Foreigners Buying Australia Homes Need Closer Watch, MP Says

Australia needs to better enforce restrictions on foreign investment in housing, a lawmaker chairing a parliamentary committee on the issue said, amid concern overseas buyers are stoking a bubble.

The Foreign Investment Review Board, or FIRB, which oversees rules governing such property purchases, “has demonstrated that they have not been doing their job in that regard,” Kelly O’Dwyer, chairwoman of the House Economics Committee, said at the Bloomberg Summit in Sydney today.