate—he said to me, 'Bill, why are you doing this?' and I said, 'Because we should not have a patent on discoveries.' He said, 'We have offered our licence to Australia as a gift to the people of Australia, but you have just given a litigation lever to every public laboratory in Australia, putting them on notice to desist from testing for BRCA 1 and BRCA 2 mutations and surrender all their data to the laboratory in Melbourne, as a monopoly.' He then said, 'That is a good thing for Australia. Lucky that we discovered that Myriad in America was breaching one of our patents and as part of the legal settlement they allowed us to do the testing under this licence in Australia. Otherwise we would have had to send all the samples back to America to be tested, as Japan has to do.' He also said, 'But we are going broke and we have got to call up all our capacity to earn money, so we are putting them all on notice that they have to surrender all their testing to us.' This is in a situation where the law clearly states that you can patent an invention that is unique, has a commercial purpose and has an inventive step. It clearly states that discovery work cannot be patented.

What we have done—and I have got truckloads of patents in my office if anyone wants to see them—is include the gene in the patent. All these patents would still be valid under what is proposed in this bill. All the inventive work would still be patented and commercialised, but the gene would be taken out so that someone else—say, Senator Chris Back's laboratory—could get access and would be able to do research without having to go to the phoney political solution, which is an exemption for research. In the case of the BRCA 2 test, which is a flawed test, what a hide Myriad America has, not to fix a flawed patented test that is proven to be not working but to include an extra test you have to go through to see if the flawed test did not pick you up. What a disgrace that is.

The department of industry are now arguing that you will get a licence to do experimental work. But if I hold the licence and I give Senator Chris Back's laboratory an exemption to do the research and his laboratory is smarter than mine and beats me to the prize for the inventive step and the commercialisation, he can come back to me and say, 'Now, Bill, can I have an exemption so that I can commercialise the thing, including the gene that you hold the patent for?' If I say yes, what does that say about the patent system? Why have I got the patent in the first place if I am going to give it away? If I say no he makes the point that the exclusivity and the monopoly and cartel thinking in all this is absolutely adding billions of dollars to public health. One patent alone cost $1.9 billion in licence fees because it included the gene, besides the inventive work.

My absolute plea to the Australian parliament and to everyone in the Australian parliament is to look at the facts in all their starkness and have the courage to say: 'Well, for 35 years the US government said to the US courts, "We have made a mistake on the interpretation of patent law. Let's fix it so that we can fund public health in the future and look after the human race."'

Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this matter as my colleague Senator Heffernan has—and I would never deal with his laboratory in such a desultory way, I can assure him! I think it goes to an absolutely critically important point, and that is that naturally occurring biological features or phenomena, such as genes or anything of that nature, should not be patentable. They are not an invention; they are a discovery, and I think it is absolutely critical that we go back to basics in this particular regard.

People will say, 'Well, where is the incentive for medical research?' We know that it is horrifically expensive, we know it is time consuming and we know that the proportion of chemicals tested that ever actually come to fruition is very low. But I want to make one point particularly strongly, in support of the comments made by the previous speaker, and that is that in the inventive side there is plenty of scope. I say again that the isolation of a gene, a gene sequence, chromosomes or whatever of themselves should not be patentable, because they are merely the discovery of a naturally occurring phenomenon. But the difference arises here: if a research organisation, a company, a group of researchers, a university or whoever were to modify that gene sequence, were to add value to it, were to establish a test to which those genes could be subjected to establish whether or not a member of a family, a person, an animal, a plant or whatever may have genes that are defective, of course that does constitute invention. It constitutes adding of value. It constitutes something upon which protection should be afforded to the research organisation or company.

Going further, if that group were to develop a vaccine that would allow for the control or even the prevention of that disease, it is patently obvious that it should be patentable, but not the original gene sequence itself. If that company, university, group or individual were to go to the expense of developing pharmaceuticals for the purpose of treating a disease that may arise as a result of those gene sequences, again you can see the logic of that. Surely that is where we as lawmakers should be directing our efforts here in Australia. Also, we should be encouraging those overseas, as indeed we are seeing in the United States and Japan and other jurisdictions, where they have come to realise that patents were handed out far too easily for what were actually discoveries of natural phenomena.

I do not want to speak for much longer on this, except to reflect on how far we have now come from the early days of medical research, where there was tremendous sharing of information. One can go back to Pierre and Marie Curie, when they first looked at and came to discover microscopic organisms. They were, of course, the subject of derision amongst the scientific community. But imagine if in those days they had gone and put a patent on the discovery of bacteria. Where would we be? Think of Fleming and his co-workers and the discovery of penicillin. The only reason it was discovered was that an agar plate was left out over the weekend. When Monday morning came along there was this unusual looking growth on it. They said, 'What is it? Let's throw it out. No, let's not throw it out; let's examine it.' The end result of that, of course, was the discovery of the antibiotic penicillin because someone discovered a bare area within all of the moss that was growing. That bare area was the substrate of that antibiotic. Let us imagine for a moment that, instead of sharing that with the world's scientific and medical community, Fleming and his co-workers had said, 'The best thing we can do here is put a patent on this and make sure that nobody else gets access to it.' If we go to polio and its vaccines, we are now so close to eradicating that in this world, including through the oral vaccine—the so-called Sabin vaccine.

My concern is for protecting the goodwill of the past that had such a profound effect on human health and in getting on top of so many of those infectious diseases that killed so many people in the world. I remind people again that the influenza epidemic of 1918-19 killed more people than died during the course of the First World War from military related activity. So we must surely protect that and ensure that we do not move away from that international goodwill that has always existed, that international goodwill that has allowed the sharing of information around the world to allow scientific peers in other places of the world to replicate and validate the work done by other scientists for the good of humanity, whether in human disease, animal disease, plant disease or whatever. We are facing a crisis. The last thing we need is a sense of protectionism.

