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

Mr TED O'BRIEN (Fairfax) (16:14): I'd just like to add some remarks in consideration in detail on this amendment. Firstly, I want to say thank you to the government for working constructively with the coalition on seeking an amendment to this foreign relations bill. Those who have been engaged with this process understand the importance of Australia's Foreign Arrangements Scheme and the fact that there is a loophole in that scheme.

The coalition, only a couple of days ago, sought to close that loophole by putting forward an amendment. Unfortunately, the government chose not to support that amendment. Nevertheless, they have worked constructively with us and they put forward what is now before the House by way of a separate amendment that does take a positive step towards dealing with the problem at hand.

The problem is this: where a public university in Australia engages with a foreign entity—a foreign university, let's say—it immediately triggers a statutory obligation to notify the Commonwealth that allows the Commonwealth's agencies to do an investigation into that proposed engagement, and ultimately empowers the minister to make a decision as to whether or not that engagement should continue.

The loophole is that a researcher of such university can independently engage with a foreign actor on the exact same research and the exact same topic, using the exact same skill sets and the exact same data, and it would not be notified to the Commonwealth. In other words, the obligation was there only if the university was party to the agreement. What we are seeking is to have that gap closed so the Foreign Arrangement Scheme places a statutory obligation on researchers and that researcher-level collaboration.

This amendment that the government is putting forward does not fully close that gap. I want to make that clear. On one hand, we welcome what has been a positive step, because what we see before the House through this amendment is that at least it now brings the researcher-level collaborations into the scheme; unfortunately, it just doesn't apply that statutory obligation.

I do, nevertheless, thank the Foreign Minister for engaging with us and taking a positive step forward. But I also make it crystal clear to the government that the job is not yet done, and we will continue to pressure the government, for we know even this amendment would not be here before us today unless we did pressure the government. In the interest of our national security, we will continue to do so until this job is fully done.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Ms Claydon ): The question is that the amendment be agreed to. Question agreed to.