Julie Bishop - Member for Curtin

ABC News 24, Breakfast with Latika Bourke

Subjects: Kofi Annan’s resignation as Syria envoy; China; Papua New Guinea; Coalition Policy Discussion Paper on Foreign Investment

E&OE…

LATIKA BOURKE    Julie Bishop welcome to ABC News Breakfast. Do you think there is any hope left for Syria?

JULIE BISHOP    I believe that it is at a very critical stage. The fact that Kofi Annan is not going to renew his mandate to implement his peace plan beyond the end of August is worrying. He cited divisions in the international community as one of the reasons that he won’t continue, and both Russia and China have failed to support any broadening of a UN resolution in regard to Syria.

There are a number of imperatives in relation to Syria. One is to ensure that the civil war raging inside Syria does not extend beyond the borders of Syria. There is a fear that sectarian violence between Sunni and Shia communities outside Syria could begin. That would be catastrophic.

Secondly we must seek to support countries that are receiving an influx of Syrians fleeing from that country - that includes Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey.

We must renew our efforts to urge upon both sides – the Free Syria Army and the government forces – to have a ceasefire, to show restraint so that there can be an end to this terrible loss of life. But we must also ensure that should the Assad regime collapse that every effort is made to secure the stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons that Syria has admitted exist, lest they fall into the hands of terrorists who are now operating within the Syrian borders, particularly al Qaeda. So it is deeply troubling situation.

LATIKA BOURKE    Now over night Julie Bishop the UN General Assembly passed a resolution upgrading the Security Council. Ahead of that vote Ban Ki-moon said that this was a test of what the UN stands for and he didn’t want that to fail. Hasn’t the United Nations Security Council for that matter already proven to be a failure with its impotence?

JULIE BISHOP    The difficulty of course is that Russia is a significant ally of the Syrian regime. Strategically, militarily Russia has a vested interest in supporting the Assad regime and it is refusing to support any UN resolution that could give rise to some sort of intervention as happened in Libya. Of course Syria is a completely different situation – geographically, militarily a very different situation from Libya – but unless the Russians become involved in finding a peaceful outcome then I am afraid that the UN Security Council is hampered, and that is what occurs with the veto vote.  Both Russia and China have refused to support any other UN resolution. But Russia has a lot at stake here and I note that other world leaders including Prime Minister Cameron of Great Britain have been urging the Russians to find a solution to the violence that is going on Syria.

LATIKA BOURKE    As you mention there Russia is being supported by China, but when Australia and of course around the world are looking at China’s rise examining how that will happen what does this example say about that?

JULIE BISHOP    As China becomes an increasing global power that will bring with it increasing global responsibilities and the United States amongst others are urging China, and indeed Russia, to take their share of responsibly in resolving some of the world’s problems. And I hope that China will see that with its rise as a great economic power there will be expectations that it will help resolve some of the world’s problems. China has the capacity to do so, it is a very influential country, and I hope that it will see it does have a role in that regard.

LATIKA BOURKE    Staying abroad, Papua New Guinea has elected Peter O’Neill as its Prime Minister, are you hoping now that the political situation in Papua New Guinea will stabilise?

JULIE BISHOP    I think this is good news. The elections were held on time, there was a sense that they were free and fair and were conducted without too much fuss – I think that is a very good outcome. The final result hasn’t yet been determined but Prime Minister O’Neill has been sworn in by the Chief Justice, with whom there have been some tensions in the past. He has received a significant majority of support, over 75 per cent from the elected members, and importantly Sir Michael Somare has thrown his weight behind the O’Neill government.

So that I hope we will see a period of stability.  PNG is on the cusp of an economic transformation because of the number of LNG projects and mining and resource development projects that are underway or on the drawing board, and here is an opportunity for the country to get its economy on track and also to restore confidence in the democratic institutions that underpin democracy in PNG.

