Once again (the people in) the Australian government showing its true colours with regards to how dodgy the deals really are, despite telling the herd population that it will be more transparent.
In Australia you cannot own land, literally.
Despite this is the land of this continent 'owned' by overseas corporations, from the unlawful actions of the Australian government?
Are these the actions of people who are in 'honour' representing the will of the people of Australia, the people who apparently voted them in?
Remember the catch phrase "Nothing to hide, nothing to fear"?
A Nanny State, where secret 'Money for Mates' deal rule.
See article from 30 Mar 2016 from abc.net.au of the headline:
Foreign-owned land register will not be made public despite transparency pledge
A new register of agricultural land will not be made
public despite the Government's promise to provide more transparency
over foreign investment in Australian farms.
Key points:
- Register requires all foreign owners of Australian farmland to be registered with ATO
- Organisation would be breaking tax laws if it published the entire register, ATO says
- Labour's Joel Fitzgibbon accused the Government of breaking election promise
The long-awaited register was established by the Coalition last
year to allay concerns within the Australian community that the
Government should have more oversight and information in relation to
foreign ownership.
It requires all foreign owners of Australian
farmland to be registered with the Australian Tax Office (ATO), and any
new interests to be registered within 30 days of purchase.
The
National Farmers' Federation (NFF) had expected the information in the
register to be publicly available but the ABC can reveal the ATO will
only release summaries occasionally, with its first report to the
Government due in July.
Last September, Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce told the Parliament the
register would be like a map of all properties "to see who owns what."
A spokesperson for the ATO said the organisation would be breaking tax laws if it published the entire register.
"Due
to confidentiality provisions in the tax act, the ATO is unable to
comment on any individual's or entity's tax affairs," the spokesperson
told the ABC.
"This includes providing any detailed breakdown of
interest in agricultural land, where a taxpayer may be identified, or
their information made public."
New South Wales Liberal senator Bill Heffernan said he was lobbying the Federal Treasurer to make the register public.
"This is an over-my-dead-body issue. We're entitled to know who in God's name is through the fence," he said.
"And
if the proposition from the tax office is that we're not entitled to
know who our neighbour is, then as far as I'm concerned, the
Government's going to have to change it.
"And the good news is
that I've spoken to the Government and I'm putting forward the case and I
think it's being sympathetically heard."
The NFF lobbied strongly for tougher scrutiny of foreign ownership and
previously warned the Government it did not want to see "aggregation" in the register's design.
"We
know that there is business sensitivity around commercial investment so
we wouldn't want to compromise any of that, but the whole point of the
register was to inform the debate," NFF chief executive Tony Mahar told
the ABC.
"If there's aggregated data and it's in a form that shows
us what is happening, in regard to this issue, and allows a much more
informed debate, then we'll be happy.
"But if it's aggregated data
that actually doesn't inform the debate and doesn't allow an
understanding of what's happening, then we'd have some concerns."
This is not what the Government promised: Opposition
Labor's shadow agriculture minister Joel Fitzgibbon accused the Government of breaking an election promise.
"The
whole idea of the register, first promised by Labor, was to ensure that
all Australians, wherever they are, with the click of a mouse, could
find out who is investing in what where," he said.
"This is not what the Government promised."
Mr Fitzgibbon said Labor would make the register public, if elected.
"Where there is a will there is a way," he said.
"If
the Government is determined the public should have information about
who is investing in what [and] where, I've no doubt that's a thing
that's capable of being done."
The Deputy Prime Minister led the
push for a register of foreign owned farmland and successfully lobbied
the Abbott government to reduce the threshold for Foreign Investment
Review Board (FIRB) scrutiny of private sector foreign purchases of
agricultural land from $252 million to a cumulative total of $15
million.
A spokesperson for Mr Joyce said the design of the
register was "absolutely consistent" with the Coalition's promise prior
to the 2013 election.
"[The July report] will be summarising the
data trends in terms of overall level of foreign ownership of Australian
agricultural land, and the main source countries," the spokesperson
said.