But, at the same time, I recognise, as everybody must, that the cost of research is horrifically expensive. The proportion of pharmaceuticals that ever get to the market and yield a return for their developers is very small. Whilst we must accept the commercial reality, we must continue to encourage research and researchers. We should not ever get to the stage where naturally occurring phenomena—genes, gene sequences, chromosomes et cetera—are the subject of a patent on behalf of any person because they or someone associated with them happened to discover it. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

Stephen Parry (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Being a member of the Joint Committee on Law Enforcement, I have been deeply involved with the examination of the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Crime Commission. It leads me to indicate to the Senate that next week is the annual National Police Remembrance Day. These documents certainly relate to police in Australia, although they go only to the federal agencies. The national day for remembering police officers who have fallen in the line of duty occurs on 29 September every year. We are now in the 23rd year of recognising fallen police officers.

The National Police Remembrance Day was instigated in April 1989 during the Conference of Commissioners of Police of Australasia and the South West Pacific Region. It was unanimously agreed at that particular meeting that the service would be held on 29 September. The reason that date was chosen is that it happens to be the feast day of the Archangel Saint Michael, who is the patron saint of police officers and law enforcement. On this day Australians and, I would like to think, others around the world pause and remember the lives of those police officers who have fallen in the line of duty or whilst they have been a serving police officer.

In 2006 Prime Minister John Howard officially dedicated the National Police Memorial in Kings Park, Canberra. It is now the key focal point for the national remembrance of police officers in this country. Each state has its own dedicated memorial, but this is the national memorial. When that memorial was opened it had the names of 719 police officers who had died whilst on duty inscribed on brass touchstone plates with the dates and places of their deaths recorded. These were distributed randomly across the wall. The memorial honours all police killed on duty since the advent of policing in Australia, harking back to the very first officer, Constable Joseph Luker, killed in Sydney in 1803. Tragically, since the opening of the memorial and those 719 fallen officers' names were placed there, there have been 31 names added to that list.

Again, sadly, since the commemoration of National Police Remembrance Day last year, two further officers have been killed in the line of duty. I am sure it would not be strange for senators here to have known of both of those officers, as their deaths were highly publicised at the time. The first was Sergeant Daniel Arthur Stiller, who served from 1997 to 2010. The second was Detective Senior Constable Damian Leeding, who was a police officer for eight years. The first officer, from the Queensland Police Service, Sergeant Daniel Stiller, died instantly when a jackknifing truck collided with him head-on whilst he was on escort duties for that oversized load. The second officer, Detective Leeding, was viciously killed when attending an armed robbery at a Gold Coast tavern, which was highly publicised in May this year. They are the two latest police officers to have been killed on duty. It is always terrible to add names to a list, but it is so fitting that we as a society remember those officers.

It may interest the Senate to note the break-up across Australia of the 750 names of officers on the list who have died whilst on duty since 1803: 11 from the Australian Federal Police, 264 from New South Wales, eight from the Northern Territory, 139 from Queensland, 61 from South Australia, 28 from my home state of Tasmania, 157 from Victoria and 82 from Western Australia. Sadly, of those 750 officers, 157 were murdered; that is a horrific statistic. There were 112 deaths from motor vehicle accidents and 94 deaths from motorcycle accidents. Forty-three officers drowned. Forty-two officers died as a result of a horse accident or incident, which I suppose is something that does not often happen today. Twenty-nine officers died in World War I. Sixteen died from a heart attack. Fourteen died during the arrest of an offender. Some died in plane or train crashes or in bushfires or from injuries sustained whilst training. In any respect, 750 people have died whilst protecting and serving their communities in the course of their duties.

Each year I try to attend the memorial service on 29 September, as I will again this year. Each police jurisdiction holds its own particular memorial service. They are all sombre events. They are attended by families of those fallen officers as well as comrades and a mixture of police and community members. It is fitting to see that this takes place each year and that police officers who have died in the course of their duties have been recognised appropriately.

I would encourage senators to remember 29 September when it falls next week. Parliament will not be sitting. If an opportunity arises to participate in the events in their respective states, I would encourage senators to do so. I think it is a very fitting thing that we do as a nation, as a community, remembering those who have fallen in the line of duty in what is generally a more difficult and more dangerous occupation. I am proud to be part of the community that recognises our fallen police. I seek leave to table a document which I have shown to the government whip. It is a list of the 750 police officers who have died whilst on duty since 1803.

Leave granted.

Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Government Business in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to associate myself with the remarks of Senator Parry; I think they were well said. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

Trish Crossin (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! There being no further consideration of committee reports, government responses and Auditor-General's reports, I propose the question:

That the Senate do now adjourn.

John Faulkner (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This evening I would like to speak about the work of the LBW Trust. Anyone with a cursory knowledge of cricket knows that LBW stands for leg before wicket. While the LBW Trust has been established by cricket lovers and is doing great work in cricket-playing developing countries, as far as the LBW Trust is concerned the letters LBW stand for Learning for a Better World. The LBW Trust was established in 2006. Its mission statement says:

Our aim is to assist poor students from cricket-playing countries to complete their tertiary education. Our hope is that these young men and women will play their part in the upliftment of their countries.

Many international cricketers who have toured the subcontinent or Africa have become aware of and concerned about the more limited educational opportunities that students from nations such as India, Pakistan and Zimbabwe have. And we are all aware of the importance of education in achieving positive change in the lives of individuals and communities.

It was John F. Kennedy who said:

Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education. … The human mind is our fundamental resource.

The LBW Trust believes education is the way to a better future, not just for the young people the trust sponsors but also for their families and the communities that they live in. The trust plays its part by supporting students in developing countries who otherwise would not have the opportunity of receiving tertiary education. It is worthy of note that the LBW Trust is unusual in that it has no operating expenses or overheads whatsoever; it is run entirely by volunteers, and the money it raises goes directly to help educate the students it supports.

