Senator Barnaby Joyce, the Leader of the Nationals in the Senate, has backed up his previous comments made over the past week on foreign investment and said a Senate inquiry into Foreign Investment Review Board guidelines was needed in light of the proposed extension of the Chinese Government’s holding of Australian mining resources via the commercial vehicle known as Chinalco. The Treasurer, Mr Swan, has said he will judge the deal that would see Chinalco pay $19.5 billion to lift its stake in Rio Tinto on whether it is in the national interest.
“In the current economic turmoil that grows day by day in its complexity and its effect, it is vitally important to not be simplistic in our actions and try to remedy an affliction that Australia cannot fix and to be honest, barely understands,” Senator Joyce said. “At the same time, casting aside our attention to the domestic ramifications of a foreign government’s extensive engagement in our domestic resource is a dangerous exacerbation in the domestic consequences of the global financial fallout.
“The short-term gain that might be secured from refloating Rio Tinto’s debt with the Chinese Government’s money could bring immense complications to bilateral relations in the future, giving the potential of a commercial issue becoming an ugly diplomatic one.
“It is not just as simple as Chinalco gaining 18 per cent of the Rio Tinto Group, the ramifications are far more extensive than one of passive minor ownership. It is clearly evident that an Australian Government’s engagement in Chinese sovereign resources in China would incur immense hurdles and would be ultimately, if not disallowed immediately, strangled with obfuscation and red tape.”
Senator Joyce said Australia has a service industry that has been a great mechanism for distributing the wealth among its people but we must never delude ourselves where in the history of our nation our wealth has come from.
“It has come from our exports and our primary export has been mineral resources. The global economy, to be a realist, would not miss a single economic heartbeat if the mechanism of Australian employment being a service industry, whether that be banking, insurance, tourism or domestic housing construction, were to disappear tomorrow night. If you believe in the global economy then you must believe that globally our effect lies in only a few mineral resources and to a lesser degree agricultural resources.
“This is despite the fact that the vast majority of the Australian workforce does not work in these industries. We must not forget the wealth that is corralled by the downpipe, which is primary resources, into the tank of the population is sometimes not recognised by the benefactors, the urban population, of that process.
“Ultimately what supports the standard of living of the people who walk down Queen Street, George Street, Collins Street or St George’s Terrace is manifest in a product that leaves our shores by boat. Look around you and see what is made overseas and ask the question, where is the source of the materials that goes in the other direction to pay for it. If we as a nation do not own that source what do you think happens next, especially if the ownership this time is not so much a foreign corporation but is actually the sovereign asset of another nation’s government.
“The Chinese Government involvement via their vehicle Chinalco is not a one-off. It is a first step of a completely different process in a completely different political dynamic and a vastly different economic environment. I support the number of sources around Parliament that are now calling for a very discerning assessment of this process with the courage to say no and stop it.”