I fail to see how selling anything to foreigners is in our national interest.

That said, if they want a piece, let them migrate as persons of good character; and then qualify for citizenship as new Australians! Some of our most outstanding/successful Australians came in that way.

Moreover, the sale of government guaranteed self terminating thirty year bonds, [more than popular offshore], would unlock as much as 2 trillion lazy foreign investment dollars, currently lazing about in corporate strong rooms, what have you; earning nothing and looking for a safe harbor/return.

However, minus the foreigners, and foreign control/endlessly expatriated profits.

With the sale of self terminating thirty year bonds; and used exclusively to build income earning assets, (eastern seaboard rapid rail, the range crossing etc) you know from the get go what it'll cost the nation in total. Not so with the fire sale of income earning Australian assets!

Our iron ore deposits were bought for a song and developed initially with money raised internally and so the story goes, backed with worthless paper. Since then have earned the foreign corporations literal billions in tax avoided expatriated profits.

We can see the same thing now occurring, with our gold plate electricity distribution. A fool or fools never learn.
Rhrosty.

Hokey numbers. Gotta love 'em.

"Official Government data for June 2014 indicates that 12 per cent of Australia's agricultural land (about 50 million hectares, an increase of 4.7 million hectares since 2010) featured some level of foreign ownership. It is obvious (given recent and continuing buying) that by mid 2016 the percentage of Australian farmland subject to foreign ownership could easily reach 15 per cent."

Note the first sentence described land that "featured some level of foreign ownership", without telling us what "level" that was.

1%? 10% 49%? It does make a difference, y'know. Especially when the intent of the article is clearly to frighten the natives.

And the second sentence continues the deceit.

What does "subject to foreign ownership" mean in this context?

If it means "owned by foreigners", then why does he not say so? Or is it just "a level of foreign ownership" again, without the quantification?

Pshaw.

And please Rhosty, do you really mean this?

>>I fail to see how selling anything to foreigners is in our national interest.<<

The prosperity of this land of ours has been created by exports. Or has that fact simply passed you by?

Pericles

I don't collect or publish the statistics on foreign ownership of Australian land. The Government/Australian Bureau of Statistics does, and the information (on percentage foreign ownership) you refer to is simply not collected.. My wording comes from the government publications virtually verbatum. If you have a problem with what is collected or published take it up with the relevant authorities. There is no intention on my part to mislead.

The main issue is the extent of the recent purchases. As indicated in the Appendix, these have been very substantial and nearly all by 100% foreign owned entities.

Bren

Selling things is what makes money. People who don't quite get this write articles like the one above.

Captain Col, that's the type of statement that Runner would make.

Most countries have quite strong rules about who can own land in their country. Ours are some of the weakest in the world. As with our pollies utter obsession with free trade so are they keen to sell all of this countries assets.

Despite just about every Australian having super, with billions of investment dollars floating around. It is virtually impossible to get any invest money for anything outside of the three east coast capital cities.

Australian Pollies have done what they can to kill off manufacturing in Australia.
They increasing allowing the sell off of our mineral and agricultural resources.
They have even started offshoring services.

Apart from blaming the Nationals for their utter incompetence, the real blame goes to us the voters, who mindless keep voting in people who have no interest in making Australia a strong wealthy country.

Unfortunately Political corruption is well and truly entrenched in Australia. As they say many good people go into politics but only bad people stay in politics.

Australian land and assets certainly should not be sold to a Communist government.

Cobber, everything that is sold can be considered an asset. So selling "all of this countries assets" is what we do with everything. The beauty of the system is that we make more assets to sell ... and we keep selling.

Protectionists (and it sounds like you are one) seem to think that strength lies in owning lots of assets in Australia, buying only or preferably Australian products and preventing foreigners getting their hands onto our assets. As a way to maximise profits, it is doomed. If we can but widgets from Chad or Timbuktu for less that we pay for the Aussie ones, we should do so, forcing the Aussie mob to lift their game or do something else and helping consumers here get products cheaper and so have more to spend on other things.

Land is no different. It is an asset, but it can't be moved overseas. It is here, subject fully to our laws. If an owner sells, he's simply calculated the nett present value of his land as an ongoing farm. If a buyer offers more, he profits by taking more cash than he calculated that he would earn as a farmer. Who loses? If you say he should be prevented from selling to a foreigner (but could sell to a local) why don't you or the government stump up the cash to prevent the sale? The answer is that neither you nor the government value the asset at what the foreigner does.

In other words, you've placed an imagined, emotional value on the land which nobody locally is willing to pay cash for. But the evil foreigner has the cash. Let him buy. If you want it so much, outbid or buy it back. Basic economics.

I am no expert in the subject at hand but it does leave me with an uneasy feeling.
It did raise one question in mind, how do they export fresh milk ?
Does it go by air ? Is it transported in refrigerated ships ?

I find it hard to believe it goes by air. If it does then rising oil
prices will end that trade.

I see two problems with the sales. I can see cheap labour
being brought in even if they are "paid" local wages.
They could have flight costs, bed & board charges in Chinese currency
on their return and who would know whether it was real or just profit
being brought out tax free. The governments in the past have never
cracked down on a wide scale on transfer pricing.
The Chinese have a culture of trying to get away with everything.
See the purchasing of existing houses contrary to the law.

At 11.40 AU / litre it has to be going by air.

$11.40 ! My goodness, no wonder they want Australian farmers out of that market.
Well in a year or two that market will probably collapse.
Then I guess it will switch to powdered milk it being lighter.
Maybe they can freeze it and send by ship.

We will become the bread basket of Asia, but we will be watching on.

Seems to be a lot of Donald Trump type nationalist sentiment going on here.
We shouldn’t sell our land to foreigners, or is it just those damn Chinese, because then no longer would Australians own the land.
The only actual reasons I could discern were that A, other countries don’t do it, B, foreigners get away with buying it cheaply and might then make a big profit, or C, that it is a security concern as we might not know what it going on, on the land.
But wouldn’t our security forces keep check on all strategic territory up north no matter who owned it. If foreign governments were intending to maintain outposts in strategic places on our borders you don’t think that might possess the intelligence to arrange for a friendly Australian to buy that land?

It must be remembered that one doesn’t buy land sovereign, but only fee simple, meaning subject to government powers of taxation, compulsory purchase, police power, and escheat. In times of war the government has the power to temporarily take over any land if national interest or security dictate.

"our independence is somewhat nominal, if foreigners own much of our country". Rubbish! Foreigners can own 100% of our country but not one square inch of the country will be exported overseas - the land stays exactly where it is regardless of ownership. So the govt can resume the land whenever such action is in the public interest and our democracy will still be controlled by the 14 million voting Australians who live here, regardless of who owns the land.
The article does not make a sensible case against foreign ownership of Australian land.