Nationals leader David Littleproud has called for changes to the Australia-US Free Trade Agreement following a spending spree by the US Mormon church in which almost half a billion dollars’ worth of Australian farmland fell into foreign ownership in little more than six months.
In August last year, the US church-owned Farmland Reserves bought Worral Creek Aggregation, north of Mungindi in Queensland for $350 million. In March this year it paid $68 million for the North Star Aggregation near Moree in NSW, and in April it bought Kentucky Farms at Forbes for $38 million and Carnarvon Aggregation at Gunnedah for $32 million.
The Mormon church paid $68 million for 5700 hectares near Moree known as the North Star Aggregation in March. LAWD
Sources told the AFR Weekend that Farmland Reserve has agents looking for more large Australian farms to buy.
None of these sales were subject to scrutiny from the Foreign Investment Review Board because the AUSFTA, signed in 2004 by former Nationals leader Mark Vaile, gives US investors (and those from New Zealand and Chile) an almost unfettered right to buy Australian farmland.
Buyers from the US can purchase farming ventures up to a value of $1.46 billion per venture, and there is a fear within the Australian farming community that the Mormons, with billions of dollars to spend, could change the face of Australian agriculture. For investors from other nations the cumulative total is capped at $15 million.
Outcompeting Australian farming families
Littleproud told AFR Weekend that “we need to revisit these parameters” of the free trade agreement with the US.
“I don’t think it was the intent of the original agreement that we’d ever envisage that an organisation would take such a large slice of agricultural land in this country,” he said.
“This allows them [the Mormons], who have significant capital backing, to outcompete Australian farming families,” he said.
It could take a “significant slice” of the agricultural sector and “we should always be mindful of the risk of concentration”, he added.
The CEO of Grain Producers Australia, Colin Bettles, said it was not in the nation’s interest to have foreign entities controlling large tracts of Australian farmland.
“It’s totally unacceptable that a foreign entity, emboldened by significant tax advantages, should be allowed to accumulate significant volumes of farmland and cannibalise Australia’s food producing capacity,” he said.
“This recent acceleration of a foreign entity’s purchasing power in Australia clearly demonstrates there’s an uneven playing field when it comes to retaining ownership of Australian farmland and our farmers should not be disadvantaged by lax rules.”
Treasurer Jim Chalmers declined to comment.
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