Use it or Loose it

First National Real Estate Lakeshores Principal, Mark Millington agrees with comments made recently by outspoken Senator, Bill Heffernan, that Government needed to make changes to avoid overseas investors owning Australia’s assets.

“Australian governments and business need to act today to realise the value of our natural assets or investors from overseas will do it for us” Senator Bill Heffernan said,  speaking recently at First National Real Estate’s Commercial and Rural Conference in Canberra.

The Senator made a passionate plea for changes to help Australians rather than overseas investors realise the value of our assets.

“By 2070 China will need to feed 50% of their population from outside the country and they are looking around the world to find investments to make that possible,” Senator Heffernan said.

“100 years ago we would never have thought a sovereign power could come and acquire assets here without an army. Now all you need is a cheque book”.

Mark Millington agreed, saying  “Senator Heffernan is right. If we do not find Australian investors, then overseas investors will step in.

“The Foreign Takeovers Act is out of date and we need to make sure, if and when foreign investors come in, that they are competing on the same basis as Australian investors,” Mark Millington said.

“In a challenging market Australians are being cautious and often the only way to sell a property is to look to overseas investors.  We like to get our clients a sale, but it is not in anyone’s interest to get unrealistic prices that then inflate average prices and increase rates.  We firmly believe the market has bottomed out and all we need now is some confidence and then we can see Australians investing in both commercial and rural assets.”

Senator Heffernan agrees. “There will be a lot of opportunities in the future. We need to make sure everyone investing in Australia does so on the same basis and we need to be able to tax foreign investors and make sure all Australians can benefit from our potential as the market garden of Asia.”

“We in Australia are wooden headed, we think agriculture is a mature industry and it is not. We need to get the modern equivalent of soldier settlers to develop the land and develop solutions or someone will come and do it for us,” Senator Heffernan said.

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 Issued by: First National Real Estate

 For further information contact:

Mark Millington Principal, First National Real Estate Lakeshores on 0418 970 591