Australia's Foreign Relations (State and Territory Arrangements) Amendment Bill 2026
Ms CLUTTERHAM (Sturt) (12:43): I rise today to speak in support of Australia's Foreign Relations (State and Territory Arrangements) Amendment Bill 2026. This bill speaks to Australia's international engagement. Australia has always prioritised international engagement: the building of relationships and fostering partnerships and cooperation; the active participation in regional and global affairs to seek to shape direction and uphold international order; and the prosecution of diplomatic, economic and security interactions to the benefit of national interest.
International engagement matters. It is critical for addressing regional challenges, promoting peace and maintaining regional and global stability. Addressing common global challenges like climate change, security threats, energy security, economic inequality and economic prosperity will only ever be meaningful when states engage internationally to build alliances, influence norms and contribute to the balance of power within the international system.
Australia's international engagement is far-reaching, strategic and effective. Australia's international engagement is directed at maintaining peace, stability and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region at the same time as ensuring Australians remain safe, free and secure in the face of growing terrorism and other security threats. Australia's international engagement is also directed at maximising opportunities for Australian businesses by investing in strategies to ensure markets remain open, trade and investment happens, and capital flows into the country.
Australia's international engagement is also directed at supporting the rules based order to shore up the foundations for stability and prosperity so that global and regional challenges can be met in collaboration with our friends, our partners and our allies at the same time as focusing on Australia's sovereign capability and power. This bill acknowledges the many benefits Australia has enjoyed from its international engagement and remains absolutely consistent with and reflective of Australia's national interests.
In 2020, Australia introduced the Foreign Arrangements Scheme, which is dedicated to ensuring that arrangements between state or territory governments and their entities and foreign entities do not adversely affect Australia's foreign relations and are not inconsistent with Australia's foreign policy. This scheme creates an approval process for what are called 'core foreign arrangements' and a notification process for what are called 'non-core foreign arrangements'.
A core foreign arrangement is an arrangement between a core state or territory entity and a core foreign entity. A non-core foreign arrangement is an arrangement between a core state or territory entity and a non-core foreign entity, a non-core state or territory entity and a core foreign entity, or a non-core state or territory entity and a non-core foreign entity.
What does that actually mean? A core state or territory entity means states and territories themselves and state and territory governments, departments and agencies. A non-core state or territory entity includes local government and Australian public universities.
If we're talking about Australian public universities, the Foreign Arrangements Scheme operates to require notification of a proposal to enter into foreign arrangements, with the minister receiving that notification and having the power to make a declaration prohibiting the entity from negotiating or entering into that non-core arrangement if the minister is satisfied that the negotiation or arrangement would adversely affect or be likely to adversely affect Australia's foreign relations or if it would likely be inconsistent with Australia's foreign policy.
Demonstrating the breadth of Australia's international engagement, since 2020, over 22,000 notifications have been received. As well as demonstrating the breadth of our international engagement, this also demonstrates the importance of maintaining appropriate oversight of these arrangements. Managing risk at the same time as advancing partnerships that are beneficial to Australia is the name of the game.
Through this lens, in 2024, the Albanese Labor government commissioned a review of the Foreign Arrangements Scheme, which was led by Ms Rosemary Huxtable. The point of this was to ensure that agreements with foreign countries are consistent with Australia's national interests and also to better equip Australian subnational governments and public universities to manage risk and benefit from opportunities.
It was a holistic review of what could go wrong, as well as what could go right. Five themes arose from this review, resulting in 23 recommendations, all of which were accepted by the government. Firstly, the recommendations focused on how to best strengthen the capacity of the scheme to consider the national interest and how to improve governance and data sharing and provide more coordinated support to entities affected by the scheme.
Secondly, they considered how to effectively regulate risk by reducing the number of low-risk arrangements notified to the scheme by exempting certain arrangements, and to reform the scheme processes to more strongly focus on high-risk arrangements. Thirdly, the recommendations looked at the legislative settings following the then four years of scheme operation, and determined that refreshing key concepts of the foreign relations act to improve flexibility and administrative efficiency through greater use of delegations.
