Well... actually, you have, Divergence.

>>Pericles, I haven't made any controversial claims<<

This one, for example:

>>You might consider the case of the Irish Potato Famine of the 1840s<<

The topic of this thread is selling farmland to overseas buyers. There are absolutely no parallels between this topic and the Irish Potato Famine. None. Which was all that I was attempting to bring to your attention. There were, for a start, no foreign buyers involved.

You can criticize the actions of the Westminster Parliament all you like - as many people also did at the time, by the way - but they were dealing with an entirely domestic issue.

As far as "Three Famines" is concerned, Kenneally's political view on the Great Famine is fatally flawed by his lack of perspective, given the emotional component that is his own ancestry. And it shows.

>>Of course there is no direct comparison with Australia...<<

You see, we agree.

>>... but there are early signs of the same sorts of trends<<

Except for the potatoes, the government, the diversification of sources etc...

Think about this for a moment.

Royal Dutch Shell, as its name implies, is a major Dutch oil company. How much control do you think they exert over "their" oil, in the various countries in which they operate?

It's largely a case of "we're not going to hurt each other, are we..."?