from politicoz ….

Chinese consortium Shandong Ruyi is seeking to buy Australia's largest cotton farm, Cubbie Station, and the purchase now has the approval of the government.

The decision to approve has opened a rift among Coalition members. First outspoken National Barnaby Joyce strongly criticised it, then Joe Hockey rebuked him, saying that Nationals MPs who opposed the sale did "not speak for the Coalition and they don't even speak for the National Party or the Liberal Party".

Other Nationals have, however, backed Joyce's position, asking the government to justify the selling of "Australia's most valuable farm" and its precious water allocation to overseas interests. One answer to that question is simple: it's because Cubbie Farm went into receivership in 2009.

But this issue is about far more than economics. To the Nationals, it is a home truth that Australian farms are vulnerable to foreign takeover; this is about security, water, food supplies and national pride.

Their fears are not founded in current realities - the overall level of foreign ownership of Australian land is low and not growing significantly, and China is not a major player - but this won't stop the nationalist Nationals from banging the drum whenever the issue comes up.

Nationals senator Barnaby Joyce yesterday risked deepening the rift within the Coalition over foreign investment as he stepped up calls for a federal takeover of Cubbie Station to keep the giant cotton property in Australian hands.

But, as Senator Joyce claimed growing electoral support for his concerns about foreign investment in agriculture, some farm bodies and Liberal colleagues raised doubts about his strategy to buy back the Queensland property and break it into smaller farms.