It has been revealed that at least a dozen Australian bidders expressed interest in buying Queensland’s Cubbie Station but were rejected.

The property is Australia’s largest cotton farm and the biggest irrigation operation in the southern hemisphere.

Last month the Federal Government approved the sale of Cubbie Group to Chinese-led investors on the advice of the Foreign Investment Review Board.

PM has now been told that since the sale was approved, at least a dozen parties have come forward with rival offers.

Some of those were local businesses offering more money, but PM has been told those bids were rejected by the station’s administrator.

Lawyer James Loell, who represents an Australian investor who wanted to buy Cubbie Station, has told PM about a conversation he had with Lachlan Edwards of Goldman Sachs, who is negotiating the sale for the administrator.

“Lachlan Edwards rang me and I stated my business, told him I had a purchaser, a client who was extremely interested in purchasing Cubbie Station,” he said.

“His words to me were to the effect that it was too late, they were in the final stages of negotiating a deal with the same parties that the Treasurer had recently announced, he’d given FIRB approval to.

“I said are you sure it’s too late, and he said look, this has been going on for a long time.

“We’ve got to take the bird in the hand and they are the bird in the hand.”

Mr Loell says Mr Edwards told him he had had at least 12 approaches from different parties with similar interests.

“I wouldn’t use the word necessarily ‘bids’, but parties similar to my client with an interest in owning the property. At least a dozen of them had approached him,” he said.

‘Bloody disgrace’

Three years ago, Cubbie Station was placed in administration with debts of around $300 million.

If the Cubbie Station sale goes ahead, the 93,000-hectare property will initially be 80 per cent owned by RuYi, a textile manufacturer owned by a consortium of Chinese and Japanese investors.

As part of the sale conditions, the company will sell down its stake to 51 per cent within three years.

Queensland National Party senator Barnaby Joyce has branded the decision to sell Cubbie Station to foreign investors “a bloody disgrace”.

He is calling on the administrators to re-open the sale’s process.

“The administrators’ role is to make sure that they do the best job for the National Australia Bank, and the National Australia Bank’s role is to make sure they get the best return back for their shareholders,” he said.

“And you can only get the best return if you’re absolutely certain there wasn’t a better return out there in the marketplace.

“Now, if there are another 12 bids, there are 12 things that is encumbered upon both the receivers and the National Australia Bank to properly investigate.”

Critics

Critics have labelled Senator Joyce’s stance xenophobic, but he denies there are racist undertones to his position.

“I completely and utterly reject that. It is always so easy to basically impute a character with a taunt of a xenophobe. It stands in proxy for a dedicated and discerning argument,” he said.

Cubbie’s administrator, John Cronin of McGrathNichol, did not return return the ABC’s calls.

A spokesman from a public relations firm hired by the administrator said the sales process was not yet finalised.

But he would not comment on whether rival parties offering more money had now come forward.

There is a case to say that ditching the Chinese-led consortium’s bid now could undermine Australia’s reputation as a country open to foreign investment.

But there is also little doubt that many would like to see Cubbie Station, and its vast water resources, remain in Australian hands.