Andrew Robb (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. I refer the minister to the damning report of comments he made to a New York meeting on 25 January, when he warned off more than 200 prominent investors who had gone to the meeting to hear the merits of investing in Australia. I ask: does the minister stand by his comments in New York that Australia is not an attractive investment destination?

Stephen Smith (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I never made any such comment. My comment in New York at a lunch of potential or prospective and current investors into Australia was along the following lines: firstly, that one of the things that has made Australia a prosperous nation has been Australia being an attractive place for capital investment—originally and historically, overseas capital investment and, more recently, domestic capital investment led by Labor’s great superannuation reforms; and, secondly, that we had been a prosperous society by being a great trading nation.

I encouraged investors to invest in Australia by making points which went to the attractiveness of investment in Australia. I also drew attention to one of our current problems. That problem is called inflation. I made the point that, far from being neglectful and complacent about inflation, the new Rudd Labor government had made combating inflation its highest economic priority. I would have thought that any investor contemplating investing in Australia, either a domestic investor or an overseas investor, would want to ensure, would want to know, would want to be confident that the government of Australia was on the case when it came to making sure that inflation and, as a consequence, interest rates were under control, rather than being neglectful and complacent about it as our predecessors had been for a long period of time.

Andrew Robb (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, given that the minister has withheld his speech from his website, I seek leave to table the damning newspaper report.

Leave not granted.