Federal Government relying on old data to gauge foreign investment levels
The Federal Government is allowing overseas investors to fly under the radar by using an out-of-date foreign investment register, The Weekly Times can reveal.
EXCLUSIVE: THE Federal Government is relying on years-old data to gauge the level of foreign investment in Australian agriculture.
The Weekly Times can reveal the Government has not released the results of its annual register of foreign ownership of Australian land and water since 2017-18, despite vowing to regularly provide “a clear and accurate picture” of foreign investment levels.
In the meantime, overseas interests have snapped up billions of dollars in farmland and water assets and Australians have purchased back millions of hectares.
The Coalition introduced the farmland register in 2015 following a 2013 election promise. At the time then-deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce said the Government had “clearly heard and understood the concerns of the Australian community that the Government should have more thorough oversight and more accurate data in relation to foreign investment in agriculture”.
“Our agricultural land is one of our nation’s most-valuable assets — so it is important that we have a clear and accurate picture of foreign investment levels in our agriculture sector,” Mr Joyce said at the time.
The Government’s initial farmland register report was released in September 2016, the 2016-17 report in October 2017 and the 2017-18 report in December 2018. Only one foreign ownership of water entitlements report has been released, covering 2017-18.
No data from either register has yet been released for 2018-19 — almost 10 months since the end of the financial year. It means even if it released in the next few months the figures will be a year out of date, with billions of dollars worth of Australian farmland and water assets sold to offshore investors since July last year.
“You can’t manage what you can’t measure so how are we supposed to make the most out of the register and put processes in place if we can’t see the report?” Victorian Farmers Federation president David Jochinke said.
“It is supposed to give us solid information to base future decisions on … how much farmland should be owned by foreigners and how much of the supply chain should be owned by foreigners, to ensure both Australian farmers and consumers get the most out of the industry.”
Labor agriculture spokesman Joel Fitzgibbon said the lack of reporting was “unacceptable” and accused the Government of being “all talk and no action”.
“Barnaby Joyce originally said that this would give people all the information about who owns what where and how much they had paid … but it was only ever delivered as a report of aggregate figures, and now we find they’ve just given up on the project,” Mr Fitzgibbon said.
“Josh Frydenberg needs to explain why. Foreign investment is so critical to the agriculture sector and if we are to maintain community support for it we need transparency.”
The 2017-18 report found that 52.6 million hectares of land was owned by foreign interests, with the UK the biggest investor with 10.2 million hectares followed by China (9.2 million hectares), the US (2.7 million hectares), the Netherlands (2.5 million hectares), the Bahamas (2.2 million hectares) and Canada (2 million hectares).
The biggest investors in water entitlements included China (732,000 megalitres), the US (720,000 megalitres), Canada (212,000 megalitres) and Singapore (172,000 megalitres).
In the past 20 months alone, Canada’s Public Sector Pension Investments, which manages the superannuation of Canadian Government workers including the nation’s famed mounted police and armed services, has been involved in more than $2.3 billion worth of transactions — including two of the biggest deals in Australian agriculture’s history, each worth about $850 million.
PSP is now the biggest investor in Australian agriculture with an estimated $3 billion of land, water and infrastructure assets. In February it finalised its $854 million takeover of the ASX-listed Webster Limited — Australia’s fourth-oldest company and one of the nation’s biggest land and water holders with 340,000ha and 153,000 megalitres of water.
Late last year it paid about $850 million in a landmark land and water deal involving 12,000ha of almond plantations near Robinvale in northern Victoria and almost 90,000 megalitres of high-security water. It also teamed UP with Australian Food and Fibre to purchase the vertically integrated Midkin cotton business at Moree in northern NSW for about $300 million.
In late 2018, PSP paid $208 million for a majority stake in the 44,000ha BFB portfolio of cropping farms around Temora in southern NSW. It also snapped up the 9593-hectare Bengerang and Darling Farms aggregation in northern NSW for $132.7 million.
Other major transactions involving overseas interests since the last government report include the $135 million sale of three Consolidated Pastoral Company holdings, spanning 732,900ha, to Vietnam investment group Clean Agriculture and International Tourism and the $120 million sale of 19,877ha of cotton and almond farms at Hillston in NSW to Boston-based Hancock Agricultural Investment Group. A number of these properties were already owned, or partly owned, by foreign interests.
On the flip side, funds such as the Chinese-owned Rifa Salutary and the UK-backed Consolidated Pastoral Company have divested parts of their portfolios during the past year, with a number of properties sold back to Australian interests.
Agriculture Minister David Littleproud’s office declined to comment on the issue, referring The Weekly Times to Mr Frydenberg’s office.
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said both reports were in their final stages of preparation and would be released “in due course”.
“The Government supports the need for transparency with respect to foreign ownership of agricultural land, which is why we introduced (the register) and a reduction of the screening threshold for proposed foreign purchases of agricultural land by private investors,” Mr Frydenberg said.
Treasury did not directly answer questions on why the reports were delayed, or if they had been completed and given to the Government. Instead, a spokeswoman responded that both reports “will be released in due course”.
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