foreign ownership

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.

HUGE chunk of Victorian farmland - about 11 times the size of Melbourne's CBD - has also controversially fallen into foreign hands. Qatar-based Hassad Foods, which is the agricultural arm of the Qatar government, recently agreed to pay about $35 million for more than 8000 hectares of sheep-grazing and cropping land in Victoria's Western District.

This advertisement from Kuala Lumpur shows how development companies are not only selling Australian houses in Asia but are offering Australian taxpayer-funded government grants to further entice Kuala-Lumpurans to buy here. These grants were intended to help young Australians get into the housing market but instead the developers are offering them to foreigners.

Real estate speculation occurs on previously unknown levels via the global Internet, with rapid convergence and mushrooming of of speculative industries and professions across government and private sector. At Federal level, the National Foreign Investment Review Board (NFIRB) promotes foreign investment in local real estate and encourages housing purchases by temporary immigrants for high turnover.