The trust is currently supporting 261 students, and it acts in partnership with local NGOs in those countries where it operates: Uganda, India, Pakistan and South Africa. Students supported by the trust study everything from bricklaying and motor mechanics to teaching, nursing and the law. LBW Trust supported students in South Africa come mainly from Zimbabwe. There are many success stories to tell, including one student who is now doing postgraduate work in Canada. A number of LBW students have returned to work in Zimbabwe. One is starting a small farm, another is working in cricket and yet another is involved in a chicken business. Currently, the LBW Trust has scholars at Durham University and Oklahoma university, and two of its students have qualified as lawyers.

In Pakistan, the trust is assisting the students of Namal College—set up by Pakistani cricketing great Imran Khan—where particular emphasis is given to supporting the tertiary education of girls. The LBW Trust has also collaborated with the Sustainable Peace and Development Organisation, known to some as SPADO, to further the education in Peshawar of five young women who come from the troubled Swat valley in Pakistan. In Pakistan, the LBW Trust is helping to educate, in total, over 25 students—most of them girls.

In Uganda, the trust is working with an impressive Australian based NGO called One Village, set up by a young woman from Adelaide called Nikki Lovell. There it is helping to educate 25 young men and women. In India, the LBW Trust has about 150 students, a majority of them girls, and it is working through two NGOs: Prerana Nurture Merit and the Vikash Educational and Charitable Trust. These students come from desperately poor family backgrounds, and an education is essential for them to have any real chance of building a better life.

The trust's board boasts an impressive batting order of corporate players, major accounting firm partners, solicitors, journalists, trainers and farmers. They include Malcolm Alder, Tom Bowes, Mike Coward, Ron Holmes, Harley Medcalf, Kelsey Munro, Lyn O'Brien, Peter Strain, David Vaux and the indefatigable chairman of the trust, Mr Darshak Mehta, who has been such a driving force behind its work.

The patrons of the organisation also have a few runs on the board. Three of the trust's patrons have 25,455 test match runs between them: the former Australian captains Greg Chappell and Adam Gilchrist, and the current Indian test batsman Rahul Dravid—the second highest run scorer in test cricket history. Other patrons include Sir William Deane, Malcolm Fraser, General Peter Cosgrove, Ian MacFarlane, Rodney Cavalier, Basil Sellers, Malcolm Speed and Maurice Newman. I am a former director of the trust but I too now have the honour of serving as a patron.

It is important also to acknowledge that, at annual dinners and other LBW Trust events, a number of noted Australian and international cricket captains have volunteered their time and support: Ian Chappell, Greg Chappell, Steve Waugh, Bill Lawry, Adam Gilchrist, David Gower, Sir Ian Botham and Sir Richard Hadlee. Theirs has been a most generous and important contribution to the work of the LBW Trust.

Cricket is a game played by rich nations and poor nations. It is a game where kids from Indian slums or Caribbean ghettos can play alongside against those from immeasurably more privileged backgrounds, those who have had all of the advantages and opportunities we in Australia sometimes take for granted. Through the work of the LBW Trust, Australians, and particularly Australian cricket lovers, can play their part in helping others in much less fortunate circumstances achieve their potential. Tonight, I want to take the opportunity to congratulate all those who have worked so hard to establish the LBW Trust, who have been so committed to seeing its important work around the world become a reality.

Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to condemn the inappropriate behaviour of the Prime Minister, who now considers it fair game to bully the employers of journalists who dare criticise her. On Saturday, 27 August, Ms Gillard reportedly attempted to influence the free press after she read the blog of media commentator Andrew Bolt. Mr Bolt had posted the following:

On Monday, I'm tipping, a witness with a statutory declaration will come forward and implicate Julia Gillard directly in another scandal involving the misuse of union funds. I suspect a friend of mine in the media will be authorised to release it first.

The Prime Minister believed that the friend Mr Bolt was referring to was his MTR colleague Steve Price. Ms Gillard personally picked up the phone and telephoned John Hartigan, the CEO of News Ltd. She sought assurances from Mr Hartigan that neither Mr Bolt nor Mr Price would publish the allegations. After Mr Hartigan made inquiries of both Mr Bolt and Mr Price, Ms Gillard received the assurances she was seeking. Mr Hartigan did not contact Glenn Milne or anyone at the Australian, however, so Ms Gillard's intervention did not stop Mr Milne's article from going to print on Monday, 29 August. Glenn Milne's article is mostly a repeat of material already in the public domain. It contained some factual errors and, to be fair to her, Ms Gillard was right to be upset about those. But her reaction to the Milne article in the Australian was inexcusable. Ms Gillard reportedly went 'ballistic' and 'nuclear'. She made repeated calls to News CEO John Hartigan and also to the editor of the Australian, Chris Mitchell.

If Ms Gillard believed she had been wronged in the article—and I am not saying that she had been or that she had not been—there was a process to follow. Firstly, she should have sought legal advice. Secondly, if the advice she received was that she had been wronged, she should have instructed her lawyers to contact the Australian and negotiate a resolution. Instead, Ms Gillard used    her position as Prime Minister to obtain immediate, direct access to the management of News Ltd to stop the publication of material she thought might further damage her. That she believed this to be appropriate in the first place is astounding, but Ms Gillard's appallingly bad behaviour is amplified by the fact that she did so with the threat of a media inquiry hanging over News Ltd's head.

The Australian responded to Ms Gillard's phone call by removing the whole Glenn Milne column from its website, at Ms Gillard's insistence. As Andrew Bolt said, in defence of the company he works for, in his column on 31 August 2011:

You may blame News Limited for being weak, but never has it felt so politically vulnerable. Gillard had for weeks exploited Britain's News of the World phone hacking scandal to threaten News Limited with inquiries that might force it to sell some of its papers or address what the Greens called its "bias".

…   …   …

Whether Gillard specifically mentioned the threat of an inquiry in her "multiple" calls to News Limited executives I do not know.

But I do know that she should have been aware of its potential impact.

This, then, is how news can be kept from the public.

