AUSTRALIA: Treasury publication on reforming Australia foreign investment

Friday February 27 2015

The Australian Government is seeking views on proposed reforms to strengthen Australia`s foreign investment framework, particularly around residential real estate and agriculture.

This discussion paper forms the basis of the Government’s consultation on reforms to the foreign investment framework. The proposed reforms include:

increasing compliance and enforcement activities around foreign investment in residential real estate through the creation of a specialised investigative and enforcement area within the Australian Taxation Office; and

introducing new civil penalties and increased criminal penalties for foreign investors and third parties who breach the foreign investment rules.

Consideration is also being given to the introduction of an application fee on all foreign investment proposals, based on the type of investment.

The Government also intends to introduce a new $55 million screening threshold for foreign investment in Australian agribusiness, subject to public consultation on the definition of agribusiness.

Note that new controls on foreign investment in agriculture come in to play in March 2015 also. From 1 March, foreign investors must obtain prior approval for a proposed acquisition of an interest in rural land where the cumulative value of the rural land owned by the foreign investor, including the proposed purchase, is $15 million or more. The Government will also establish a foreign ownership register that will start collecting information on existing foreign ownership and subsequent transactions of all interests in agricultural land from 1 July 2015. The Government will work with the states and territories so that the register will ultimately use land title transfer information from existing state and territory land title collection processes. This will remove duplicative registration processes for property owners.

Submissions can be made electronically or by post until 20th March 2015.

Click on the above link for the discussion paper.