Is Australia's Foreign Investment Policy in the National Interest?

Abstract

Since the 1980s, global foreign investment flows have at times grown faster than world output and world trade. Many advanced and emerging economies have welcomed, indeed actively encouraged, foreign direct investment (FDI) from abroad, cognisant of the new technology and expertise it transfers. Even though governments of different ideological persuasions around the world are actively vying to increase their relative shares of transnational investment flows, the Australian government, through the operations of the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB), continues to deter certain forms of foreign investment, particularly in the financial, media, real estate and transport sectors of the economy. Indeed, there is a widespread view that Australia's foreign investment policy is not restrictive enough, particularly as it relates to foreign takeovers of Australian enterprises. Australia has persistently attracted foreign investment over more than two centuries. As a percentage of Australia's gross domestic product (GDP), foreign investment flows were proportionately greater in earlier times, such as the late 19th century, compared to the experience since 2000.2 No separate body oversaw FD! proposals until the FIRE was formally established by the Fraser government in 197 6. Before then, and especially from the 1960s, federal governments of both political persuasions had intervened in an ad hoc way.