Australia plans to extend its scrutiny of overseas investment to include infrastructure sales by state governments, following an outcry over the leasing of a northern port to a Chinese firm said to have close ties to the country’s military.
The Australian Foreign Investment Review Board is to be given an oversight of the sale of critical infrastructure assets, Australian Treasurer Scott Morrison said yesterday, with about A$20 billion (US$15 billion) of state privatizations currently in the pipeline.
The Landbridge Group, owned by Chinese billionaire Ye Cheng (葉成), was chosen by the Northern Territory government last year to operate the strategic commercial and military Port of Darwin in a 99-year deal worth A$506 million.
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull publicly defended the deal following reports that US President Barack Obama had expressed anger at Turnbull for not having informed him of the deal.
Darwin is a hub of cooperation between a rotation of US Marines, as well as the terminus for a critical underwater data cable.
“From 31 March this year the Foreign Investment Review Board [FIRB] will formally review critical infrastructure assets sold by state and territory governments,” Morrison told reporters in Canberra.
“While governments can and do work with the Commonwealth when selling such assets, the proposed change will formalize the process,” he said.
Upcoming major privatizations include the ports of Melbourne and Fremantle and Australian electricity distributor Ausgrid, but the change was unlikely to affect the sale process, said lawyer Simon Haddy, a partner at Herbert Smith Freehills.
Most Australian state governments already regularly consult with FIRB on strategic sales to overseas firms, he said.
“I think it’s part of a trend of formalizing these processes and broadening the nature of what the Australian national interest is ... with an increasing focus on, particularly those broader issues of national security and the national revenue base,” he said.
Morrison said the changes would not be retroactive.
Although it is officially listed as a private company, Ye is a delegate on the advisory body to the Chinese parliament, a high-profile but largely ceremonial position handed out to Chinese Communist Party backers.
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute called the Landbridge Group a “front” for China’s People’s Liberation Army in a paper published last year.
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