Choices: Joe Hockey. Photo: Glenn Hunt Once a month, the members of the secretive Foreign Investment Review Board gather at the Reserve Bank's oak-panelled boardroom in Sydney's Martin Place. On the agenda are sensitive proposals for foreign investment in Australian companies, farms and real estate - some of them highly contentious. The board includes two seasoned merchant bankers, a professional company director, a former head of the Tax Office, and a senior Treasury official. It spends hours debating big takeover and merger applications. On these matters, it is the Treasurer's privy council; it is this board that advises the Treasurer on whether to approve or block foreign acquisitions....
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