Speech
Senator JOYCE (Queensland) (11.43 a.m.)—It is good to see the Labor Party venting their spleen to try and cover up the fact that today they are the doormats of the Liberal Party because they are voting with them. They are doing it to try and curry favour with a certain group of mates through a whole heap of palaver about and ridicule of the National Party, one member of which is actually going to try and protect Australian investors and Australian workers from being broken up by the overinvestment, the overindulgence, of overseas equity funds. They have to rely on us today because they cannot rely on you. All you could deliver was a whole heap of palaver.

Senator Sherry came out with the statement: ‘on balance’. On balance of what, Senator Sherry? Because there are no relevant figures. If you had actually had a look and seen the numbers delivered for the costing of this, you would realise they are a heap of rubbish. But you do not care about that. Let us go through the economics committee report. I was actually in the economics committee this morning, Senator Sherry. I do not remember seeing you there.

Interjection
The TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN (Senator Lightfoot)—Senator Joyce, you may be kind enough to address your remarks through the chair.

Continue
Senator JOYCE—Sorry, Chair. I was at the Senate economics committee this morning and Senator Sherry was not there. He is grasping at straws to try and cover up the fact that today the Labor Party are the doormats of this piece of legislation and they do not have the courage or the conviction to be relevant. They have a chance today to be relevant. There are few times that come up where they have a chance to be relevant. Today they have one, and they are terrified of it—absolutely terrified of getting a win. They said it had nothing to do with overseas equity funds. A summary of the new law says that it ‘narrows the range of assets which may be subject to Australian capital gains tax to Australian real property held directly by foreign residents’. That means that for everything else, they do not pay capital gains tax. It has a hell of a lot to do with foreign ownership and overseas equity funds.

As I was saying before, there is a $100 billion bid at the moment for Home Depot in the United States. I will show you what that would buy in Australia today. If that $100 billion were in Australia it would buy Boral, Coles, Qantas and Westpac. I think the Australian workers might want to know about that. I think they might be interested in the fact that an overseas equity fund could come in, break up all those companies and cut costs. How are they going to do that? By moving jobs overseas and selling for a profit. Alternatively, with a change of legislation, they could buy a couple of banks. That could be on the shopping list. There is an abundance of money around and the Labor Party is completely hiding from reality.

I know they find it an affront, because they have put themselves in their own wedge. Today they had the chance to be relevant. Today there was a chance for Senator Sherry and Mr Rudd to go to the front door and say, ‘Today we stood up to stop discrimination against Australians.’ They just gave, in the previous amendment, a relevant argument on why you should avoid discrimination, but they are about to vote now for discrimination against Australia as a nation. The only people who will pay tax on a lot of these assets after this is finished will be Australian citizens—not overseas citizens, Australian citizens. So if you want to invest in Coles and you do not want to pay tax, the smartest thing for you to do is to move to New Zealand, because as a foreign investor you will not have to pay. Little old Mr and Mrs Smith in Cabramatta or Ipswich will have to pay, but you will not if you are from overseas. What sort of genius devised that idea?

To try to cover this up with a whole range of venting of the spleen and a whole raft of rhetoric about the National Party and all that just says absolutely clearly that you know you are in the wrong—you know this is a bit of a sticky situation. When you are in a sticky situation, instead of saying: ‘Yes, we are discriminating against Australians when we pass this; we acknowledge that. We acknowledge that today we are going to be the doormats of this policy. We’re quite happy to roll over and let you tickle our tummy because it makes us feel good. To cover that up, what we are going to do is launch an attack on the National Party and start saying how they are the doormats because they stood up.’ They stood up when you rolled over. It defies logic.

I cannot work it out. Every time the Labor Party gets a chance to be relevant, they just run for cover. They are terrified of relevance. They are terrified of being strong. They are terrified of identifying an issue and standing behind it. They live in this void of rhetoric and waffle of ‘bridges too far’, ‘forks in the road’ and ‘ladders of opportunity’. They cannot work out why the Australian people have not grabbed onto them—because they think they are nothing. They are a mystery wrapped up in an enigma inside a riddle. That is the policy framework of the Labor Party.

Today the Labor Party have a chance to be relevant. Today they have a chance to make a clear statement that Australians should not be discriminated against. Today they have a chance to protect against the overt, as they say, ‘barbarians at the gate’—that is on the front page of the Fin Review—and what is happening with these overseas equity funds. They have a chance to make a statement that will definitely protect Australian jobs. And it is their own words. With the possible sale of Qantas, they came out and said, ‘All these jobs are going to be moved overseas; we must stop it.’ And one of the major investors is an overseas equity fund. So they had to stop this overseas equity fund. Today, what absolute hypocrites they are. Today they are turbocharging the problem. You have to be held to account.

My appeal to the fourth estate is not for me—goodness gracious me: I am quite happy, looking forward to a holiday—it is to get coverage on this issue. And you know that. It was an issue brought up by Senator Murray. We need coverage of this issue. It has been completely devoid of proper explanation in the media. I think that is unhelpful. I think a lot of Australians would like to have a comment on this, would like to be brought into the loop. Today the Labor Party could have brought the Australian people into the loop. Today the Labor Party could have taken the Australian people into their confidence and brought them into the loop on this subject. But they are not. They are hiding it from the Australian people. But for what reason? That is the question: for what reason? The question that we always have to ask is: what is in it for them today? There is the real riddle, mystery and enigma. It stands against logic. It stands against everything else they say.

I have no problems if you want to give foreigners capital gains tax exemption. But there is one absolute caveat on it: you must give it to Australians as well. You cannot have one rule for one and another rule for the other. You must look after Australians first. You acknowledge—and you should acknowledge—and I know that in your heart of hearts you understand absolutely the ramifications of an overheating of the market with these overseas equity funds, who are not interested in investing in building up assets; they are investing in breaking assets up. They are investing in apportioning and breaking up the assets.

If we were to have that $100 billion investment in Australia today, just think of the ramifications for our share mar