Fourthly, administrative efficiencies were identified. Fifthly, the recommendations identified a need to increase transparency by improving visibility of scheme data to affected entities, and to enhance the public register as a single source of truth and an authoritative source of current arrangements. This bill responds to the review's findings and implements a number of those recommendations that were made by Ms Huxtable.
Drawing on those recommendations, this bill aims to increase the focus on Australia's national interests by improving risk management tools, and to reduce the administrative burden for low-risk arrangements. In the international engagement space the government needs to regulate, to facilitate and to proportionately manage risk, not regulate to paralyse. This bill strikes the balance in several ways.
It strengthens the scheme by directly referring to and acknowledging the national interest, refocusing the act and ensuring the holistic consideration of decisions from different perspectives, including security, economic and foreign policy. It also introduces a disclosure framework to facilitate the sharing of information collected through notifications made under the foreign relations act to the Australian government and other prescribed entities, supporting coordinated whole-of-government decision-making.
Importantly, the bill also extends the foreign relations act to include overseas campuses of Australian universities—which we know are becoming more common, particularly in the Middle East and Asia—with a clear and present opportunity for further expansion onto the African continent. Timeframes for the consideration of core foreign arrangements, which are those entered into by states and territories, state and territory governments, departments and agencies have been extended by an additional 30 days to allow a deeper and more considered review of what are becoming increasingly complex arrangements, and considering these against the national interest.
With respect to streamlining the scheme, the bill does this in a number of ways. It introduces a one-step notification for non-core foreign arrangements. It also amends the notification requirements for renewals and variations of core foreign arrangements to ensure ministerial approval is not required for previously approved core foreign arrangements if the variation in question is minor.
It also allows the minister to deem certain core Australian state or territory entities, foreign entities and arrangements are non-core, meaning they fall into the category of notification, not approval. Although this bill does simplify the Foreign Arrangement Scheme, it does so without compromising effective oversight and without paralysing Australia's international engagement, so that it can continue to deliver strategic and economic benefits to our country, always in the national interest.
One of Australia's great public research universities is Adelaide University, which was formed by the public merger of the University of Adelaide and University of South Australia operating as a government supported institution established under South Australian state legislation. It began operations on 1 January this year and it welcomed its first students a couple of months later.
Adelaide University is well on its way to realising its vision of being a leading, contemporary, comprehensive university of global standing. It's dedicated to ensuring the prosperity, wellbeing and cohesion of society by addressing educational inequality through both the actions of the university and the success and impact of its students and its alumni. It has a deliberate strategy to partner with the community and partner with industry so it can achieve the goal of conducting outstanding future-making research of scale and focus.
By 2034, the new Adelaide University is forecast to contribute an estimated additional $500 million a year to the South Australian economy and educate more than 70,000 students. This is about 13,000 more than the existing two universities were educating. It will also create an additional 1,200 jobs.
A globally competitive university that is sustainably positioned in the top-100 universities in the world will not only be able to provide high-quality teaching to students of all economic backgrounds but will be able to secure a greater share of funding for high-quality research and to work actively and meaningfully with local business and industry. This merger, this creation of Adelaide University, a public university, is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for the state of South Australia.
It'll be the largest educator of domestic students in Australia and will have the scale and resources to be sustainably positioned in the top100 in the world. Indeed, in June this year, Adelaide University moved up the world university rankings, reaching 79th position, firmly cementing it as a global top-100 university. In Australia, it was ranked eighth out of the other 36 tertiary institutions on the list and second for its international research network.
Its focus on targeted innovation and research and development is right. It's the key to unlocking further economic growth and prosperity, not just for South Australia but for the entire country and beyond. To be placed in the top 100 universities in the world and second in Australia for international research networks is not only an outstanding achievement but one that will enable the Adelaide University to attract more research investment for the state of South Australia.
As the new Adelaide University's vision has articulated so clearly, collaborative efforts between academia, industry and government agencies are crucial for pushing the boundaries of research and development. Collaborative research and development initiatives enable the sharing of knowledge, resources and expertise, leading to more robust and innovative outcomes.
Well-funded and targeted research and development leads to improvements in social welfare, quality of life, environmental sustainability, economic growth and job creation, and national security. Research and development must remain as a central pillar of our national economic and innovation strategies and, like this bill, it is in Australia's national interest.
I commend the bill to the chamber.