Q & A Foreign farm ownership discussion & Lake Eyre Basin Super Park

On Q & A of 6 July 2015, ex-jillaroo, Louisa Vaupel, asked the panel's opinion on a proposed sale to a foreign state of the Glengyle, a huge cattle station near Lake Eyre in South Australia, owned by Kidman & Co. Vaupel said she was worried about food security, that she believed that Australian farming needed foreign investment, but was concerned that foreign state-owned enterprises might buy it. We followed the story up and located a photographer called Rod Moffatt, who is trying to have this huge area with many striking natural features conserved for a Lake Eyre Superbasin Park. He made the short youtube video inside this article for Q & A. They did not air it but we are, plus his well-written argument for the superbasin park.

You can read the Q & A panel responses in the appendix. They are all over the place on foreign ownership. Green Larissa Waters did state that the Greens were against selling Australian land, food producing land in particular, in this age of food insecurity, given the changing climate, to state owned outfits. However they are not against foreign investment. Vrasidas Karalis's response mixed foreign investment up with multiculturalism, openness and globalism - all of which he felt we 'must' have for fear of becoming 'inward looking economies because essentially they are self consuming passions'. It seemed that almost everyone was unable to question globalism. Amazingly the legendary right wing owner of the Sydney Institute, Greg Sheridan, was better on this and several other questions than anyone else.

Rod Moffatt's proposal for Glengyle becoming part of a Lake Eyre Basin Super Park

Lake Eyre Basin Super Park
Open letter to all Australian politicians:
Imminent Sale of S.Kidman & Co Ltd Pastoral Leases in Lake Eyre Basin

I am writing to you, seeking your urgent support to halt the planned sale of the S. Kidman & Co Ltd pastoral leases located in the Lake Eyre Basin and the Channel Country - where cattle grazing activities are conducted on land that contains natural values of international conservation significance - worthy of World Heritage listing.

I propose the Commonwealth (with the assistance and cooperation of the relevant State Governments), acquires these Kidman pastoral assets to form Australia’s largest sub-contiguous national park.

On Wednesday 10th June 2015, Ernst & Young (Adelaide) released an Information Memorandum pertaining to the proposed sale of Australia’s largest private landholder, S. Kidman & Co, which has pastoral interests spanning more than 10 cattle stations, and covering more than 100,000 square kilometres, across South Australia, Queensland, Northern Territory and Western Australia.

Over 80 percent (80,529 square kilometres) of the Kidman portfolio comprises pastoral leases situated in the arid desert rangelands of the Lake Eyre Basin of northern South Australia, and the Channel Country of southwestern Queensland and northeastern South Australia - including Anna Creek, Innamincka, Macumba, Durham Downs, Naryilco, Durrie, Morney Plains and Glengyle Stations.

Collectively these cattle grazing holdings constitute nearly 1% of Australia's landmass and occupy a significant footprint over the fragile, arid, and environmentally significant Lake Eyre Basin and Simpson-Strzelecki Dunefields bioregions.

Introduced hoofed animals, such as cattle, and inappropriate grazing management are among the most significant causes of chronic modification of arid and semi-arid land in the Lake Eyre Basin and the Channel Country, and one of the greatest contributors to the increased desertification of these regions.

With the effects of climate change (anthropogenic or otherwise) becoming much more apparent across Australia, it is likely the continued pressure of cattle grazing on arid land pastoral leases in and around the Lake Eyre Basin and the Channel Country will accelerate wind erosion of the soil resource and increase the frequency and intensity of dust storms along the eastern seaboard.

The total cost of the 23 September 2009 ‘Red Dawn Event’ dust storm (just to the NSW economy), was estimated by the CSIRO to have been in the order of $299 million (Tozer & Leys, 2012).

The sale of the Kidman pastoral empire marks the end of the colonial pastoral era, and provides an opportunity for contemporary Australian Government to redress a significant historical environmental mistake.

By acquiring, and extinguishing the leases over a considerable tract of the internationally significant Lake Eyre Basin and Channel Country landscape, and converting the land to an iconic national park...this fragile, arid desert landscape (including its extensive surface aquatic drainage systems) can be preserved and protected for posterity.

Such decisive action by our nation will send a potent and unequivocal message to the world that Australia is proactive in mitigating the anthropogenic impact on its natural environment and is genuinely committed to addressing the conservation of the biodiversity of this continent...and, most importantly...the elephant in the room, climate change.

Ordinary Australians crave visionary bipartisan leadership from strategic politicians, who possess intestinal fortitude and conviction, and your success in persuading your colleagues to support and facilitate the creation of the Lake Eyre Basin - Channel Country national park will be a totemic achievement for you personally...and a victory for our nation.

It is in the national interest that this land be preserved for the people and, with your assistance, history can be made.

On behalf of all sensible Australians, passionate about preserving our environment, I implore you to act.

Rod Moffatt

PO Box 588

Bribie Island QLD 4507

Ph:0417 995 485

APPENDIX- Q & A Question about Foreign Farm Ownership

Monday, 6 July 2015 Greece, Gags & Grazing Land
Panellists: Vrasidas Karalis, Professor of Modern Greek; Richard Marles, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Border Protection; Larissa Waters, Queensland Greens Senator; Trisha Jha, Centre for Independent Studies; and Greg Sheridan, Foreign Affairs Editor, The Australian.

Excerpt

TONY JONES: Okay, all right. Okay, all right. Yes, all right. So we’ve got to go to another question I'm told. It is from Louisa Vaupel.

