QUEENSLAND MP Bob Katter has slammed the latest figures from the Foreign Investment Review Board which show the amount of foreign owned agricultural properties and water entitlements in Australia continues to skyrocket.
The newly released FIRB figures for the 2019 financial year show nearly 20 per cent of Queensland's water entitlements are now foreign owned, a 6.7pc increase in just one year.
Mr Katter said the figures made him sick to the stomach but matters were worse than reported.
"As outrageous as the figures are, they are wildly inaccurate," he said.
"They don't take into account the shareholding of Australian companies that belong to foreigners, which would make the overall foreign ownership of water entitlements and land much higher."
The 2019 financial year FIRB report showed the amount of foreign held water entitlements in Australia was up by 1.9pc, to 10.5pc of overall water entitlements, and the number of agricultural properties with a level of foreign interest was up 3.8pc to 9044 properties nationwide.
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Earlier this month the government proposed that foreign investors will face a tough new national security test designed to protect critical assets from falling into the wrong hands but Mr Katter says that doesn't go far enough.
He introduced The Foreign Acquisitions and Takeovers Amendment (Strategic Assets) Bill 2020 to the Federal Parliament earlier this year to keep Aussie water, strategic assets and land in Aussie hands.
"If the Government has any sense of sovereignty or national pride they'll bring on the Bill for a vote at the next sitting and support it," he said.
"On behalf of the Australian people we say no more foreign ownership. Nearly everyone I meet is sick of the sale of our assets including the Port of Darwin, Ord Stage II and Stage III, much of the Murray-Darling Basin and four of our biggest farms."
Derek Barry
Editor of the North West Star Mount Isa since January 2016. Prior to that, an editor at several regional southern Queensland newspapers. Passionate about telling local stories. Comes with a strange accent to due an Irish accident of birth.
Editor of the North West Star Mount Isa since January 2016. Prior to that, an editor at several regional southern Queensland newspapers. Passionate about telling local stories. Comes with a strange accent to due an Irish accident of birth.