Something else bizarre happened a few days later to Glenn Milne. On Saturday, 3 September, Mr Milne, one of the few relatively conservative commentators on the ABC, was sacked from the Insiders show. He had been a regular panellist up until then but he will not be appearing on the show for the rest of the year. That begs the important question: if the Prime Minister made repeated calls to John Hartigan and Chris Mitchell, who is to say that she also did not also improperly pressure ABC Managing Director Mark Scott to sack Mr Milne from Insiders?

The Prime Minister needs to come clean and say whether or not either she, or any person from her office, had any discussions with ABC management over whether or not Glenn Milne should continue as a panellist on Insiders. The Prime Minister also needs to come clean on whether or not she or anyone from her office has spoken to Fairfax CEO Greg Hywood or anyone else from Fairfax management about Michael Smith. As a conservative commentator working at a Fairfax radio station, Michael Smith has held the Gillard government to account from behind the latte curtain. His effective cross-examination of the member for Dobell, Craig Thomson, has done more to expose Mr Thomson's web of lies than any other piece of journalism this year. The admissions Smith was able to extract in his interview with Mr Thomson showed beyond doubt that the allegations previously made in the Fairfax press were entirely accurate. Mr Thomson's interview by Mr Smith and his failure to prosecute his defamation action put beyond doubt the facts of this remarkable and ongoing matter, a matter in which the Prime Minister is displaying deliberate and wilful blindness by continuing to protect Mr Thomson.

Michael Smith pre-recorded an interview with Bob Kernohan, the former AWU Victoria Branch President. In the interview, Mr Kernohan is believed to refer to conversations that were had within the AWU about the Gillard-Wilson allegations. The interview has not gone to air but, for wanting to play the interview, Mr Smith has himself been off the air since 6 September. Now Fairfax wants to sack him and he is being forced to go to court just to keep his job. In yesterday's Australian online, Mr Smith said:

This country's pretty screwed up if decent, working people can't turn to a free and open media to have their say

That is the point Ms Gillard cannot seem to understand. In Australia, we value free speech. If someone makes allegations about another person in the press that are defamatory and not true, that person has legal remedies. These remedies are available to anyone, from the Prime Minister to the man or woman on the street. The Prime Minister of this country is in a privileged position. That privilege, however, does not extend to blatant attempts to stifle free press.

Just while I have some time left open to me, I want to speak briefly about the bombing of Darwin, and I want to congratulate my colleague Natasha Griggs, the member for Solomon, who yesterday moved in the House that the anniversary of the bombing of Darwin be a day of national significance. Of course, 18 February next year is the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Darwin. I think we should remember that more bombs were dropped on Darwin than on Pearl Harbor. We should remember that 250 civilians and military personnel lost their lives in the bombing of Darwin. I am pleased that the member for Solomon has taken the initiative and moved this private member's motion.

I notice Senator Crossin is in the chamber today. I hope Senator Crossin will pick up the phone to the Minister for Veterans' Affairs and say to him that the Australian Labor Party must support this day of national significance. Is does rather beg the question—

Trish Crossin (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I rise on a point of order, and that is that perhaps some research might be in order. Senator Ronaldson's facts are not correct. I want to highlight that I gave a speech about that in this chamber on 9 February this year. I called for that eight months ago.

John Hogg (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is not a point of order.

Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr President. I am glad Senator Crossin actually stood up. I do not know how long Senator Crossin has been in this place, but she has had opportunity after opportunity to do exactly what the member for Solomon, Natasha Griggs, has done. The member for Solomon has achieved more in 12 months than Senator Crossin has achieved in I don't know how many years in this place. You had the same opportunity to do what she has done, and now you are trying to claim false credit for it.

Full marks to the member for Solomon, and I ask Senator Crossin again: are you going to pick up the phone to the veterans' affairs minister, Mr Snowdon, and demand of him that in the other place the Australian Labor Party support Natasha Griggs's private member's motion? She has done it in 12 months; Senator Crossin and the veterans' affairs minister have not done it—and in his case he has had over 20 years. Congratulations. It is remarkable.

Senator Crossin interjecting—

Senator Carol Brown interjecting—

I think the shouting from across the other side is tinged with an element of guilt. It is the guilt of inaction, guilt driven by the fact that someone in this place—namely, Senator Crossin—has had years to do exactly what the member for Solomon has done but has not done so. And now we are hearing these bleatings of false credit: 'Oh, I made a speech in relation to that.' You are from the Northern Territory, so of course you would have made a speech in relation to the bombing of Darwin. But you did not move the motion.

Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to speak on an issue that is close to my heart and something that a number of my colleagues in the Senate and the House have spoken about this week. I am sure many of us here and many people visiting and working at Parliament House would have noticed the giant toilet on the lawns earlier this week. I am sure many jokes could be made about politicians and excrement but, for once, I will resist the opportunity, as what I wish to speak about today is a very important and very timely issue.

Earlier this week, I had the pleasure of meeting with six inspirational South Australians who were in Canberra as part of the sixth annual national gathering of the Micah Challenge: Voices for Justice 2011. Meeting with Micah Challenge representatives is something I have done in the past and something I hope to continue doing in the future. I do not doubt that some of these energetic and inspirational campaigners will continue to play important roles in years to come.

One of the things that was said to me during my meeting with Micah Challenge representatives—Ben Clarke, Karen Ey, Maree Naroba, Simon Watson and Roger Burton—was that they were here not to represent themselves but to represent the people who do not have a voice. That really resonates with me. These people come from all walks of life. There are pastors and teachers, and there was even a software developer in the mix. They have taken time out of their busy lives to rally us, their elected representatives, into doing our bit to eradicate global poverty.

There are 1.4 billion people living in extreme poverty today. That means they have less than US$1.25 a day on which to survive. Over a decade ago, in the year 2000, world leaders met to discuss how we could eradicate poverty. Out of that meeting came the establishment of the Millennium Development Goals, targets that together have the potential to halve income poverty and improve health standards dramatically by 2015. The goals are to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger; to achieve universal primary education; to promote gender equality and empower women; to reduce child mortality; to improve maternal health; to combat HIV-AIDS, including the use of retroviral medication to combat malaria and other diseases; to ensure environmental sustainability; and to develop a global partnership for development.

