Official Australian attitudes to land and asset ownership by foreign interests have seldom been concerned with popular sentiment or, some critics would argue, the national interest. If they had, it's likely Cubbie Station and state electricity assets would not have wound up in overseas hands.
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Beginning in the 1980s, Australia's free-market governments have increasingly taken the view that a laissez-faire attitude to foreign investment and capital inflow is the best guarantee of future national prosperity – with the enthusiastic backing of economists and overseas governments keen to invest in Australia. So Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull may have experienced a brief moment of confusion this week when US President Barack Obama raised concerns with him in Manila about the sale of a 99-year lease over the Port of Darwin to a Chinese company.
The White House apparently learnt of the sale from an American newspaper, and Mr Obama chided Mr Turnbull over his failure to keep the Americans apprised of events. The criticism was couched in light-hearted terms, but there was no disguising its pointed message: the US has concerns about the implications of a Chinese company with links to the People's Liberation Army owing the port of a city that regularly hosts US marines and is likely to figure prominently in the strategic planning around the United States' "pivot to Asia".
Mr Turnbull later affirmed the sale had been common knowledge, and the Defence Department had examined all facets of the deal and found nothing untoward. Not everyone in Australia shares its tranquillity, however. Peter Jennings, the head of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (and a former senior Defence Department bureaucrat), says Darwin is crucial for operations protecting our vulnerable northern approaches, and leasing its port highlights a lack of strategic wisdom.
Ironically, Treasurer Scott Morrison announced this week he would block a Chinese company's $370 million bid to buy all of S. Kidman and Co's cattle stations, based on advice from the Foreign Investment Review Board that the size and nature of the holding and the proximity of one of the properties to the Woomera weapons testing range rendered a sale contrary to the national interest.
As is often the case when foreigners' plans to buy or invest in Australia are blocked, the wash-up from the Kidman bid's rejection has included dark mutterings about the "poor signals being sent to investors" and the "lost economic opportunities". In fact, the review board approves many more sales than it blocks on national interest grounds. And far from discriminating against Chinese companies, as has been ridiculously alleged, it has approved deals that have seen China recently emerge as Australia's biggest foreign investor. For all the propaganda peddled about "xenophobic attitudes", Chinese bidders will not be prevented from buying Kidman properties individually.
Nonetheless, overseas investment in strategic infrastructure and agricultural assets – Chinese or otherwise – remains contentious, in large part because of public perceptions that the "national interest" test is applied less rigorously here than it is in other countries. It is not just ports and electricity networks that have been snapped up by foreign firms, for example; they have also acquired stakes in gas pipelines supplying Victoria, NSW and the ACT. In such a climate, arguments about the family silver being sold can and do resonate with the public.
It's conceivable Australia's continued heavy dependence on foreign capital inflow precludes us being picky about who invests here, and that for all the misgivings about foreign control of strategic assets, we can take comfort in the fact the assets cannot be packed up and send abroad. But the apparent haste with which Australians rush to "cash in" their natural assets or their infrastructure-building efforts suggest little thought is given to the alternative strategy – that of retaining those assets and building them for the long term. Indeed, the belief that foreigners are best equipped to do this appears to be entrenched in economic and policy-making circles.
In the wake of Mr Turnbull's presidential interrogation in Manila, Treasurer Morrison has promised there will be more consultation in future over the sale of state government assets. There is also the possibility of a Senate inquiry into the purchase of national strategic assets. This might turn out to be mere posturing, but anything that leads to sharper thinking about foreign investment is to be welcomed.
