Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have a dilemma, and that dilemma is faced by many rural members such as me. Sixty per cent, or two-thirds, of Gippsland’s dairy farms are in my electorate. Gippsland farmers produce 2.1 billion litres of milk or 23 per cent of the national milk production. The export value of our dairy product is $690 million and 30 per cent of the farms are owned by the people who exist on the property. We have lamb, sheep, wool and potatoes. We grow lots of apples, and there is beef of course.

My dilemma is that at the time of retirement these farmers would choose to sell to the best bidder, which is only reasonable. On the other hand, the nation is concerned about internationals from Singapore and China and other countries coming in and buying up properties in South Gippsland and around the nation. Australia has survived and grown and developed out of overseas people investing in this nation—in our mining, in our financial sector, in our businesses, in our agricultural sector. How can I say to a farmer, ‘You can’t sell to the highest bidder; you should go and have an assessment of whether you should sell that property?’ I cannot. If you are a farmer in your 40s, 50s or 60s and you want to retire out of the industry, you should be able to sell to the highest bidder. But the nation is saying, ‘We don’t want our land and property handed over to people from other nations.’ It is a serious dilemma that we have to find a way through.

Mr Deputy Speaker Slipper, you come from an area where there has been an enormous amount of foreign investment. I believe people are not concerned about investment in those properties. The member for Durack has just walked in. He has an enormous amount of foreign investment in his electorate. Probably one of the highest levels of foreign investment in this country’s history is going on in his electorate. How do I as a member of parliament say to a farmer, ‘This nation says you cannot sell your property to an overseas investor without a review?’ And what if that review is negative towards the farmer? We have a dilemma in this parliament as to how we protect our national capital and at the same time encourage investment from overseas. I put to you that we are going to have to deal with the issue. I have not got an answer.