But the question remains: why the big toilet? Of all the Millennium Development Goals, the one we are least likely to achieve in its entirety by 2015 is clause 7C—that is, to halve the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation. According to the United Nations, the world is on track to meet the drinking water target, although supply of safe water still remains a challenge in many parts of the developing world.

As it stands, approximately 50 per cent of the population in developing nations does not have access to basic facilities for the safe disposal of human urine and faeces; 2.6 billion people around the world do not have access to a toilet. I have said this before, but these people are not seeking lavish bathrooms with marble benchtops and expensive fixtures; they just need to have a toilet. This in turn would help halt the spread of bacteria and disease in human faeces when people are forced to defecate on the street. The World Health Organisation estimates that by providing access to clean water and sanitation 28 per cent of all child deaths could be avoided—and that is literally millions of lives that could be saved, millions of young children who could live, who could have a fighting chance at life.

The giant toilet and the queue that surrounded it on Tuesday reiterated just how many people around are, as the Voices for Justice slogan says, 'Dying for a dunny'. If current trends are anything to go by, the sanitation target will not be met in developing regions until 2037—that is, 22 years late. This target will not be met in sub-Saharan Africa until early in the 22nd century, and at current rates it will never be met in Oceania.

I spoke in this chamber a few years ago and asked a question of the then relevant Minister representing the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Senator Faulkner, about the 0.7 per cent millennium goal target. I even displayed a T-shirt saying 'Kevin 0.7'. That was in a different time! While things may have since changed a bit in the corridors of power, the issue raised back then is equally as pertinent today. Back in 2000, at the Millennium Summit, each developed nation was asked to give 0.7 per cent of its gross domestic product towards achieving this goal. Australia gave 0.32 per cent of its gross national income in 2008-09 to aid efforts. That works out to about $3.30 in taxes from each of us—or about the cost of cup of coffee per person. While that is still several billion dollars a year, it is still $3.30, about the cost of a cup of coffee for all of us on a daily basis. It is pretty minuscule when you put it in those terms.

Australia's net foreign aid is set to increase from 0.33 per cent of gross national income in 2010-11 to 0.35 per cent of GNI in 2011-12. As it stands, by 2015-16 the annual aid figure is estimated to reach 0.5 per cent, or a total of anywhere between $8 billion and $9 billion. But that still leaves Australia lagging behind many other developed nations, including Sweden, Norway, Ireland, France, Germany and Canada. Even the UK has pledged to lift its aid spending to 0.7 per cent by 2015, despite the fact that the impact of the global financial crisis has been much greater there than in Australia. We must do better.

According to the Micah Challenge, to achieve the international aid target of 0.7 per cent of GNI we will require an additional $2.6 billion by 2015-16.The difference between 0.5 per cent and 0.7 per cent is not small change, by any means, but this is a big country with a big heart and I would plead to those who may be listening, to those who think this is not a good use of our money, that I think it is, for a whole range of reasons—for the lives that will be saved, for the difference it will make to our neighbours, for the difference it will make globally. And, whilst we are doing it for the right reasons—to reduce premature deaths, to reduce poverty, to improve health and sanitation around the world—those countries that are lifted out of poverty are also our future trading nations in years to come. Lifting them out of poverty makes long-term good economic sense. That is a collateral benefit, but the primary benefit must be humanitarian—that should be our motive.

For every $1 we spend on providing these people with clean water and sanitation, $8 is paid back into their economy. My friends at Micah Challenge also tell me that the net benefit of achieving universal access to sanitation and drinking water is approximately $171 billion. That is the benefit. Access to clean water and effective sanitation substantially reduces the incidences of child death from diarrhoea, malnutrition and pneumonia. It is a very good use of that aid money. Diarrhoea claims the lives of 1.3 million children under five each year—a toll greater than malaria, measles and AIDS combined. In other words, close to the population of my home state of South Australia, of children, die every year because of something so avoidable. Pneumonia, often spread through skin-on-skin contact from unwashed hands, is the second-largest killer of children under five. Malnutrition, often caused by the aforementioned diarrhoea and also roundworm, claims the lives of approximately 950,000 children each year.

We must strive to achieve this 0.7 per cent target and to ensure that this money is spent on one of the most cost-effective, and effective, ways of making a difference to people's lives, to the lives of young children—that is, sanitation. At the end of the day we can debate endlessly about our nation's fiscal position and about the pressures of the global financial crisis, but we cannot forget our responsibilities to work towards this goal. I commend the work of the Micah Challenge and thank its representatives for taking the time to visit Canberra this week. To my friends at Micah Challenge, I say: hopefully, we will have some good news for you all next time you visit. Thank you.

Trish Crossin (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to speak about a newly formed organisation that I am very proud to be associated with, and that is the Working Women's Centre Timor-Leste. The Working Women's Centre Timor-Leste has been established in Dili with the support of Union Aid Abroad-APHEDA; the Konfederasaun Sindikatu Timor-Leste, or KSTL as it is known, which is the national trade union organisation of East Timor; and the Australian Network of Working Women's Centres, which includes the Northern Territory Working Women's Centre, the South Australian Working Women's Centre and the Queensland Working Women's Service.

Earlier this month, the fourth Conference on Women and Industrial Relations was held in Dili to coincide specifically with the official launch of the Working Women's Centre Timor-Leste. Previous to this, in Australia we had the inaugural Our Work Our Lives conference in 2006 in Queensland, organised by the Queensland Working Women's Service and Griffith University; the second Our Work Our Lives conference in 2007 in Adelaide, organised by the South Australia Working Women's Centre; and of course the last conference in 2009, organised by the Northern Territory Working Women's Centre, with academic support from the University of Western Australia. I was there, actually, at the Our Work Our Lives conference in the Northern Territory, to which women from Timor-Leste had been invited. A number of people got talking about seeing whether we could get a Working Women's Centre established in Timor-Leste, and why we shouldn't even try to have a conference over there in 2011. It was an absolute joy to see both of those dreams realised at the attendance of that conference earlier this month. The conference was held with the support, as I said, of the Australian Network of Working Women's Centres, the University of South Australia and the Queensland University of Technology. It was a resounding success, with people from a range of backgrounds participating in the conference. Academics, policymakers, practitioners and unions, parts of organisations or simply interested individuals discussed ideas around assisting women in precarious or vulnerable work; women's access to their rights and entitlements; progress towards decent work in the Asia-Pacific; and building sustainable communities through women's workforce participation.

