Australia's Foreign Relations (State and Territory Arrangements) Amendment Bill 2026

Ms AMBIHAIPAHAR (Barton) (15:59): I rise to speak on the Australia's Foreign Relations (State and Territory Arrangements) Amendment Bill 2026. At its core, this bill is about something that is both incredibly important and increasingly complex: how Australia engages with the rest of the world. Australia's international relationships are not conducted only in Canberra.

They are built in our universities and research institutions. They are built through trade and investment. They are built through cultural exchanges, sporting relationships and education.

They are built by local governments, state governments and public universities, working with partners overseas. They are built every day by Australians themselves—and that is particularly true in a place like Barton. When I think about my electorate, I don't see international relations as something that exists somewhere far away from the people I represent.

I see it in Hurstville; I see it in Kingsgrove, Roselands, Bexley and Rockdale. I see it in the businesses that trade with people from overseas. I see it in the students whose families have come from every corner of the world.

I see it in the community organisations celebrating Lunar New Year, Diwali, Eid, Christmas, and cultural festivals from across the globe. I see it also in the countless families in Barton whose connections extend across borders. Our multiculturalism is one of Australia's greatest strengths.

It's a strength economically, it's a strength socially and it's a strength diplomatically. The relationships Australians maintain with their countries of heritage can help build understanding and connection between Australia and the wider world. For me, this is not an academic suggestion.

I grew up in a multicultural community in southern Sydney. I grew up around my Sri Lankan family and Maltese and Italian families and many others. I know what it means to have family connections that stretch across countries and cultures.

I know that those connections do not weaken our Australian identity; they strengthen it. That is why, when we talk about foreign engagement, we should be careful not to confuse openness with naivety. Australia should be open to the world, but we should also be clear-eyed about our national interest.

We should also welcome international partnerships that create jobs, support research, strengthen our communities and expand opportunity. At the same time, we need appropriate safeguards for when an arrangement could create risks for Australia's foreign relations or security or our broader national interest. That balance is what this bill is about.

We are living through a period of significant global challenge and contest, and the international environment is more complex than it was when the Foreign Arrangements Scheme was introduced in 2020. Strategic competition has intensified. Technology has changed the way countries and institutions interact.

Economic relationships can have strategic consequences. Universities and research institutions operate across borders. Governments at every level increasingly engage internationally.

In that environment, we need a framework that is capable of recognising both the opportunities and the risks. The Foreign Arrangements Scheme was introduced in 2020 to provide visibility and oversight of arrangements entered into by state and territory governments, local governments and public universities with foreign entities. The purpose was straightforward.

Australia can have many governments and many institutions engaging internationally, but we must have one coherent national foreign policy. That's an important principle, and it's a principle that has become particularly relevant over the recent years. When an Australian state or territory government enters into an arrangement with a foreign government, it can have implications that extend well beyond that state or territory.

That is why there needs to be a national framework. It is not about preventing states, territories or local governments from engaging internationally; it's about making sure that engagement happens consistent with Australia's national interest. Indeed, this is where I think the reforms before us get that balance right.

The government commissioned an independent review of the Foreign Arrangements Scheme in 2024, led by Rosemary Huxtable AO, PSM, and the review consulted widely across federal, state, territory and local governments, as well as Australian universities. The conclusion was not that the scheme was fundamentally broken—quite the opposite. The review found that the scheme was working but that it could be improved.

It needed to better target genuine risks. It needed clearer definitions. It needed to reduce unnecessary complexity.

And it needed to make compliance more proportionate. The government accepted all 23 recommendations of the review, either in full or in principle. This bill implements those recommendations that require legislative change, and that is good policy making.

We should not legislate simply for the sake of legislating; we should listen, we should understand reviews and we should identify what is working and what is not, and then we should improve the system. This is precisely what this bill does. The bill places national interest more clearly at the centre of decision-making, because Australia's national interest is broader than simply asking whether something technically affects our foreign relations.

Our national interest encompasses our security, our economic prosperity, our sovereign capability, our international standing, our research and education systems and the strength and resilience of our communities. The bill also strengthens risk management by allowing conditions to be imposed on arrangements. That is an important improvement, because regulation should not always be binary; it should not be a case of saying either 'yes' or 'no'.

Sometimes the appropriate response is to say 'yes, but with safeguards'. That is a much more sophisticated approach to regulation, and it reflects the reality of international engagement. We also need to recognise that not every international arrangement carries the same level of risk.

A local government cultural exchange with an overseas municipality should not necessarily be treated in the same way as a strategic arrangement involving critical infrastructure, sensitive research or a foreign government department. Good regulation should distinguish between those things, and that is why I welcome the bill's risk based approach. It reduces unnecessary approval and notification requirements for lower risk arrangements while strengthening oversight where the risks are greater.

That is not deregulation for its own sake. It is better regulation. It means that government can focus its attention and resources where they're actually needed.

