Australians force Govt action against predatory foreign ownership
MEDIA RELEASE
Ongoing pressure from One Nation leader Pauline Hanson, backed up by thousands of concerned Australians, resulted in the Government tightening its safeguards against predatory foreign investment.
But Senator Hanson warned the protections need to be bolstered further, so has urged Australians to remain unrelenting in their push for tighter rules, for the sake of the economy and jobs.
In March, Senator Hanson wrote to the Prime Minister and the Treasurer, asking them to stop all predatory foreign investment in the wake of the coronavirus downturn. In response, the Treasurer reduced the threshold for investment assessments by the Foreign Investment Review Board to $0.
The outcome comes as a One Nation prepares to table in the Senate a petition of more than 18,000 signatures from Australians expressing their wishes to stop predatory foreign takeovers.
“Australia is the envy of nations around the world so I don’t blame foreign investors for hovering like vultures, ready to snap up our assets when they come up for sale,” Senator Hanson said.
“This improvement comes only after decades of my warnings, so it shows how important it is to keep highlighting the shortfalls and for all of us to be relentless in demanding protections. We need to remain vigilant into the future to protect our jobs and economy.”
Successive governments have presided over and contributed to weak foreign investment safeguards that have enabled high levels of unchecked investment by foreign governments, corporations and individuals. Unfortunately, Free Trade Agreements with various nations like China, the USA, Japan, Singapore and others, allow them to purchase non-sensitive businesses valued up to $1.19b without FIRB scrutiny.
The One Nation petition comes as China, for example, continues to buy up Australian businesses through its FTA rights while also ramping up bans on coal, copper ore, barley, red wine, timber, sugar and seafood.
Currently, over 50% of wholesale trade, over 40% of manufacturing, over 35% of mining, and over 25% of electricity businesses in Australia are foreign owned. Senator Hanson warns this level of foreign ownership is dangerous and damaging to Australia’s economy and creates an unacceptable threat to national security.
The petitioners asked the Senate to: “Take immediate steps to protect Australians from the negative effects inflicted on them by the current level of foreign ownership and ensure that the rules, regulations and transparency requirements governing foreign ownership in Australia are significantly strengthened.”
To view the petition post, visit: https://www.onenation.org.au/stop-predatory-foreign-ownership
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