From the AFR:
Farmers have rejected a Coalition plan to lower the threshold at which agricultural land investment is subject to scrutiny by Australia’s foreign investment watchdog, as part of a tightening of investment rules.
“That’s not the way we would have gone about it,’’ National Farmers Federation (NFF) president Jock Laurie told The Australian Financial Review.
“We think you need to gather the evidence before you nominate new thresholds but we welcome the decision to set up a national register, because that should give us the evidence we need to see what the appropriate thresholds should be,’’ Mr Laurie said.
“We wouldn’t want to see anything implemented which discourages foreign investment in the agricultural sector,’’ he added.
