Ongoing pressure from One Nation leader Pauline Hanson, backed up by thousands of concerned Australians, resulted in the Government tightening its safeguards against predatory foreign investment.

But Senator Hanson warned the protections need to be bolstered further, so has urged Australians to remain unrelenting in their push for tighter rules, for the sake of the economy and jobs.

In March, Senator Hanson wrote to the Prime Minister and the Treasurer, asking them to stop all predatory foreign investment in the wake of the coronavirus downturn. In response, the Treasurer reduced the threshold for investment assessments by the Foreign Investment Review Board to $0.

The outcome comes as a One Nation prepares to table in the Senate a petition of more than 18,000 signatures from Australians expressing their wishes to stop predatory foreign takeovers.

“Australia is the envy of nations around the world so I don’t blame foreign investors for hovering like vultures, ready to snap up our assets when they come up for sale,” Senator Hanson said.

“This improvement comes only after decades of my warnings, so it shows how important it is to keep highlighting the shortfalls and for all of us to be relentless in demanding protections. We need to remain vigilant into the future to protect our jobs and economy.”

Successive governments have presided over and contributed to weak foreign investment safeguards that have enabled high levels of unchecked investment by foreign governments, corporations and individuals. Unfortunately, Free Trade Agreements with various nations like China, the USA, Japan, Singapore and others, allow them to purchase non-sensitive businesses valued up to $1.19b without FIRB scrutiny.

The One Nation petition comes as China continues to buy up Australian businesses through its FTA rights while also ramping up bans on coal, copper ore, barley, red wine, timber, sugar and seafood. 

Currently, over 50% of wholesale trade, over 40% of manufacturing, over 35% of mining, and over 25% of electricity businesses in Australia is foreign-owned. Senator Hanson warns this level of foreign ownership is dangerous and damaging to Australia’s economy and creates an unacceptable threat to national security.

Many Australians are rightfully concerned about the Government’s tick and flick attitude towards approving the sale of our nation’s land, water, resources and infrastructure to foreign companies and foreign powers.

The unfolding disaster we see as a result of the sale of Keswick Island in Queensland to Chinese Developers is a perfect example of how the current weak rules and regulations governing foreign ownership are easily exploited.

Developer China Bloom now controls a 99-year lease for Keswick Island. As a result, access to the island’s national parks and public beaches have been blocked and residents have been forced out of their homes.

What we are seeing on Keswick Island is an affront to our nation’s sovereignty and presents a clear risk to our national security.

That is why we are asking you help us free Keswick island, restore Australians their rightful access to the public areas of Keswick Island and ensure that incidents like the one occurring on Keswick Island will never happen again.

All you have to do is visit our petition page and add your name to the list of Australian who agree this is totally unacceptable.