Fiona Scott (Lindsay, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister please advise the House of the steps the government is taking to ensure Australia's foreign investment framework is properly enforced?

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Lindsay for her question. I know her area very well, having lived there for 12 months back in the 1980s. Her area, and Sydney more generally, is full of aspirational people who want to buy their own home. Home ownership is the great Australian dream and the government's job is to ensure that there are no needless obstacles placed in the way of people realising this great dream.

Some 80 per cent of first home buyers buy an established residential property, and they should not face illegal competition from non-resident foreigners. It is illegal to buy an existing residential property if you are a non-resident foreigner. This is the law as it has been in place for many, many years. I think it was the Hawke government that put this law in place. But I regret to say that the law against non-resident foreigners buying existing residential properties was not enforced under the former government. Not once. There were no prosecutions, no divestment orders were made—not one.

Mr Husic interjecting—

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Chifley will desist.

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This was a government that could do lots of things. It could put in a carbon tax, it could put in a mining tax, it could stop the live cattle trade, it could start the people-smuggling trade. But one thing it could not do was enforce the laws against non-resident foreigners purchasing existing residential property.

Ms Owens interjecting—

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Parramatta will desist.

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This government and this country welcome foreign investment, and foreigners are welcome to purchase new residential property because we want to increase the stock of residential property available to people. But it has got to be the right investment on the right terms that advance our national interests. The Foreign Investment Review Board does have to be properly financed. Every year, quite rightly, the Foreign Investment Review Board handles literally thousands of applications because, quite rightly, people from overseas find Australia an attractive place to invest. But it does need to be properly financed. The people who make the applications to the Foreign Investment Review Board should be funding it, and so there will be an application fee regime established—much the same as exists in New Zealand but much less than the 15 per cent tax impost which is placed on foreign property acquisitions in Singapore and Hong Kong.

Yet again this is an example of this government getting on with the job and dealing with the real issues facing the people of Australia, and home ownership is as vital as any of them.