The AFR reports this morning that Abbott’s great gaff of China is to become Coalition policy:
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott will today propose tightening Australia’s foreign investment regime in a concession to the Nationals…One of the proposed changes is to reduce the financial threshold for the Foreign Investment Review Board to examine foreign purchases of agricultural land and agribusinesses.
As I’ve argued before, there is very little national interest in this:
- as a current account deficit nation we need foreign investment, especially in the next wave of the Chinese boom: food.
- how can swathes of Chinese money developing hitherto undeveloped agribusiness be anything other than good?
- how can selling the Chinese land at high prices be bad?
- where is the risk in Chinese ownership of land given it will only develop agribusiness further and the skills, jobs and export revenues by definition remain here?
Fact is, none of these long term considerations are driving this anyway. This is the “Liberal” party selling out to National Party panic over Bob Katter’s populist politics. That much is clear from coverage in The Coalition Pamplet, who’s silence on this issue has horribly exposed its political bias:
In a win for the Nationals, the paper sets out a dramatic change to rural investment by requiring overseas buyers to seek Canberra’s approval for any purchase over $15 million, down from today’s $244m threshold.
And the board that vets about $177 billion in annual foreign investment would be expanded from five to seven members, including at least one member with agriculture industry experience.
The Liberal majority on the Coalition’s working group defeated plans by the Nationals to impose controversial restrictions on foreign investment, such as giving parliament a vote on the most contentious deals [and] getting global investors to list any substantial local assets on the Australian sharemarket.
That this has been watered down is a credit to the AFR and MB. And here’s what was really driving it:
The final position acts on rural concerns about farm ownership but does so in a way designed to increase scrutiny, in the belief that releasing details about land ownership would prove to voters that the investments posed no threat.
A Coalition government would set up a “national register of foreign ownership of real property” with the help of state land titles offices, the discussion paper suggests.
The Coalition Pamphlet then concludes with some nice defensive editorialising:
It also makes no change to the rules brought in by Wayne Swan in 2008…The only additional requirement [is] any foreign applicant would have to disclose “any direct or indirect ownership or direct source of influence by a foreign government”, the paper states.
But it’s still not clear what’s going on with Abbott having it both ways in a classic “I’m not racist but…”:
“The Coalition unambiguously welcomes foreign investment. It’s got to be strictly in accordance with Australia’s national interest,” he told reporters.
So, what has been achieved? I’m not even sure. Those bloody foreigners have to register their state affiliations. And it looks like the Nats get one and possibly two cronies on the FIRB board and every investment over $15 million will need approval, which is a material change to process. The blanket ban appears to be gone but then again maybe it’s just been hidden behind closed doors. The only thing that’s certain is that this is uncertain.
Talk about policy on the run. You might have thought that Abbott had learned a thing or two from opposing Labor’s calamitous policy process management.
