Food Security Fears caused by Conservate Sell off
The coalition is responsible for the foreign buy up of Australian farms,
Joe Ebono, The Greens candidate for Richmond said this morning.
According to the ABC, Foreign interests including state-owned companies
from China and the Middle East are increasingly looking to Australia to
secure their food production by purchasing Australian farms.
The sale of agricultural land is exempt under Foreign Investment Review
Board regulations and the FIRB’s attention is usually triggered only by the
sale of companies whose assets exceed a $231 million threshold.
Read
Entire ABC article here
Most farms sell for way less than this figure and so they can be bought up
one after the other without any alrm bells ringing.
Jo Ebono continued,
“It was the Nationals and Liberals under Howard who changed the rules about foreign investment and opened the floodgates,” he said.
New Zealand's Prime Minister is Worried
The New Zealand Prime Minister John Key (conservative) was interviewed on the ABC program " Background Briefing" and expressed concern at the potential selloff of New Zealand farms to foreign companies. He said we don't want New Zealanders to be tennants in their own country.
Liberal Senator Bill Heffernan has raised this issue saying,"I would like to put on the agenda... the urgent need to put agricultural land and our water resources on the radar of the Foreign Investment Review board."
Joe Ebono's popular radio program, The Generator, covered the issue in depth, interviewing Dick Smith about the issue after the rules changed and foreign buyers started snapping up farms.
Greens position once radical is now mainstream
“Three years ago this position was considered radical, now the Prime Minister of New Zealand is saying the same thing. “The Greens are consistently described as alarmist and extremist, but a few years later our positions are adopted by the corporate parties and called sensible.
“Voters are waking up to this and going to the source,” Ebono said.
Ebono expects to top 20% in Richmond in this election and says there is a “reasonable chance” that he could pull off an upset win and take the seat from Justine Elliot.
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