It's good to have proud neighbors and friends. It would also be good to do mutually good business with them.
But I think just buying Australia would be out of line.
There is a world protein food sustainability crisis happening and well advanced right now and Australia is a food producing nation.
Joint ventures would be more acceptable.

JF Aus
I read your first post with interest but parts are confusing.. beef-fish link? Sure fisheries are under pressure everywhere but you're confusing that, I think, with a decline in fish supply. I don't believe that's happened, not yet at any rate.. but I'm not sure we're you'd find international production figures.. As for abattoirs being foreign owned, so? Owners, foreign or otherwise, will want to make the abattoirs work in order to earn a return on their investment.. you need more links in your argument..

Curmudgeon,
When fish become scarce, consumers turn to alternative food. In the 90’s the ABS found fish prices rising 5 times faster than red meat and poultry.
Check cost of fresh quality local fish like snapper. Take care to off the head and out the bones and weigh what you will actually eat, likely $50 per kilo.

Two men used to go fishing off Maroubra Sydney. From 2 days weekend fishing they would come home with 400 lb of snapper. At today’s prices of $30 per kilo that’s about $6,000.00.

Bass Strait pilchard and anchovy stocks first estimated able to supply 200,000 tonnes per annum, was soon revised to 100,000 tonnes, but Lakes Entrance Processors did not even make 10,000 tonnes p.a. and the plant closed and was broken down and dismantled due to lack of the resource.
Bass Strait fairy penguins were dying in mass starvation events.

Western Port Bay nearby had major land drainage works and 100 sq km out of 150 sq km of seagrass in the bay vanished. Studies overseas indicate 400 sq mtrs of seagrass can support 2,000 tonnes of fish per annum. Fishermen do not fish for seagrass. The problem is not overfishing but shortage of food for fish to eat.

Australian now imports over 70% of fish including food for aquaculture. Why is that so?

Why do you think fishing boats are coming from Europe to our waters? Even Russia has been and gone, quickly learning of lack of fish down here.

National Geographic reports: http://news.nationalgeographic.com.au/news/2003/05/0515_030515_fishdecline.html

Empirical evidence indicates it is much worse for small fish. Fish dependent seabirds have generally
gone, few remain.
In 2,000 there was unprecedented (low population) mass starvation of mutton birds along coastline of 4 states extending from Rockhampton to South Australia and around Tasmania.

Wild fish are impossible to count, no baseline data, no reliable data, no complete scientific evidence.

Many people are not seeing wild fish devastation because they either have money and do not notice the increased cost, or because they are eating aquaculture fish from Asia

Don't blame non-Australians for buying land offered by money-hungry Australian landowners.
This is is stupid as blaming the Poppy seed growers for drug addiction. Get real people ! You're blaming the wrong people, this is the fault of Australians.

individual,
Blame is can be a waste of time and unproductive but looking at the fault I see the Aus government ABC not passing on news, especially to rural people. For example even on this thread you can see Curmudgeon is not aware of the seriousness of the world fish depletion/devastation that already exists.
Some nations are aware of ocean food devastation and are taking the lead into opportunities to sustain their own supply and no doubt on-sell to others for a big profit. Taxes get paid elsewhere when profits are shifted internationally.

I think Aus govt economic 'advisers' know wild fish are devastated. Howard spent $200 million buying back fishing licenses. But reality of devastated wild fish has been kept quiet. The govt developed aquaculture policy instead of ocean ecosystem management policy.

Australian rural people in general have not been getting a fair go. They have not heard of the massive opportunities in sustaining supply of food, not just food, but specifically essential protein food.

Oh and don't forget the grabbing for the Aus dairy (essential protein) industry. Yes, force the Aus farmers out with low prices for their milk.

I see foreign investors now wanting to buy Aus grain export infrastructure. Barnaby is objecting but he let Cubby Station go with all the water it hogs while depriving Aus farmers downstream.

Yes, blame Australians, especially the ABC for not broadcasting the real news to keep Australians duly informed.

Australia kow-tows to all its neighbours. Abbott is showing no more nous than previous governments.
In a few words:
- Indonesia does what it likes to the West Papuans and moves them off their land, tortures people at will and burns villages suspected of favouring independence

- Indonesians can buy up large chunks of Australian land and do what they like with it, employ whom they like, whatever

- we are so scared of Indonesia that we give it $646 million a year (DFAT website)

On the land issue, note that land prices in Sydney are moving up all the time. The problem is too many "investors", many of whom are Chinese , US, English. But of course nobody dare attack Asians buying up Australia. That would be racist.