The Turnbull Government today released Australia’s first report from the Agricultural Land Register, delivering on our commitment to increase scrutiny and transparency in Australian agriculture.
The Land Register shows foreign investors hold just 13.6 per cent of all Australian agricultural land. The United Kingdom is Australia’s principal source of investment in agriculture and the preferred means of agricultural investment is through leasehold.
Of the 13.6 per cent of agricultural land held by international investors the overwhelming majority, or more than 52 per cent, is owned by United Kingdom investors.
The countries with the next largest shares are: the United States, Netherlands, Singapore and China. Less than half a per cent (0.38 per cent) of Australia’s agricultural land is held by Chinese investors.
Treasurer Morrison said: “Foreign investment is integral to Australia’s economy. It contributes to growth, productivity and creates jobs, but the community must have confidence that this investment is in the national interest.
“The Turnbull Government understands that trade and foreign investment has always created jobs in Australia for Australians, driven our economic growth and always will.
“With more than $3 trillion worth of foreign investment in Australia today, we cannot afford to risk our economic future by engaging in protectionism.
“The land register is part of the Turnbull Government’s package of measures to strengthen Australia’s foreign investment regime which will better help to protect our national interest.”
The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) administers the Agricultural Land Register and receives information directly from foreign investors. All foreign investors with an interest in agricultural land are required to register that interest, regardless of the value of the land.
The ATO matches land titles, immigration and other third party data sources to identify foreign investors who may not have recorded their land on the Agricultural Land Register.
The challenge to Australian sovereignty is not coming from the ownership of agricultural assets. The free trade of raw materials is a staple underpinning of peace among nations. We should be selling farmland to the Chinese. As much as they want of it. We’ve been hopeless at integrating Australian product into global supply chains so let them have a go at it.
The Chinese impact in the services sectors is much more problematic. There, ownership of strategic assets and property provides enormous leverage over the greatest proportion of the population and policy, including foreign and strategic outlooks, as well as importing corruption as a part of doing business (among some).
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal.
He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.