LATIKA BOURKE    Now yesterday the Coalition unveiled its discussion paper on foreign investment, you want to drastically reduce the threshold for where the Foreign Investment Board would have to examine applications to buy agricultural land in Australia. How are you going to sell that policy to China when you next meet the Ambassador?

JULIE BISHOP    I am from Western Australia and I am acutely aware of the importance of foreign investment in underpinning our economic growth and our jobs growth. And I believe that most Australians, armed with the facts, would appreciate how critical foreign investment is to our future and our standard of living, and the Coalition welcomes and supports foreign investment.

But for example a recent Lowy Institute survey showed that 46 per cent of the respondents indicated that they believed the Australian government was allowing too much foreign investment. So clearly we need to have a sensible discussion about the importance of foreign investment and that is what our discussion paper is designed to do.

I was one of the co-authors of the paper and we identified a number of concerns relating to the treatment of agricultural land and agribusiness and there are some continuing differentials between the thresholds that apply to commercial businesses and commercial land, for example, and agricultural land. So we are posing the question, ‘should there be a lower threshold therefore more scrutiny in relation to agricultural land and agricultural business?’ And we are seeking feedback by the 31 October, from businesses and industry and foreign governments and SOE’s and sovereign wealth funds to ensure that we do maintain confidence in Australia for continuing foreign direct investment. I have already spoken with a number….

LATIKA BOURKE    You raise there a Lowy Institute poll, now polls can often show misinformation and it is actually the case that only 6 per cent of Australian agricultural land is foreign owned. So do you think that perhaps your reaction here to an overreaction from the community about a problem that is actually quite minor or might not actually exist?

JULIE BISHOP    No not at all, I think that makes the very point that there seems to be a perception fuelled by misinformation that far more of Australia’s land is owned by foreign companies or foreign interests when in fact it is a fraction of it. And so our discussion paper sets this out and I think people need to be armed with the facts so that we can have greater transparency, possibly greater oversight by the Foreign Investment Review Board.

And we think there are ways we can improve the foreign investment regime to instil confidence not only in Australians that foreign investment is in our national interest but also in those investing from overseas, to have confidence that foreign investment is welcomed and appreciated by the Australian people because it is in the national interest.

LATIKA BOURKE    So Julie Bishop who is spreading that misinformation?

JULIE BISHOP    Well you can see it in a number of media reports, a number of people - as I travel around the country people raise with a concern, are we allowing too much land to be bought up by foreign interests? And so we decided that it was an issue and we needed to put the facts out there, and I think that our discussion paper will generate a very sensible and logical discussion and we’ll be able to instil the confidence in foreign investment that we need in this country.

So I am very pleased with the content of the report. I have already had discussions with a number of foreign governments and they have also welcomed our entry into the debate so that there can be that confidence that we need in ongoing foreign investment to underpin our economy, our standard of living and our jobs growth.

LATIKA BOURKE    You cited media reports for some of the concern about foreign investment in Australia, isn’t it the case that many of those media reports quote your Coalition partners the Nationals? Are they not responsible for perhaps one of the misinformation’s that exists?

JULIE BISHOP    I am certainly not blaming the media.  The media does its job, but I am saying that the media is reporting on concerns that have been expressed and yes some of them come from the National Party. And we had a number of National Party members on our committee. It was a committee comprising Warren Truss as chair, I was on it, Joe Hockey, Barnaby Joyce, and it was a really usefully exercise in gathering the information, the details, and putting it out there for comment.

And I have already had investors and people in charge of sovereign wealth funds contact me to say they are grateful for the opportunity to put forward some ideas and suggestions so that the Coalition will have a well researched policy that we can take to the next election.

The Labor Party seems to be running away from this field, in fact it was the Labor Party that put in place a number of these differential thresholds that are causing a little bit of confusion and a lack of confidence in the system and that is what we are trying to restore.

LATIKA BOURKE    Okay, we’ll have to leave it there Julie Bishop. Thank you for joining ABC News 24.

JULIE BISHOP    It is my pleasure.