FOREIGN FARM OWNERSHIP00:48:59

LOUISA VAUPEL: Yeah, my question was originally for Barnaby Joyce, Minister For Agriculture. I think it’s a shame he is not here to answer it but I will put it to the panel because I think we urgently need to talk about the future of Australia's food security and agriculture. I worked as a jillaroo for two mustering seasons on Glengyle station in western Queensland, which is a property of Kidman & Co and Kidman is one of Australia's largest beef producers. It's got 100,000 square kilometres. That's three quarters of the size of England, almost 2% of the land mass of the Australian continent, and for the first time ever, this farmland is up for sale for just $325 million. Interested bidders include State owned enterprises from the US, South America, Indonesia and China. And my question is should foreign State owned enterprises be allowed to buy up Australian farmland?

TONY JONES: Trisha, we will start with you.

TRISHA JHA: My view is that I'm basically in favour of foreign investment. My understanding, although I don't understand agriculture very well, is that the sector is in dire need of fresh capital. I'm open to suggestions that it may be very much contrary to the national interest, particularly in terms of national security to basically refuse an offer for a foreign state owned enterprise to invest in agricultural property in Australia but so far I haven't heard that case being made and so I am inclined to perhaps not share your concerns.

TONY JONES: Larissa Waters, should foreign state owned enterprises be allowed to buy up Australian farmland?

LARISSA WATERS: Well, thank you, Louisa, for your question and well done on working the land as a young woman. It would be nice to see more young women following in your footsteps. This is a vexed issue because, with the white paper being released today, foreign ownership is a key issue and the Foreign Investment Review Board have quite a high threshold for when they review what's considered in the national interest when there is a proposal for purchase by a foreign entity. When it comes to state owned enterprises, it’s a bit of a different kettle of fish and the Greens believe that we should not be selling Australian land, food producing land in particular, in this age of food insecurity, given the changing climate, to state owned outfits. So lower the FIRB threshold for foreign investment, yes, and apply that national interest test but I think, for state owned entities, the sale of food producing land look, food security is going to become increasingly problematic as the climate continues to change, which is why it’s such a shame that that agricultural White Paper released just earlier today, the fact that it's got five paragraphs on climate change towards the end of the book, what a tragic missed opportunity. It’s going to change the face of agriculture.

TONY JONES: Well, Barnaby Joyce is not here to make this point but no doubt he would, that there are elements of climate change action right through the entire report. That’s his argument.

LARISSA WATERS: Well, I wish that were the case. Certainly I’ve not seen any evidence of that. The other issue I want to raise in relation to food security is the fact that coal seam gas and coal mines can currently go onto our best food producing land and landholders don't have the right to say no. They don’t have the right to safeguard their aquifers. And I think that's a real shame and I’ve had legislation in the Senate to try to rectify that with no support so far.

TONY JONES: We’re going to stick with the actual question that was asked here and I’ll go to Greg Sheridan to hear from him.

GREG SHERIDAN: Look, this is a difficult question full of contradictory impulses. I am very uneasy about state owned enterprises buying agricultural land. The Prime Minister once said we don't believe in socialism when it is an Australian Government owning Australian enterprises, why would we want foreign governments to own Australian enterprises. On the other hand and there is also a big danger in convincing foreign governments that, in order to trade with us, they need to own our assets, whereas it’s much better if they just buy the things that we produce in a good market. On the other hand, we’ve kind of buggered ourselves up pretty badly in this country. We’ve made our cost structures terrible. We’ve put massive disincentives in the way of domestic investment and, you know, a system finds a way of coping with that. One way the system copes with our terrible insane cost structures is by sort of subleasing enterprise to foreign entities. We went through, in the resources boom, a period where we kind of became Saudi Australia. We paid ourselves more than we were really earning and we didn't like to do dirty, difficult, dangerous and demanding work and I think we need to get back to developing our own agricultural land. But I'm very uneasy about state owned enterprises owning Australian land.

TONY JONES: Vrasidas, what do you think?

VRASIDAS KARALIS: May I say that I agree with what's said because but we live in a period of globalisation and what we need from government is to regulate these markets, especially for state owned and want to buy something in Australia but, at the same time, I believe that we have to open up this economy because we can't have inward looking economies because essentially they are self consuming passions at the end and it is not enough anymore to feed a population as diverse as the Australian one simply with what is produced here. We are a consumer society, we have so many needs from all over the world, we have so many communities from all over the world, so multiculturalism becomes something very important in the whole mixture here but I think what we need is a government who will be able to regulate this market instead of regulating the secrecy about the refugees and have to pay more attention in this regulation of the market instead of looking to impose more sort of secretive legislation on these cases.

TONY JONES: And you’ve slipped off the topic and I’ll go to Richard Marles to get back onto it.

RICHARD MARLES: Look, agriculture represents one of the enormous opportunities for the Australian economy going forward. Being a food bowl for the growth of the middle class in Asia, particularly in China, is going to be a huge source of production and employment in Australia going forward but to make that happen, we are going to need foreign investment. Some of that is going to come from state owned enterprises. Now, at the moment, if you are a state owned enterprise, you need to go through the Foreign Investment Review Board. Invariably you get approval for that. I think that's appropriate. But, you know, for us to go out there and be trying to put more restrictions on foreign investment in Australia, I think, is a huge mistake. It is actually going to stifle the growth of what is one of the most important production parts of our economy going forward and, can I say, this Government has been completely hopeless when it comes to its regime around foreign investment. Rather than encouraging it, it has been discouraging, which is remarkable from what is meant to be a conservative government and it flies in the face of what's our economic opportunity in the future.

TONY JONES: Okay. Well, it’s been a great discussion. We are just about to run out of time. Our last question is on politics from Xanthi Kouvatas.