AUSTRALIA'S foreign investment rules for farmland are making
us an international laughing stock, Independent senator Nick Xenophon said
yesterday.
The debate over foreign ownership of prime agricultural
assets has been reignited by Treasurer Wayne Swan's decision to approve the
sale of the giant cotton farm, Cubbie Station in southwest Queensland, to a
Chinese-led consortium. Textile manufacturer Shandong Ruyi has an 80 per cent
stake, with Australian wool firm Lempiere holding the rest.
But conditions imposed by Mr Swan include a requirement for
the Chinese-Japanese consortium to reduce its stake in Australia's largest
cotton producer to 51 per cent within three years.
Mr Swan said the sale would protect jobs and support economic
activity in the Dirranbandi and St George regions.
But Senator Xenophon branded it "a mongrel of a
deal" which "gives a veneer of Australian involvement but results in
Australia losing control of a strategic asset".
"Try buying an asset like this in China it's not going
to happen.
"There's a joke at international forums that Australia
is the 'Free Trade Taliban' because we are such free-market purists."
Senator Xenophon is a member of the Senate Rural and Regional
Committee which is due to complete its report of an inquiry into the Foreign
Investment Review Board's national interest test by September 12.
Chairman Senator Bill Heffernan would not discuss the likely
recommendations yesterday but said changes were needed.
"At the moment, the so-called national interest test is
a phoney political thing. If we keep doing what we are ... we are redefining
the concept of sovereignty," he said.
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