{"id":65898,"date":"2021-07-22T06:00:39","date_gmt":"2021-07-21T20:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=65898"},"modified":"2021-07-21T16:50:40","modified_gmt":"2021-07-21T06:50:40","slug":"making-australias-foreign-influence-laws-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/making-australias-foreign-influence-laws-work\/","title":{"rendered":"Making Australia\u2019s foreign influence laws work"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

Last week it emerged that the Western Australian government, in an apparent attempt to appease the Chinese Communist Party, had given itself the right<\/a> to stop people from hiring certain public venues if they identify \u2018with countries whose political status is unclear or in dispute\u2019.<\/p>\n

How effective are Australia\u2019s legal defences against foreign governments\u2019 exertions of influence in this country?<\/p>\n

In 2018, the Turnbull government legislated the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme Act 2018<\/em> (FITS Act). The consequence: those who engage in influence activity (such as lobbying or other political communications) must disclose the details where it\u2019s on behalf of a \u2018foreign government related entity\u2019. Particulars appear on a public register.<\/p>\n

Two years later, the Morrison government introduced the Australia\u2019s Foreign Relations (State and Territory Arrangements) Act 2020<\/em> (Foreign Relations Act). Under that act, agreements of state and local government bodies with foreign governments are publicly registered. The federal government can terminate them if they\u2019re inconsistent with Australian foreign policy.<\/p>\n

There appears to be no Western Australian arrangement on the public register that would explain the Perth Theatre Trust\u2019s unusual preoccupation with geopolitics.<\/p>\n

Whatever the reasons for that, these two acts constitute the Australian government\u2019s legislative response to foreign influence. The laws are, of course, the product of Canberra\u2019s collective executive and parliamentary processes. Prime ministers Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison were very wise to establish this framework. Under their leadership, Australia set an example that\u2019s now being emulated in the UK<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As Turnbull and Morrison recognised, we need these laws, and we need them to work.<\/p>\n

And when it comes to legislation designed to defend our national sovereignty, we should always be prepared to acknowledge any failings frankly, and make the necessary amendments. Now that Australia\u2019s foreign influence laws are in place, there\u2019s an opportunity\u2014and an urgent need\u2014to strengthen them so that they work as intended.<\/p>\n

In my new report<\/a>, published by ASPI today, I argue that Australia\u2019s statutory response to foreign governments\u2019 influence efforts suffers from a serious weakness. Its name is country agnosticism. Under that precept, the laws treat all foreign influence activities, no matter what their country of origin, the same way.<\/p>\n

The FITS Act regulates communications on behalf of British and Chinese entities alike. The Foreign Relations Act burdens a local council that enters a sister-city relationship with Honolulu much the same as it burdens a state government that enters a Belt and Road agreement with the Chinese government.<\/p>\n

With country agnosticism, we took a wrong turn. It has imposed sweeping, unnecessary regulatory costs. It has caused waste of taxpayer-funded enforcement resources. It has diverted those resources from the issues that really matter. It has brought unnecessary legal complexity. And, as a consequence of all this, it has produced a legal framework that\u2019s sporadically obeyed and half-heartedly enforced.<\/p>\n

Yet for all that, nobody believes that these laws are truly country agnostic. Not the Australian media, which routinely<\/a> describe<\/a> the laws<\/a> as \u2018aimed at\u2019 China. Nor, presumably, the media\u2019s audience. Nor, certainly, the Chinese Communist Party, which regards itself as the target, explicitly citing<\/a> the laws as a key grievance. So, if country agnosticism was meant to avoid giving anyone the impression that the laws are China-focused, then it has failed.<\/p>\n

Country agnosticism is a shrivelled fig leaf in a diplomats\u2019 parlour game. And the game is expensive. Its costs are paid by the Australians who must adhere to the laws and finance their enforcement. Those taxpayers pay the premiums for country agnosticism, and are rewarded with a $25\u00a0billion CCP trade war<\/a>. Country agnosticism is an insurance policy that doesn\u2019t insure anything.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the greatest cost of country agnosticism is that the statutory framework isn\u2019t as effective as it needs to be. Why? In adopting a country-agnostic stance, we wilfully blinded ourselves to the very factor that matters most in evaluating and responding to foreign influence\u2014its source country.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s time to remove the blindfold. We should recognise this basic truth: foreign influence regulation must be more stringent in relation to some source countries than others.<\/p>\n

Greater stringency is needed where the source is a jurisdiction in which the ruling party\u2019s control permeates the entire society, allowing it to exert power through public and \u2018private\u2019 entities alike. Our laws won\u2019t illuminate that kind of authoritarian government\u2019s influence in Australia unless they apply to a broad range of conduct and entities. If they cover only what Australians usually understand as government entities\u2014state-owned enterprises, for instance\u2014then they\u2019ll largely miss their mark. And they\u2019ll do so precisely when it\u2019s most important to hit the target; the influence efforts of authoritarian regimes are the very efforts that are most likely to do fundamental damage to our national sovereignty and security.<\/p>\n

Conversely, when we cast the legal net as wide in relation to liberal democracies as we must over their authoritarian counterparts, we wind up regulating a lot of activity that doesn\u2019t have a foreign government as its ultimate puppetmaster.<\/p>\n

When it comes to certain countries, in other words, the regulatory and administrative costs of stringent transparency requirements are worth it; in other cases, they aren\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Because foreign influence is permitted on the proviso that its governmental source is transparent, everything rides on how effectively that proviso is put into practice. To bring a democratic government\u2019s influence efforts out of the shadows, only minimal regulation is needed, but the same can\u2019t be said of authoritarian jurisdictions where the tentacles of official power extend further. That contrast between foreign political systems is obvious, yet it\u2019s the very thing that country agnosticism insists we ignore.<\/p>\n

Accordingly, Australia\u2019s foreign influence laws should be amended to adopt a \u2018tiered model\u2019, under which conduct originating in certain \u2018designated countries\u2019 would be subject to greater regulation than activity from other sources. The ministers responsible for our foreign influence laws should be empowered to designate the source countries that warrant greater transparency. Designation would be based primarily upon an assessment of the foreign state\u2019s political system\u2014in particular, the degree to which the foreign government controls ostensibly \u2018private\u2019 entities and deploys them to advance its national security goals.<\/p>\n

Another relevant factor would be the foreign government\u2019s track record of attempting to influence Australians for unwelcome purposes.<\/p>\n

Those purposes may or may not include the silencing of Tibetan or Taiwanese voices at Australian taxpayer-owned venues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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