Interesting article popped up on Facebook. Source unknown. This could be where part of Doc Feelgoods rumor is coming from.
Call to block $13bn CHINESE-OWNED Hong Kong bid for nation’s gas network
A $13 billion bid to take over Australia’s biggest gas pipeline company and deliver Hong Kong company CK Infrastructure control of the majority of the nation’s major gas pipelines must be treated with “extreme caution”, government MPs and minor parties say.
The warning came amid calls by the head of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Peter Jennings, to block the bid for APA Group, which industry sources said could hand CKI nearly 60 per cent of the gas pipeline market.
Mr Jennings, writing in The Weekend Australian today, says the bid should be rejected as part of the “necessary price of maintaining national security interests”.
Former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce told The Weekend Australian the potential for CKI to have a monopoly hold over Australia’s gas pipelines should be “strongly considered” by the Foreign Investment Review Board and Australian Competition & Consumer Commission.
“There is obviously increased sensitivity because future regulatory requirements placed on a foreign government could have foreign relation implications in that they could take retaliatory actions in other areas because of what they might see as an excessive regulatory burden,’’ he said.
Mr Jennings said while CKI was listed in Hong Kong — whose laws were separate from China’s — the territory was increasingly coming under Beijing’s control.
“There is no escaping the reality that President Xi intends for his will to prevail in Hong Kong,” Mr Jennings writes.
“Businesses there will have to be as solicitous to the interests of the CCP as those on the mainland.
“Can we afford to let the bulk of that critical infrastructure be owned and run by a company ultimately subject to an authoritarian one-party state with a vast intelligence apparatus and an equally large cyber force within the PLA looking for national vulnerabilities that might offer exploitable advantage?”
CKI — formerly run by Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing — already owns huge gas and electricity distribution and transmission assets in Australia.
The deal would hand the company APA’s 15,000km of gas pipelines across Australia, creating a pipeline giant with gas pipelines on both sides of the country, along with gas storage facilities, gas distribution assets and power generation, transmission and distribution facilities. APA owns 13 of the nation’s 30 major gas pipelines. APA’s portfolio includes half of Victoria’s electricity network and all of South Australia’s network.
Between 2014-17 CKI gained FIRB approval to buy gas distribution business Envestra and DUET — which owned the biggest pipeline, Dampier to Bunbury — for $10bn. APA also owns the key line from the Moomba gas fields in central Australia to Sydney.
A spokeswoman for Treasurer Scott Morrison said the government did not comment on the application of the foreign investment screening processes for confidentiality reasons. A spokesman for Labor Treasury spokesman Chris Bowen said the ALP had confidence in the FIRB.
NSW Nationals senator John Williams said he would prefer to see Australian super funds buying the pipeline.
“If we want to keep living standards high in Australia, we need to keep the wealth here in our country. That doesn’t say stop investment, but with foreign takeovers and buying up of good assets, in this case basically a monopoly asset, then I ask the question where are our super funds, why aren’t they bidding for these vital infrastructure?” Senator Williams said.
Centre Alliance senator Rex Patrick said he thought the pipelines should definitely be considered critical infrastructure.
Greens MP Adam Bandt said placing such a large amount of the pipeline network in private hands was “crazy”.
CK Infrastructure was contacted for comment.
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