Tasmanian Senator Jacqui Lambie monitoring proposed takeover of local business Bellamy’s by Chinese company

A Tasmanian Senator says she is closely monitoring the proposed takeover of local baby food company Bellamy’s by a Chinese company.

TASMANIAN Senator Jacqui Lambie says she is closely monitoring the proposed takeover of local baby food company Bellamy’s and what it might mean, particularly for Tasmania’s dairy sector.

Senator Lambie told Parliament this week of her disappointment that both major parties had refused to hold an inquiry into the Chinese Government’s influence in Australia to address questions over the sale of prime agricultural assets and infrastructure.

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Senator Jacqui Lambie. Picture KYM SMITH

Now she has her eye on the proposed $1.5 billion takeover bid of Bellamy’s by China Mengniu Dairy Company.

Senator Lambie said she would have more to say on the issue next week when she had carefully considered the deal’s potential ramifications.

Bellamy's Organic Toddler Milk Drink.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, when asked yesterday if he was monitoring the deal, said the Government did not comment on specific foreign investment matters.

“Foreign investment is an important contributor to Australia’s economy and standard of living,” Mr Frydenberg said.

“Australia maintains a non-discriminatory, case-by-case approach to considering foreign investment proposals.”

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg. Picture: TRACEY NEARMY/GETTY IMAGES

The Treasurer did not comment on whether he was monitoring the process or whether he considered foreign investment concerns were justified.

Mr Frydenberg also failed to guarantee the sale would not cause a repeat of the “VDL fiasco”, as demanded by independent MP Andrew Wilkie.

In 2016 Moon Lake Investments bought Australia’s biggest dairy farm, which is in Tasmania’s far North-West, outbidding several Australian hopefuls.

The buyout came with promises of a $100 million investment in Woolnorth’s dairy farms and hundreds of new jobs. Neither had since materialised, Mr Wilkie said.

Greens Senator Peter Whish-Wilson wrote to Mr Frydenberg on Tuesday asking that he examine whether the bid from China Mengniu Dairy Company was “inconsistent with the national interest test” under foreign acquisitions and takeover laws.

In it he stressed that Bellamy’s had not been able to get approval from Chinese regulators to sell its organic formula in Chinese retail outlets after applying for permission in 2017.

That delay watered down the Tasmanian company’s push into that country. As a result, its profit almost halved to $21.7 million in the last year.