Madam Speaker, I appreciated the information given us by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry on how the present legislation works. At last the Minister of Industry has announced that the legislation would be revised and that he wanted certain criteria, some important additional information, added.
The parliamentary secretary has clearly explained how applications are handled at the present time. There are some aspects that work very well, but there are others that relate to the new economic reality. For example, we are part of a global market, and each time we authorize a foreign country to invest here—one like China, which has a highly developed governmental approach—would it not be appropriate to be able to go and evaluate how the workers in these companies in China or wherever are treated, what kind of work they do, what their working conditions are, what the environmental conditions are like? Aspects like that are not hindrances to foreign investment, but they do specify the rules within which we are prepared to operate.
I must admit that I am somewhat surprised about something, and I will ask the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry about it. Has he just said that the minister has given up on his wish to review the legislation and has decided to operate under the current law, because the Minmetals business has quietened down? But are there not other situations where proactive action would be required, and do we not need to act now to come up with a new legislative framework for new investments?