Guest speakers included our own Parliamentary Secretary for School Education and Workplace Relations, Jacinta Collins. She spoke on the importance of the women's community sector organisations and also women's access to their rights and entitlements and the equal pay case for social and community workers. Also at the conference was our own Northern Territory Minister for Women's Policy, Minister Malarndirri McCarthy. The Northern Territory government generously sponsored the conference. ACTU President Ged Kearney was also present. She spoke about the importance of the trade union movement and its connection to the women's community sector. The Vice President of Timor-Leste's parliament, Maria Da Costa Paxiao, and Timor-Leste Parliamentary Secretary Teresinha Viegas were also present.

The working women's centres in Australia provide invaluable support and advice about work related matters to our most vulnerable women workers. Their advice is free and confidential. The centres target their services to those in disadvantaged bargaining positions, insecure and low-paid work. They are not-for-profit community organisations whose objective is to increase women's participation in and contribution to workplace arrangements that improve their income and conditions. I am a proud founding member of the Northern Territory Working Women's Centre and I believe very passionately in the crucial work that they do. Queensland and South Australia also have centres that provide this service.

The Working Women's Centre in Timor-Leste will be providing an even more important service in that country, which is still developing its industrial relations laws. Timor-Leste is ranked 140 on the Human Development Index; two in five people are poor, mainly concentrated in rural areas. Households headed by males are consistently better off than female-headed households in all of the usual indicators: education, health and subjective wellbeing. While cultural attitudes towards traditional gender roles have begun to change, women are still limited in progressing towards equal rights. The new constitution sees equal rights and duties for men and women in all aspects of life, but access, such as to the law, is still an issue for women. This is particularly true in relation to domestic and gender based violence.

While the women of Timor-Leste have traditionally held roles in the home, an increasing number of young women are now accessing formal education and seeking employment to help take themselves and their families out of poverty. Of the working population aged over 15 years, only 29 per cent are female. Labour participation is at its highest when women are aged in the mid-thirties and early forties, with the peak participation rate at 15 per cent when women are between 35 and 39 years of age. Forty-five per cent of women have had no formal education at all, compared to 34 per cent of men. Men are twice as likely as women to have completed university education or a diploma at a polytechnic.

Unfortunately, most work available to women in Timor-Leste is characterised by informal workplace arrangements. It is common for jobs to be found through word of mouth and paid cash in hand, resulting in little or no negotiation of fair wages and conditions, and certainly no such entitlements as leave for illness, pregnancy or family related matters. Since these women are unregistered workers, they are unable to access existing or proposed social security schemes. Since there are no occupational health and safety laws in Timor-Leste, some women are experiencing violence, harassment and other forms of coercion—experiences which no worker should have to put up with. A growing number of women are seeking employment as domestic helpers; however, there is no formal support for them. Domestic workers are not unionised and have no access to minimum entitlements or awareness of decent working conditions.

It is very clear that the services of the Working Women's Centre Timor-Leste will be in great demand as the country sees more women in the paid workforce. The centre aims to provide information, advice and support to women on work issues, initiating and implementing training programs, responding to specific issues and developing resources on issues facing women in or entering the workforce, and actively promoting equal employment opportunity for women through policy development, committees and campaigns. The centre has received support from the AusAID innovation fund to initiate and implement education, support and advocacy for vulnerable women workers in Timor-Leste, a program focusing on women working as domestic workers to provide them with education, advocacy and support to access their rights.

I take this opportunity to place on record the fantastic work that was done by people such as Tanya Karliychuk, who was the project officer for Timor-Leste and Indonesia at Union Aid Abroad APHEDA, who was able to put together a proposal to access those funds and was inevitably successful in getting those funds from the Australian government, and Shabnam Hameed, Trade Union Adviser to the KSTL for the Working Women's Centre Timor-Leste, who relocated to Dili from Sydney for the last year and put in so much time and effort getting the centre established. They were backed in passion and commitment by wonderful women in Australia such as Sandra Dann from South Australia, Robyn Greenwood and my own two really great coordinators of the Northern Territory Working Women's Centre, Anna Davis and Rachael Uebergang.

The Australian Network of Working Women's Centres will support the Working Women's Centre Timor-Leste by helping with policy development, research and capacity building, such as initial staff training. The Australian Domestic and Family Violence Clearinghouse will also be assisting the centre by providing access to national and international evidence based research on violence and its relationship with women's work. Working Women's Centre Timor-Leste has the full support of all seven affiliate unions of the KSTL. These are unions that represent nurses, teachers, public servants and agriculture, construction, general and maritime and energy workers.

I congratulate the founding members of the Working Women's Centre Timor-Leste: Abelita Da Silva; Ana Filomena Soares Mariano; Cecilya de Jesus; Eduarda Martins Goncaves; Elisabeth De Araujo, an outstanding woman who has done a great job there; Henyta Casimira; Marlia Lese Pires Moniz; Odete Amaral; Ricar Pascoela; and Rosa Soares. Of course, my very special congratulations, and all the best, go to Jessica Sequeira, who is the newly appointed Coordinator of the Working Women's Centre Timor-Leste. I am extremely proud to see the establishment and the opening of the Working Women's Centre Timor-Leste, which can now join a wonderful network of three working women's centres that we have back home here in Australia.

Senate adjourned at 19:14

David Johnston (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Financial Services and Superannuation, upon notice, on 28 September 2010:

(a) What steps or procedures are banks and lending institutions required to undertake before enforcing their securities; and (b) is there a prescribed level of consultation with the customer.

Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Minister Assisting the Minister for Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Minister for Financial Services and Superannuation has provided the following answer to the honourable senator's question:

Lending institutions are required to comply with the Debt collection guideline for collectors and creditors, as published by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. This guideline explains how Commonwealth consumer protection laws relevant to debt collection apply. These laws include: Schedule 2, Parts 2-2 and 3-1of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010; and Part 2, Division 2 of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act 2001 (ASIC Act).

In addition, the part 5 of the National Credit Code, as part of the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009, provides procedures which must be followed prior to the enforcement of credit contracts, mortgages and guarantees, including issuing default notices and providing time for these to be remedied. On 5 August 2011, the Assistant Treasurer released an Exposure Draft of the National Consumer Credit Protection Amendment (Enhancements) Bill 2011. This Bill provides for the enhancement of the National Credit Code, including amending the provisions concerning enforcement of securities to provide that upon default a customer may provide the lending institution with a hardship variation request, which the lending institution must address before proceeding.

The procedure for enforcing a secured debt will also differ depending on the nature of the debtor and the form of secured property.

For land, State and Territory real property laws govern the enforcement of real property mortgages.

If the security sought is against the assets of a company, enforcement will be subject to the requirements imposed upon receivers and controllers by the Corporations Act 2001.

If the security is over personal property, currently, Australia has different laws and registers in each State and Territory which governs processes for enforcement. The Personal Property Securities (PPS) reform, which are contained in the Personal Property Securities Act 2009, brings together the different Commonwealth, State and Territory laws and registers under one national system. Personal Property Securities Service (PPSS) – Insolvency and Trustee Service Australia (ITSA) will assume responsibility for the PPS Register and Customer Contact Centre when the PPS Register commences operation in October 2011.

The steps and procedures followed in enforcing securities will also depend on the terms of the security itself. Many security agreements provide for giving notice or provide other prerequisites for action prior to enforcement.

Legal requirements operate in addition to lending institutions own internal processes which outline the steps and procedures to be followed by their staff prior to enforcing any security.

Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities, upon notice, on 1 August 2011:

In regard to the recent decision by the department to allow Shell Development (Australia) Pty Ltd to drill the Palta-1 exploration well, approximately 50km west of the Ningaloo Marine Park border:

(1)   Why was Shell's proposal to drill the Palta-1 exploration well not assessed at the full level of environmental assessment.

(2)   What is considered a reasonable buffer to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization listed World Heritage site.

(3)   Is the Minister aware that his decision is being reported in international media such as The Guardian in the United Kingdom.

(4)   Was there a full economic assessment of the impacts an oil spill or leak would have on key industries, such as tourism and fishing; if not, when will a full economic assessment of potential impacts of oil spills be included as part of the assessment process.

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:

The department assessed this proposal and determined that significant impacts on matters protected under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act) were unlikely if the action was undertaken in a 'particular manner'. In this case, the 'particular manner' refers to measures to minimise acoustic impacts to whales arising from seismic testing undertaken as part of the drilling program.

All EPBC Act assessments of offshore drilling proposals consider direct impacts of the proposal as well as potential impacts in the unlikely event of a major, unintended hydrocarbon release. The department thoroughly considered the potential risk of a hydrocarbon spill, including a well blow out.

As a result of the companies' plans and response measures and the low likelihood of such an event, it was decided that no further federal environment assessment is needed. This decision is consistent with previous decisions made under national environment law for other similar proposals.

Every proposed project differs in nature and extent of potential impacts. Consistent with this, each referral received under the EPBC Act is considered on a case-by-case basis.

The Minister is aware that this project has received international attention.

Potential impacts to the 'the environment' of the Commonwealth marine area including the social, economic and cultural aspects of that environment were considered.

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

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities, upon notice, on 17 August 2011:

In regard to the department's 2011-12 Portfolio Budget Statement, p. 59:

Can an outline be provided of what the spending is for under the line 'Restoring the Balance in the Basin (non capital expenditure).

Was this expenditure included in the figures for the Restoring the Balance in the Basin program provided to the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee in the answer to question no. 82 taken on notice during the 2011-12 Budget estimates hearings.

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) This line is the Bill 1 allocation set aside for legal and other program implementation costs that will not be capitalised against any specific water entitlement purchase. These costs include conveyancing costs for individual purchases, general legal advice related to conveyancing, and pricing analysis services.

(2) Yes.

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

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities, upon notice, on 17 August 2011:

In regard to the National Water Commission (NWC), can a list be provided of all office locations that the NWC leases or owns, including the following details for each location:

(a) office size;

(b) if leased, annual lease payments and lease cost per square metre;

(c) if leased, the length of the lease, including any options to terminate the

lease;

(d) the value of any buildings owned; and

(e) depreciation costs on buildings that are owned.

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:

The National Water Commission is wholly located in Canberra in one Grade C classified office building.

(a) 1,151 square metres.

(b) annual lease base rental for office accommodation is $495,041 (GST inclusive) which equates to $430.10 (GST inclusive) per square metre.

(c) the lease agreement term expires on 30 June 2014; the lease can be terminated should the lesser fail to maintain the building in a condition fit for use and in compliance with relevant Australian standards.

(d) no buildings are owned by the Commission.

(e) not applicable.

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

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities, upon notice, on 17 August 2011:

Can a list be provided of all office locations that the department leases or owns, including the following details for each location:

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:

The areas provided in this table are as per the Commonwealth Government Property Framework specifications. Annual lease payments and lease cost per square metre exclude GST.

Note:

Cost of parking bays are not included in these figures.

Where actual cost per m2 for office space is available it has been provided otherwise the average cost per m2 for the total net lettable area of the tenancy has been provided.

(c)—

(d) This Department does not own any office buildings

(e) Not applicable.

