Senator CAMPBELL (Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer)(1.36 p.m.) —The rhetoric of Senator Sherry does not match the rhetoric of the Labor government and particularly of Senator Ray, when he was defence minister, who actually negotiated this pre-emptive right for Kockums.

Senator Sherry —Yes, but we didn't sell it to them, did we?

Senator CAMPBELL —No, but you have negotiated the arrangement whereby Kockums have a right. This government has not done anything about that arrangement whatsoever. This bill does not change that amendment. This bill, as amended by Senator Murray's amendment—if it is passed in this place, and I put money on the fact that it will at this stage; I join you on that—ensures that, if the shareholding in the Australian Submarine Corporation is to be sold, it cannot be sold to a foreign person as described by the FAT—the Foreign Acquisitions and Takeovers Act.

However, the exercise of Kockums's pre-emptive rights, I am advised, would require Foreign Investment Review Board approval under the FAT Act. So there still is a requirement there, but it is quite unbelievable that a Labor Party senator should come in here and criticise the fact that a Swedish owned company should not have a right to purchase the balance of the company when it was actually the Australian Labor Party minister and government who negotiated that right. For the Senate to then seek to overturn that would be a government breach in that contract. It could quite clearly give rise to issues of compensation if the Australian government was forced to do that.