The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
The change from External to Foreign reflected a new sense of Australia’s place in the world: the nation with its own continent was growing up. DFAT negotiates and implements free trade agreements (FTAs) for the benefit of Australian businesses. These agreements create opportunities to access overseas markets and improve Australia’s competitiveness.
Missions and Consulates
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade manages a network of more than 90 overseas posts, including embassies, high commissions and consulates-general. These posts are responsible for advancing Australia’s national interests in their host countries or regions, undertaking diplomacy activities and providing consular services to Australian citizens.
Each mission has a unique character, reflecting the culture of its home country and the individual personality of its staff. This is reflected in the design of each building, which is a significant feature of Canberra’s diplomatic precinct.
The Strategy, Governance and Change Unit supports the formulation of Departmental strategic processes to ensure effective implementation of the Department’s high-level goals. This includes support for the Management Board and its various sub-committees. It also leads the Department’s business planning, risk management and performance reporting systems and the implementation of the public sector reform agenda.
The Consulate-General in Kolkata provides consular assistance to Australian citizens in the eastern Indian states of West Bengal, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura. It also handles passport services for these states and the eastern Indian state of Assam.
International Aid
International aid saves lives and livelihoods and helps reconstruct communities debilitated by war or natural disasters. It is a critical element of global solidarity across borders, races, religions and cultures and contributes to a more equitable society. The government’s commitment to international development is at the heart of its foreign policy.
The government’s development programs are subject to intense public scrutiny. This is in part because of the prevalence of televised news reports that have brought the despair of global economic crises into Australian homes. This has heightened community understandings of the causes of global poverty, and interest in Australia’s role in alleviating it.
Although Australia has long maintained a high level of public support for the principle of overseas development assistance, opinion on how it is spent has become more mixed. Repeated calls have been made for the government to increase its ODA investment and more explicitly align it with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs); to ensure that it uses new models of private sector engagement; to improve transparency in the way that ODA is allocated, and to reinstate the aid ‘blue book’.
NGOs such as Doctors for the Environment Australia, Save the Children and The Fred Hollows Foundation have been active in the field of public advocacy and policy. They are concerned about the impact of budget cuts on aid. They call for a comprehensive development strategy that encapsulates the SDGs; increased funding for health-related ODA and an increased focus on gender equality and climate reparations.
Trade
The portfolio’s departments and agencies (including DFAT, Austrade, Export Finance Australia, Tourism Australia and the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research) work to ensure Australia is a great place for business to do its best. This is built on strong institutions, world-class innovation, and a competitive and open economy. Australia’s strategic location, favorable time zone and highly educated workforce makes it an ideal place for businesses to connect with markets around the globe.
The Department is a leader in developing trade agreements that support our global competitiveness and strengthen the multilateral trading system. We have a range of free trade agreement (FTA) commitments either in force or under negotiation with countries across the world. These include sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) arrangements, non-tariff measures, agriculture market access, and more.
On 5 July 2020, the Australia-United Kingdom FTA (A-UKFTA) entered into force. As a result, farmers in northern Australia will have increased access to the UK market through expanded tariff quotas on live cattle and some other agricultural products, and the cost of importing certain goods from the United Kingdom will reduce. The A-UKFTA also includes modern investment provisions and maintains the right of both parties to regulate in the public interest, including for health, education and the environment.
Assistant Secretary Pyatt will visit Australia March 3-9. He will engage with global leaders in mining and clean energy, including visits to companies driving innovations in critical mineral supply chains and the development of renewable and low-carbon technologies.
Security
The department supports the work of Australia’s diplomats and consular staff around the world. It also takes seriously its obligations to protect Australian missions and consular posts and their staff under the Vienna Conventions on Diplomatic and Consular Relations, which are enacted into Australian law by the Diplomatic Privileges Act 1967 and the Consular Privileges Act 1972.
The government invested $70 million in the 2020-21 Budget to extend the International Freight Assistance Mechanism (IFAM) until 30 June 2021. This temporary emergency initiative enabled a number of important international supply chain activities to continue, including the delivery of fresh Australian food to overseas markets and maintaining hard-won market share for our agriculture sector, despite major disruptions to air freight and logistics services caused by travel and social distancing restrictions.
Defence actively collaborates with Australian universities and industry to develop cutting-edge technologies that can be transitioned into Defence capability. These partnerships are managed using a Defence University Research Capability Framework, which includes the DRICS framework to assess security risks.
DFAT is committed to a culture of honesty and transparency. The ANAO found that the department regularly reports on fraud incidents and is transparent about its internal control arrangements. The department also takes steps to ensure staff compliance with mandatory training and has a comprehensive whistleblower system in place.