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

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities, upon notice, on 17 August 2011:

Can details be provided on the budgeted expenditure for the following items for each year of the forward estimates:

(a) advertising;

(b) travel and accommodation costs;

(c) hospitality and entertainment costs;

(d) information and communications technology costs;

(e) consultancies;

(f) education and training;

(g) external accounting;

(h) external auditing (not included in accounting costs);

(i) external legal costs; and

(f) costs associated with the membership of organisations.

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:

The Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities has provided the following in response to the honourable Senator's question.

The Department's budgeted expenditure for each year of the forward estimates are not prepared at the level of detail requested by Senator Joyce. The Department prepares budgeted expenditure in the forward estimates based on external reporting standards and accounting policies as per the Charter of Budget Honesty Act 1998.

The major external standards used for budget reporting purposes are the:

Australian Bureau of Statistics' (ABS) accrual Government Finance Statistics (GFS) publication; and Australian Accounting Standards (AAS).

Under the reporting standards above, a number of the items listed by Senator Joyce are classified and grouped as 'supply of goods and services expense' or 'supplier expense'. This line item for the forward estimates is shown in the 2011-12 Portfolio Budget Statements at Table 3.2.1.

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

asked the Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Jobs and Workplace Relations, upon notice, on 29 August 2011:

(1) Has the department contracted out the emergency short message service (SMS); if so, what is the cost of the contract. (2) What is the purpose of this emergency service. (3) Under what kinds of emergencies will an SMS be deployed. (4) What is the standard text message sent. (5) What is the anticipated amount of text messages that will be sent.

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The answer to the honourable senator's question is as follows:

1.   The Department has contracted the emergency communications service through Telstra as part of the whole of government panel contract arrangement (established and managed by the Department of Finance and Deregulation). The cost for this service is $237,124.80 over three years, which includes a onetime set up fee and a monthly hosting/access fee. The usage (e.g. sending SMS) is charged at a separate set fee.

2.   To ensure continued capability if existing departmental systems become unserviceable or to speed up communications in the time of a continuity incident. This arrangement supports the business continuity and disaster recovery arrangements for the continued availability of critical services and assets, as required by the Australian Government Protective Security Policy Framework (Section 5.11), and outlined in the Australian/New Zealand Standard: Business continuity— Managing disruption-related risk (AS/NZS 5050:2010), and the Australian National Audit Office better practice guide, Business Continuity Management: Building resilience in public sector entities published in June 2009.

3.   The service has been obtained to enhance the Department’s capacity to speedily respond to incidents, in particular floods, bushfires and information and communication outages. It provides the Department’s continuity coordination team the ability to contact key personnel and communicate critical information via SMS, voicemail, email, and conference call in a timely way to respond to an emergency. The service also enables prompt communications during other incidents and disruptions that may occur on weekends or after hours and affect the Department’s business and services.

4.   The text message vary dependent upon the severity and type of emergency, impact to the departmental staff and services, the people involved and the purpose of the text message. The messaging is configurable by the Department.

5.   The amount of text messages depends upon the severity and type of emergency and potential impact to departmental staff and services.

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities, upon notice, on 29 August 2011:

(1) How many Code of Conduct investigations have there been within the Minister's portfolio for the financial years:

(a) 2010-11; and

(b) 2011-to date.

(2) How many investigations established:

(a) a breach; or

(b) no breach, of the Code of Conduct.

(3) In each case, what provisions of the Code of Conduct were thought to have been breached.

(4) What penalties were applied where the Code of Conduct was broken.

(5) How many investigations are ongoing.

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:

The following statistics include Code of Conduct investigations undertaken within all divisions of the department and the following portfolio agencies:

Director of National Parks

The Bureau of Meteorology

Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority

National Water Commission

Sydney Harbour Federation Trust

Murray Darling Basin Authority

The following statistics relate to formal Code of Conduct investigations under the Department's/Agency's section 15(3) procedures. The statistics do not include matters involving a potential breach of the APS Code of Conduct that were resolved without the commencement of a formal investigation process under the Department's/Agency's section 15(3) procedures. These other matters relate to more minor misconduct concerns that are resolved through appropriate administrative mechanisms such as counselling and training.

(1) During 2010 – 11, twelve Code of Conduct investigations were finalised under the Department's/Agency's section 15(3) procedures. Three of these investigations commenced in 2009–10.

For the year 1 July 2011 to date, four Code of Conduct investigations have been finalised under the Department's/Agency's section 15(3) procedures and there are two ongoing investigations.

(2) Of the investigations finalised in 2010–11 and to date in 2011-12, fourteen established a breach and two established no breach.

(3)—

(4)—

(5) There are currently two ongoing investigations into a potential breach of the APS Code of Conduct under the Department's/Agency's section 15(3) procedures.

Nigel Scullion (NT, Country Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government, upon notice, on 1 September 2011:

(1)      Are there any agreements, funding or other, between the Federal Government, the Northern Territory Government and/or Northern Territory local government councils or shires relating to swimming pools in Aboriginal communities; if so:

  (a)    do these agreements specify who is responsible for the capital expense for the construction of swimming pools and who is responsible for the recurrent operational expenses; and

  (b)   can copies of these agreements be provided.

  (2)   How many schools report on the ‘no school no pool rule’.

  (3)   How many children are refused access to pools due to the ‘no school no pool rule’.

(4)      For all swimming pools funded through the Federal government, does the Government maintain records of when the pool was opened and when or if it was closed.

Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Minister Assisting the Minister for Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Minister for Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government has provided the following answer to the honourable senator’s question:

The Department of Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government does not have any agreements, funding or other, with the Northern Territory Government and/or Northern Territory local government councils or shires relating to swimming pools in Aboriginal communities.

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government, upon notice, on 13 September 2011:

(1)   What was the total cost of allowances for government employees or contractors working at sea for the 2010-11 financial year.

(2)   What is the daily allowance for working at sea.

(3)   How many days in total were spent at sea in the 2010-11 financial year.

Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Minister Assisting the Minister for Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Minister for Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government has provided the following answer to the honourable senator's question:

The Department of Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government has no contractors or employees who are paid a working at sea allowance.