Foreign Investment Review Board

On the second occasion, it starts to look like a strategy.

When the government's lawyers also engage in what could be construed as an attempted shakedown, it should concern us all." That second occasion is another government-federal court action, launched after Patrick was granted an FOI request for documents relating to the Foreign Investment Review Board and how it determines whether foreign acquisitions are in the national interest.

Says Patrick, "...for decades, successive governments and Treasury bureaucrats have kept these decisions highly secret.

The public interest in greater transparency is clear, but they've been fighting against that tooth and nail." The death of transparency.

while Cossett obviously have clearly done everything they could to pull out of what was a legally binding deal.

Ultimately, that deal was conditional on FIRB approval, which did not come because the Treasurer kind of fell for the...

Well, rather, the South Australian Premier fell for the threats of Cossette, as bad faith as they were made in, and then ultimately the Treasurer has fallen for the same thing.

So, you know, the deal just couldn't have gone ahead without FRB approval, and therefore there is a limit to, I think, what main farmer shareholders can expect out of legal action.

So not an attractive investment for superannuation.

Strategic infrastructure sounds a plausible investment, but in the case of the Port of Darwin, the Commonwealth, through the Foreign Investment Review Board and the Department of Defense, did not object to the long term leasing of the port to a Chinese company.

The Northern Territory government got the money, and so it is likely they would benefit again courtesy of superannuation fund members should the port be forcibly sold in a deal that would not be market value based, but be artificially priced to appease the Chinese.

So not an attractive investment for superannuation.

Northern Minerals is squarely one of those.

Uh, you are right to say there's been a, a number of decisions made, uh, by FIRB, but also, uh, divestment, uh, decisions, uh, as well, and they, uh, have...

That has not been done by, by the-- those that hold those shares.

That's not good.

Uh- For two years.

Yeah, I know.

A-and, uh, that is why, uh, the Treasurer, uh, and the, the government is looking to reform the FIRB rules to deal with exactly these kind of problems that, that, that are a significant challenge for our country, where we are seeing the take-up of, uh, interest in some companies that have governance or, you know, the rights to these assets, uh, and they are basically holding the development up.

So there's many- So what about nationalization? That's one, one- Sorry? Nationalization is one option.

We haven't really heard from them in terms of what they're gonna do in terms of capital management.

Uh, it hasn't closed yet, and there's a lot of, uh, hoops to jump through, FIRB and ACCC approvals as well.

Uh, so that will help, but it will be get, you know, it'll get more catalysts as we get closer to finding out what they're gonna do with the money, uh, they get from that.

At the moment, what is it? 37 and a quarter cents.

Turning to our roundup in Australia, generative artificial intelligence leader Anthropic has signed its first Australian data center lease at a 32 billion Australian dollar campus in Queensland.

However, the commercial agreement remains strictly subject to approval by the Foreign Investment Review Board, or FERB.

The transaction highlights how foreign investment screening is expanding beyond traditional corporate acquisitions into digital infrastructure and core processing capacity as hyperscale data centers and advanced artificial intelligence models become critical economic infrastructure.

Regulators like FERB are scrutinizing not just equity ownership, but long-term capacity leases, data sovereignty, and operational access rights by foreign technology firms.