Ironic isn't it.

For most of my life Oz has been chasing foreign investment. We have gone, cap in hand, trying to get someone, almost anyone, to invest in Oz to help grow our economy, & generate employment

Now, because of demand for just a couple of different coloured dirts, [black & rust coloured] buried in our bush, we are rich enough not to need all that foreign money.

The Irony is that now, we look a safe place to park money, we have it pouring in like a tsunami.

Just like any tsunami, it is doing lots of damage. It has driven our exchange rate to dangerously high levels, making our industry, & agriculture uncompetitive, & even starting to damage the foundation of our attractiveness, our mining industry.

Perhaps our bankrupt government, rather than strangling us with their mining, & carbon taxes, to try to get some money in, should start to tax the inflow of money.

The way it is going, we will have sold the farm, & our financial institutions will be full of foreign money, & we will all be out of work.

Hay Canberra, time for a change of policy.

xenophobic/uninforme3d, and seemingly unaware how much good comes from over seas investment.
Well done Hasbeen

Belly sometimes you worry me.

I am talking about the new process of people, not investing in anything, Just parking their money in Oz, which now seems to be a safe haven.

They are parking it here to avoid the loss of value of capital in the US with their huge money printing program, & the danger of a collapse of the value of the pound & the Euro, WHEN the European common market falls apart.

All foreign investment is no longer a great thing either. When it is to start a new industry, or business it is great.

When it is simply to buy a successful Ozzie business, it is often very bad. All too often this leads to job losses, & the business concerned being bleed dry & failing.

Open your eyes & think a minute before responding mate.

We need foreign investment. Foreign money is not spent so it can fail. [stupid]

hasbeen you concern me here too.
You place great value on your own views,we all do that.
But zero on mine.
I stick to my views, this country, without Foreign investments would be relying still on sheep.
Like it or not we are locked in, no way out, of the world economy.
Part of that is, in my view unwanted but unavoidable, trade in money.
We can not pick what part of International trade we want.
A world free of trading in cash would be Socialism, bet you would not like that.
I truly think, interest rates and other making money out of money came from a group who found a way around their own Bible.
Until we separate from world trade/become a banana repblic, we are stuck with that.

Belly,
Have you read the article about China buying vast areas of land here to feed THEIR people? They also have plans to build the facilities to ship what they produce over to China. Correct me if I'm wrong,but I fail to see how a once off payment for our land can help our economy any better than us growing the produce and selling it to them. If they can implement this scheme, so can we.

Hasbeen,
Let us not forget either we are only in this position of prosperty due to the mining boom, but in fact we have a 2 speed economy - evidence of which is clear to see. I'm with you, and not xenophobic either, just aware of the facts.

Touting for foreign investment is really no different than sitting in the street with a begging bowl and a sign saying: wife and six kids to support".
It is only a question of scale.
Why do we need foreign investment when we have everything we need here in Australia?
We have all the commodities we need to manufacture anything. We have the labour. We should have the know how with our system of universities that are actually selling education to overseas students. We have the land to produce plenty of food for our own population.
We could process our own wool into finished products.
Oh I forgot, we do not have cheap labour willing to work for a pittance to survive and give huge profits to multi nationals.
Oh well back to the begging bowls.

Tell me.
IF America was buying up land would you complain as loudly.
Did you here the 1980s joke America wished to buy Queensland? appeares the Japanese did not want to sell.
How do we break the news to AUSTRALIAN FARMERS they must not sell their land unless to an Aussie.
We all did not see an English man owning our once biggest cattle station did we, heard the song, from little things big things grow.
We can sell our minerals to them from over there, take the cash, but keep them away from our land.
No xenophobes here just looks and smells like them.
I have trouble sleeping, keep dreaming about the biggest chain saw I ever saw,cutting parts of our country and towing it to China.

Yes I would certainly complain about the US buying up land.
yes we can sell our minerals to them from over there, take the cash, why not? we do not have to prostitute ourselves to make a living.
Nothing wrong with xenophobia .
Yes there is a way out of globalisation. It will disintegrate with peak oil and the really big GFC that is coming. get used to it. You can manage without all the Chinese junk, we are used to. It would really do us a lot of good when you see all the kids, with their heads stuck in their I phones or whatever. They would be a lot better talking directly to each other.
As for foreign investments, the sooner the banks self destruct the better, they are nothing more than casinos for the rich anyway.
One good government bank to lend money to provide tempory finance to a well vetted recipient, is all that is needed.

Such an old, old song.

I'm pretty sure the same complaints were made in eleventh century England - all those nasty Normans, bleeding the country dry.

Sanity is however required at some point.

For those who are unhappy with overseas investment In Australia, have you actually considered what you would like to do about it? We already have the FIRB reviewing every aspect of every deal to ensure Australia is not dudded - and they use a recognized benchmark, the OECD Guidelines, to maintain an appropriately level playing field.

http://www.ausncp.gov.au/content/content.aspx?doc=home.htm

If you would like to curtail inward investment, would you similarly require e.g. BHP Billiton to rid itself of their overseas investments? Would you extend this to e.g. AMP, and prohibit their investing your super funds in lucrative overseas stocks, shares and bonds?

At a more practical level, could you perhaps contemplate the logistics involved in, say, a foreign-owned agricultural company (e.g. The Australian Wheat Board, AWB) exporting food overseas, if there existed a greater need for it in Australia?

Sleep safe in your beds, guys. The only thing underneath it is your potty.