George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Communist China is waging an economic war against Australia. Attacks on our beef and barley exports and tourism have brought this to light, but the problem is deeper. I have information regarding ASX-listed companies, CuDeco and Flinders Mines, where Chinese institutional shareholders have done over Aussie investors. ASIC and FIRB must investigate this.

Another concern is that there is no way of telling how much of Australian workers' hard-earned retirement funds are actually invested in communist China. We do know that super funds have set up shop there. In 2014, 80 super funds representing $350 billion in retirement savings toured China to scope out potential investments.

AustralianSuper, worth $65 billion, was seeking to invest about 10 per cent of its fund in Asia, including China, by 2016. In 2017, First State Super became the first super fund to secure a licence to trade and invest in China. In June last year, UniSuper, a $70 billion fund, revealed that their exposure to China was worth hundreds of millions via external managers, as well as $200 million through A-shares. Super funds need to stop investing Australian workers' retirement savings in a regime that is waging economic war against this nation. Instead, what they should be doing is investing more at home, particularly in strategic industries, including agriculture and food processing, so that Australians are in control of Australian assets—not China.