During the now defunct deal with Rio Tinto by Chinese government business enterprise Chinalco, I wrote on a number of occasions early last year against the deal, amongst many reasons:
My basic argument against Chinalco owning Australian mines is that the deal would be inconsistent with Australia’s approach to removing government control and ownership of business enterprises. Both sides of Australian politics generally accept that private enterprise, not government, should run businesses…To turn around and allow a foreign government to start buying up Australia’s key strategic assets would run counter to the long held principle of separating private enterprise from political interference.
Turnbull followed a similar line at the time. It is good to see that Tony Abbott is also maintaining the party line on the issue, as he recently spoke on the 730 Report:
What I’m not in favour is of nationalisation of Australian industries and if I don’t support Australian Government ownership of Australian industries under most circumstances, I would certainly be pretty wary about Chinese Government ownership of Australian businesses.