JoseMourinho
Not A Manager
How can you possibly check if 83% is actually owned by foreign investors? Most of the investors in the market are on behalf of banks so how do you know which client of said bank is Australian or not?Strange comment. The Howard government is ranked as the highest spending government in the history of Australia as we know it.
Your portofolio almost certainly benefits from high givernment spending which stimulates the economy.
Why do you prefer australian assets in foreign hands?
Like our so called energy and mining sectors which are 83% foreign owned. Mainly in the hands of US corporations which control about 60%.
Australian banks for exMple are not foreign controlled and are amongst the most regulated in the world, and yet they are AAA rated and weathered the 2008 GFC very well. In fact they directly benefited from the crash becuase overseas investors flooded to australia to park their deposits in save Australian banks.
Hose, all is not what is seems in this australian economy
Actually, if you take a look at the top 5 shareholders for all of the big 4. You notice a common theme, HSBC, Citigroup and two other international banks! They're effectively under control of those 4 banks because those banks provide managed funds or portfolio management for overseas customers. (Hence, more foreign ownership). I might alarm you with your "foreign investors, scary" motto but this is the main point.
Australia's banks suffered a bit from the GFC, Commonwealth Bank issued a share purchase plan in 2009 and it was not fully subscribed because the market did not believe that it would weather the GFC. The Banks were trading at record low prices on the Share Market. Despite the Banks being rock solid, they weren't rated at all by the market. Infact, Most of the Big 4 were half their current share price.
The main reason why they suffered was because their share portfolio/loans they issued etc. were being written off or devalued because of the GFC. The only reason why they didn't go into a freefall was because Kevin Rudd told them that they would be bailed out.
The main reason why investors wanted money in Australian cash products was the fact that the Australian Dollar was strengthening because of the mining boom in regards to Iron Ore. The banks benefited from this through the higher dollar but lost money from currency exposure. (Also Australia's interest rates were 2.5% which was far higher than anyone else at the time.)
Woodside, BHP and other blue-chip commodity companies would be attractive to investors who do not have that exposure in their domestic market or wish to seek international exposure. Australia's Market is only 2% of the total market in the world (Let that sink in for a moment...). Lets say I'm an investor in China and want to invest into Iron Ore outside of China. Either I could invest in an Exchange Traded Fund or a Managed Fund which would allow a bank/portfolio manager to invest in BHP for me. Or I could invest directly using a international broker to trade in BHP.
It is a well-known myth that government spending stimulates the economy because for the government to have money, it would need to take away money from the economy in the first place. Also, the stimulus would be only a short-term effect hoping that a long-term effect would take over (hence the Mining boom was very strong). Not to mention, it is well-known that government spending is more inefficient than the private sector (one example - the NBN).
TL;DR - You have no clue what you're talking about and just spousing xenophobic crap.