AUKUS law rings alarm bells at defence firms, universities

Defence contractors and universities in Australia have sounded the alarm on key AUKUS legislation, warning that new controls on military technology will hamper their ability to sell products to, or collaborate with, researchers outside the United States and United Kingdom, writes Andrew Tillett for the Australian Financial Review.

The bill is being considered by parliament’s influential intelligence and security committee now. The Group of Eight universities submission said that while the group strongly supported the intent of the legislation, a better definition was needed for “fundamental research”, which is intended to give researchers an exemption from the new regime.

“It will be unclear to researchers whether their results may be restricted for national security reasons, and therefore trigger the non-applicability of the ‘fundamental research’ exemption,” the submission said. “This could result in researchers declining to collaborate due to concerns that their work may not be captured by the exemption and therefore requiring permits.”
Full report on the Australian Financial Review site