"It's a quite miniscule problem I think."
James Laurenceson, deputy director of the Australia China Relations Institute, told Xinhua that not enough stories are being shared of the benefits of foreign investment, with Chinese companies such as Greenland and Dalian Wanda building new residential developments across the country, and employing thousands of Australians in the process.
"These companies employ thousands of Australian workers putting up these apartments, these aren't Chinese workers putting up these apartments, they have jobs that they wouldn't have had without this kind of investment," Laurenceson said.
"And think of all the Australian families who now have a place to live, because these apartments were built thanks to foreign investment."
The reality of foreign investment in the real estate market in Australia is that the injected capital serves to allay the legislative and economic conditions that have caused the housing affordability crisis in the first place.
These factors at play are the negative gearing laws, increased investment into the market by super funds and real estate trusts, both of which are at the domestic level, and according to Laurenceson, easy access to finance.
"In Australia we have record low interest rates, so now property speculators can borrow even more than ever before," Laurenceson said.
"That's the really big change over the last few years,"
Professor Hans Hendrischke from the University of Sydney Business School agreed and told Xinhua that although the part that interest rates play in affordability is significant, the government has to do more to rectify the core issues of supply and affordability which will rightly shift the discussion away from foreign investment.
"What the government is doing is regulating and providing barriers to local and foreign investors to prevent overheating of the market," Hendrischke said.
"The government is trying to be seen as doing something to increase affordability, but I don't think minor measures on the fringe do much to the whole economic elements that drive the real estate market."
Foreign direct investment will never be eradicated in Australia. It is far too crucial to the growth of the country as a whole. But Rodgers suggested that some measures could be introduced in order to improve the societal impact of investment coming in from overseas.
"What we need is a very nuanced discussion about who these foreign investors are, and what they are doing with their capital," Rodgers said.
"It might be that we need a taxation regime put on foreign capital, that is then put into a fund for affordable housing, but that will reduce the appeal of Australian property to foreign investors,"
"It's a complex situation, and how you get that capital to produce good social outcomes is a challenge."
However, the reality still remains that foreign investment in real estate, particularly from China, is not the big, bad wolf as elements of society in Australia have been conditioned to believe. Figures at every juncture clearly demonstrate that fact.
Rather, an overwhelming consensus of politicians, economists and experts agree that foreign investment in real estate is required in order to not only achieve economic growth and increase housing supply, but establish partnership with China, and Asia toward a more fluid global marketplace.
With the world and Australia heading in a globalized direction, Rodgers looked forward to a time where the lines between local and foreign are blurred.
"Australians going to Asia, people from Beijing coming to Sydney, people in Australia going to work in Singapore, this mobility will challenge our ideas about what it is to be local and foreign," Rodgers said.
"In the future, I don't think current analyses are fully going to capture the complexity of where the globalisation of real estate is going."
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