OK, I think I might actually be having a stroke now because I think David Littleproud just asked a decent question?

Treasurer, a single US private company owned by a US church was able to purchase almost $500 million worth of Australian prime agricultural land in around six months without the requirement of oversight from the Treasurer or the Foreign Investment Review Board. Will the Treasurer commit to review of the thresholds that were put into effect 20 years ago to give farming families an opportunity to compete in buying Australian farms?

Does he know that this is question time? And not the place for actual questions?

And Jim Chalmers is giving what seems like an actual answer? Have I traveled to a different universe in my disassociation?

Chalmers:

I think as he knows, the House knows, Australia welcomes foreign investment but it has to be in our national economic interest.

There are strict rules and thresholds that apply to people purchasing agricultural or commercial land in Australia.

These are enforced again as he knows by the foreign investment decision of the Treasury.

We allocated almost another $16 million in the 24 budget to enhance this kind of monitoring and enforcement and also to strengthen and streamline the system.

The settings and thresholds in this case are applicable to private investors from the US.

They were established by our free trade agreement which was entered in to by the Coalition. 20 odd years ago and that remains the case today.

And what we are doing, Mr Speaker, is we’re making sure that our foreign investment arrangements keep pace. Obviously we see these sorts of cases pop up from time to time. We spend time analysing those cases and work out whether a change is necessary.

The system is robust overall. We’ve made recent changes. They’ve been about quickening the pace of approvals.

There are some historical cases like one which pique our interest but not inconsistent with the arrangements set up by those opposite.

My commitment to the House and more broadly is to continue to make sure the cases are the right ones to protect our national interest. We do have a robust foreign investment screening regime that’s very important. That’s very important and the way we build trust in attracting the foreign investment our economy needs. When cases like this pop up, from time to time we make sure we take that into consideration to make sure the system remains as good as it can be.