Universities will be forced to “manage risks’’ to national security after the Albanese government caved in to Coalition demands to screen individual academic’s foreign research collaborations.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong introduced a last-gasp amendment to Australia’s Foreign Relations Amendment Bill on Thursday – a day after rejecting opposition proposals to tighten the legislation.
Research projects involving individual academics will now be covered by the government’s crackdown on foreign interference.
All Australian universities will be required, for the first time, to identify research projects conducted by researchers they employ or engage who are working with researchers “employed or engaged by foreign entities’’.
Universities must have policies and procedures to assess whether the research projects “adversely affect, or are likely to adversely affect, Australia’s national interest … or be inconsistent with Australia’s foreign policy’’.
“The Australian university must take reasonable steps to implement the policies and procedures,’’ the amendment states.
The legislation, passed by the Senate and House of Representatives on Thursday, gives Senator Wong stronger powers to intervene in risky research collaborations.
Universities will be required to list foreign research or financial deals with foreign countries, on the government’s Foreign Arrangements Register.
The Foreign Minister will be able to impose conditions on or veto any deals deemed to be a security risk.
Arrangements with Australia’s Five Eyes intelligence-sharing partners of the US, UK, New Zealand and Canada are exempt.
Senator Wong said universities must be “risk-aware’’ when dealing with foreign countries.
“I don’t think we’re saying that we’re not going to engage with the world,’’ she said on Thursday.
“What we have to have is risk-aware engagement and that’s the approach … we’re engaging with universities on.’’
Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Ted O’Brien welcomed the government’s amendment but said “the job is not yet done’’.
“It is good to see researcher-level collaborations now be brought into the scheme and I welcome the government’s recognition of the need to take this issue seriously,’’ he said. “The government should finish the job and close the loophole properly.
“While researcher-level collaborations fall within the foreign arrangements scheme, they can still take place without the government being notified.
“Recent cases involving Australian researchers collaborating with Iranian counterparts on drone-related technology and Chinese counterparts on sensitive dual-use technologies show why this matters.’’
Coalition foreign affairs spokesman Ted O’Brien has forced the federal government to tighten controls over university researchers working with foreign scientists. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman
The government did an about-face after the parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security, which inquired into the legislation, on Wednesday said researcher-to-researcher engagement was a “material risk’’ to national security.
The Labor-led committee said “it is imperative universities and academics need to exercise greater care preventing partnerships contrary to the national interest to avoid the need for further regulation that could cause unintended consequences’’.
Senator Wong said the Government “recognises concerns regarding researcher-to-researcher collaboration and will require universities to have appropriate policies and processes in place to identify, monitor and manage associated risks”.
“For the first time, universities will be legally required to assess whether research projects could adversely affect the national interest or be inconsistent with Australia’s foreign policy,’’ she said.
“The Albanese Government has been consistently clear that universities must play their role in managing risks and this reform will help ensure they do so.
“Australia is strongly committed to international education and research cooperation that is consistent with our foreign policy.
“These reforms will help keep Australia open to the world while appropriately managing risk and protecting our national interest.’’
Last week, Senator Wong pulled the plug on the Australian National University’s Joint Science College with Shandong University, which is associated with China’s nuclear weapons research.
She also torpedoed the University of Queensland’s taxpayer-funded research with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, involving pain relief using the toxin of a native stinging tree.
The Australian Research Council approved the $711,419 grant – which it has now suspended.
In its grant application, UQ researchers said they had “made a recent groundbreaking discovery” involving a new class of compounds in the venom of the giant Australian stinging tree.
“These venom-derived compounds alter how sodium channels operate in a completely new way, and we seek to understand this mechanism at the molecular level,’’ they stated.
“(The research) will provide new directions in development of new generations of pharmaceutical and agricultural agents.’’
Senator Wong on Thursday said both the UQ and ANU projects had been terminated “on the basis of advice, and I don’t propose to go through the nature of most of that advice for obvious reasons.’’
Federal Education Minister Jason Clare used his own veto powers to reject 13 ARC grants in May, on national security grounds.
