MEMBER for Mallee Andrew Broad has defended a Nationals-led move to deter foreign investment in agricultural land following a Productivity Commission report calling for the liberalisation of the farm sector.
The Productivity Commission last week released its draft report on the regulation of agriculture, which called on the government to reverse a Coalition decision last year to increase screening of foreign farmland and agribusiness acquisitions.
Commissioner Paul Lindwall said the National Party-led move to lower the threshold at which the Foreign Investment Review Board monitored foreign land sales (from $252 million down to $15 million) made investing in Australian agriculture undesirable.
“There is a risk that this will ultimately deter foreign investment in the sector without offsetting public benefits, particularly as other measures (such as the agricultural land register) are in place to increase transparency and public confidence about foreign investment in Australian agriculture,” Mr Lindwall wrote.
Mr Broad disagreed with the assumptions the commission used to reach this conclusion – namely that they were too short-term focused.
He said he’d seen no proof of foreign investment improving the lives of farmers or their communities, and while it might help older farmers looking to sell off their farms to improve their superannuation it disadvantaged young farmers operating their first farms.
For more on this story, grab a copy of Wednesday’s Guardian (July 27).
