Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to give voice to many Hindmarsh constituents and of course South Australians more generally who have expressed their interest in reports of foreign acquisitions of agricultural land in Australia. I appreciate the many queries and perspectives that have been put through to me in my electorate office on this particular subject. I can inform the parliament that people are concerned, and as members of this place we have an absolute duty to bring their concerns to this House. I am very pleased to be able to do that tonight. Many people are concerned by the prospect of increasing foreign ownership of Australian agricultural land eventually leading to an excessive proportion of our food production capacity being owned by foreign interests and used for foreign purposes, that is, the export of food to feed people overseas, to the detriment—and this is key—of Australian consumers. This concern stems from the very legitimate concern for the Australian agricultural food producing sector being able to produce and bring to market enough food to feed our nation.

I am very pleased, though, that the Assistant Treasurer, the Hon. Bill Shorten, recently asked Treasury to examine options that would further strengthen the transparency of foreign ownership and interest in rural land and agricultural production. This request included Treasury assessing recent international regulatory reforms and arrangements and we are always keen to see the Foreign Investment Review Board guidelines move with the times and line up with our community concerns and those concerns I have been hearing and many other members of this House have been hearing in their electorates.

Having more information available to us specific to this investment landscape would be very welcome and I especially welcome it. For example, the Senate Select Committee on Agriculture and Related Industries had a look at some of these issues earlier on in the year and recommended an information audit so that we can have better information on who is acquiring land, who is purchasing it and which companies they are or who they represent. I know that federal Labor on this side of the House has already made improvements to the foreign investment framework that are very much in the national interest. For example, we have released the national interest principles to improve the transparency around how the national interest test is applied, and that is very important. In June this year we released the easy-to-read version of the policy to further improve transparency of the regime. It is important to note that investment by state-owned enterprises and sovereign wealth funds already requires the Foreign Investment Review Board’s approval. When it comes to foreign investment in rural land, the government examines all significant private interest proposals and all foreign government and state-owned enterprises and they must notify the Foreign Investment Review Board before making a direct investment in Australia, whether it is for one dollar or a billion dollars. It is very important to note that specific point.

The key issue here is that we need to get the settings right between attracting foreign investment, which is very important to our economy, and making clear that Australia is open for business but also ensuring that we protect our national interests and resources. We know that the mere idea of there being insufficient food available to meet our needs does bring to mind the bread queues of the early 1990s in Russia and care packages distributed in parts of Africa through many years of disaster, and the food riots in Egypt more recently. This is a fundamental and legitimate concern, but I believe we need not fear for our food security for the foreseeable future. I would like to explain my reasoning. The Productivity Commission report Trends in Australian agriculture released in 2005 made the clear observation that Australia exported approximately two-thirds of our agricultural production in the early years of this last decade. We exported over $28 billion worth of agricultural production in 2003-04—$28 billion of some $40-plus billion worth of production. Beef, wheat, wine and wool were the largest contributors, with combined earnings of some $12 billion. So we only wanted one-third of the beef we produced and the rest was exported. (Time expired)