How will the new Foreign Relations Act affect government and business contracts?

In a time of heightened focus by countries across the globe on national interests, including national security and certainty of supply - and in the midst of a global pandemic - the Australia's Foreign Relations (State and Territory Arrangements) Act 2020 (Cth) (Act), and its associated Australia's Foreign Relations (State and Territory Arrangements) Rules 2020 (Rules), commenced on 10 December 2020.

The new Act and Rules follow other recent initiatives by the Australian Government that prioritise the national interest, including:

• changes made to the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) legislation to introduce a new national security test;
  
  
• proposed changes to the Security of Critical Infrastructure Act 2018 (Cth) and notably a proposed expansion of 'critical infrastructure' to include education and research, health, telecommunications, data and cloud services, financial services, energy and utilities, food, defence and space; and