This is particularly important for our public universities. Australian universities are some of our greatest international assets. They attract students from across the world.

They collaborate with researchers internationally, they contribute to scientific discovery, they build networks between countries and they support Australian jobs and economic activity. We should never lose sight of that. International education and research collaboration are not merely economic transactions.

They build relationships with people. A student who comes to Australia to study does not simply receive a qualification. They build friendships, they develop professional networks, they experience Australian society and they take those experiences back into the world.

That is soft power, that is diplomacy and that is part of Australia's national interest. The bill recognises this while also ensuring that contemporary forms of international engagement are appropriately captured, and that includes arrangements involving overseas campuses of Australian universities. The world has changed considerably since 2020, and our legislation needs to keep pace.

But there is another important part of this bill that I just want to acknowledge, and that is that it improves information sharing and whole-of-government coordination. We should not have different parts of government operating in silos when assessing arrangements that may have implications on our national interest. Foreign policy, trade, education, research and national security are increasingly interconnected.

A decision made in one part of government can have consequences elsewhere. Better information sharing means better decisions, and better decisions mean stronger protections for Australian interests. The bill also improves compliance arrangements.

Importantly, it introduces more proportionate mechanisms for dealing with inadvertent breaches. That is common sense. A regulatory framework should distinguish between deliberate attempts to circumvent the law and an honest mistake made in circumstances where the requirements were unclear.

Compliance should be taken seriously, but fairness and proportionality should be taken seriously too. The bill also seeks to make the public register more accurate, transparent and useful. That matters because transparency builds trust.

Australians should be able to understand what arrangements are being entered into and how those arrangements are being managed. But transparency also needs to be meaningful. A register that is technically comprehensive but difficult to understand is not particularly useful.

The reforms before us seek to make the system clearer and more usable, and that is a welcome improvement. As someone who has previously served in local government, particularly at Georges River Council, I also appreciate the practical importance of getting this right. Local governments are increasingly connected to the world.

Councils engage in sister city relationships. They participate in international cultural and economic exchanges. They host delegations.

They support multicultural communities. They build relationships that can create opportunities for local businesses, students and community organisations, and these activities can be incredibly valuable. But local councils should not be expected to navigate an unnecessarily complex Commonwealth regulatory framework for every low-risk international interaction.

The answer is not to shut the door; the answer is to have clear rules about when the Commonwealth needs to be involved. That is the balance this bill seeks to achieve and that balance is particularly relevant for my electorate of Barton. My electorate is one of the most culturally diverse communities in Australia.

People in Barton have family, cultural and educational and commercial connections across the globe. Local businesses in Barton are part of international supply chains. Students participate in an education system that attracts people from around the world, and community organisations in Barton maintain connections with diaspora communities and institutions overseas.

When international relationships work well, the benefits are felt locally. They can mean jobs. They can mean investment.

They can mean new research. They can mean educational opportunities. They can mean stronger cultural understanding.

But when international engagement is poorly managed, the consequences can also be felt locally. That's why we need a framework that is open to opportunity while protecting Australia's interests. I think that principle can be summed up quite simply: we should not build walls around Australia; we should build strong foundations for Australia's engagement with the world.

That means being confident in who we are. It means understanding that multiculturalism is Australia's strength. It means welcoming international students and researchers.

It means supporting Australian businesses to engage with the global market. It means maintaining strong relationships with our partners, and it also means having the national safeguards necessary to protect Australia's sovereignty, security and foreign policy. As Foreign Minister Wong has said, Australia's international partnerships are a source of real strength, and I really agree with that.

But partnerships are strongest when they are built on clarity, trust and an understanding of each other's interests. This bill gives us a clearer framework for achieving that. It modernises the Foreign Arrangements Scheme and places the national interest at the centre.

It strengthens risk management and improves coordination. It captures contemporary forms of international engagement and, more importantly, it reduces unnecessary administrative burden for lower risk arrangements, and that is sensible reform. It recognises that Australia's international engagement is not something to be feared; it is something to be managed wisely.

As the member for Barton, I represent, as I said, a very diverse community, a community that knows better than most of Australia we are part of a much bigger world. Our diversity is evidence of that. Our families are evidence of that.

Our businesses are evidence of that. Our universities are evidence of that, and our future is definitely that too. We should remain open to the world, but being open does not mean being careless, being confident does not mean being complacent, and protecting our national interests does not mean turning our back on international cooperation.

The challenge for governments is to hold those things together, and that is what responsible government does. This bill strikes that balance and it keeps Australia open to international engagement while ensuring that the engagement is consistent with our national interest. It strengthens the safeguards where the risks are real while removing unnecessary barriers where the risks are low.

It ensures that, as the international environment becomes more complex, Australia's framework for foreign arrangements remains fit for purpose. For those reasons, I support this bill.