Australia’s government can veto universities’ overseas partnerships on vague “national interest” grounds, and the secret service can conduct undisclosed investigations of university activities, under legislative changes that have been rushed through federal parliament.

The amendments to the Foreign Relations Act also extend the government’s veto powers not only to universities’ offshore activities, but also to “researcher-to researcher” collaborations organised without universities’ authorisation.

The legislation, introduced into parliament in early July, was one of 15 bills approved on 20 August before parliament rose for a fortnight. A week earlier, the Australian Greens had attempted to refer the amendments for scrutiny by a Senate committee, but the governing Labor Party and opposition coalition had combined to block the motion.

The bill has separately been investigated by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS), which consists only of Labor and coalition MPs. The PJCIS conducts policy reviews but, unlike Senate committees, it does not forensically examine legislation. Its attracted just 11 submissions and its sole public hearing lasted just .

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The PJCIS’ “” was tabled on 19 August in the House of Representatives, which passed the bill the same day. The report was tabled the following day in the Senate, which likewise approved the bill.

The report’s only significant criticism of the bill was that it did not cover foreign collaborations that had been organised at a “researcher-to-researcher level”, with no direct institutional involvement. The bill was subsequently amended to require universities to identify and disclose their staff’s independently organised research projects that could “adversely affect Australia’s national interest”.

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This change was proposed by shadow foreign affairs minister Ted O’Brien, who described the treatment of researcher-to-researcher collaborations as “a gaping hole. National security risk does not disappear because the paperwork has a researcher’s name on it instead of the employing university’s,” O’Brien told parliament.

Politicians ignored about 40 other amendments recommended in the submissions to the PJCIS. Chief among these – reflected in eight of the 11 submissions – was a demand for more clarity around “national interest”, which has replaced “foreign relations” as grounds for vetoing partnerships.

“The term ‘national interest’ isn’t defined in the act,” Southern Cross University research security expert Brendan Walker-Munro told ����Vlog. “It could literally be whatever the minister decides it to be. The university…has no appeal [or] review rights and [does not] get any reasons.”

Queensland University of Technology said the legislation should specify that “national interest” relates to “security, economic and foreign policy factors”, as indicated in the bill’s explanatory memorandum. Otherwise, future governments could axe “harmless arrangements” for “ideological” reasons – much as previous governments had vetoed humanities research grants on flimsy grounds.

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The PJCIS report brushed off these concerns. “Australia’s…strategic environment is characterised by increasingly complex interactions between economic resilience, critical technologies, foreign investment, research collaboration, international education, national security and foreign policy,” it says. “A decision-making framework focused solely on traditional concepts of foreign relations may not adequately capture the benefits and risks of foreign arrangements.”

The amendments also remove obligations on the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (Asio) to disclose the outcomes of its investigations of universities, or to have its advice subjected to judicial review. This is a “clear constitutional overreach” which could be struck down by the High Court, according to an anonymous submission to the PJCIS.

Walker-Munro said the significance of the changes should not be underestimated. “This is a really fundamental…power given to the foreign minister. That’s what worries me about the parliamentary committee not really delving into it, [and] the hearing only running for a couple of hours.

“It’s a good thing in terms of research security being on the agenda and our government kind of being agitated about it, but…I wonder if they gave this enough scrutiny. I don’t think a lot of people understand how wide-ranging these powers actually are.”

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john.ross@timeshighereducation.com