Tasmanian senator says she will grill officials when they front Senate Estimates later this year over FIRB's history of approving foreign farm and asset purchases against the national interest.
Shanghai Zhongfu-owned Kimberley Agricultural Investments is the new owner of Carlton Hill and Ivanhoe, which operate as one station on the doorstep of Kununurra.
A government-commissioned report into the regulatory burden imposed on Australian farmers has advised the federal government to lift "red tape" surrounding foreign investment in local agriculture.
Draft report on Australia agriculture regulation calls for the sale of any farmland or agribusiness worth less than $250 million to foreign interests to be exempt from any review process.
A China-led consortium seeking to buy Australia's S. Kidman & Co will hold off on a fresh bid for the country's largest agricultural land owner amid concerns it could be derailed by a more protectionist new government, two sources with direct knowledge of the matter said.
Australia's business and legal communities are calling for a simplification of the policy under which there are six different monetary thresholds for prospective foreign investors in agricultural land to overcome.
A new poll by the Lowy Institute found 87 per cent of respondents opposed allowing foreign companies to buy Australian agricultural land — six percentage points higher than a similar survey four years ago.
Australia has granted a three-year extension for a Chinese company to reduce its 80 percent stake in Australian cotton farm Cubbie Station after it indicated it could not meet the October 2015 deadline.
Australian agricultural assets remain a major a drawcard for international investors with a string of mainly US-based investors funnelling hundreds of millions into a $1 billion fund established by the Queensland agribusiness investment firm, Laguna Bay Pastoral Company.
Australia's cattle station sector is set to reach more than $1 billion-worth of deals in less than a year, with the two biggest sources of investment being the controversial areas of foreign investment and superannuation.
Tom McKeon was most recently CEO of Hassad Australia, the Doha-based Qatar Investment Authority’s food and agribusiness subsidiary.
In partnership with Indonesian agribusiness Japfa and Cargill’s Black River, AustAsia has built five free stall dairy farms in the province of Shandong, plus another in Inner Mongolia, to milk 30,000 Holsteins in total.
