Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I appreciate that a number of views have been expressed on this matter. Indeed, Professor Williams was in a meeting that I was engaged in on these issues and has been in a number of meetings with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. In terms of the measures within the bill which fall under the external affairs power, what the bill does is to expressly link the discretionary powers of the minister to the management of Australia's foreign relations and therefore to the foreign relations aspect of the external affairs power in the Constitution. Those discussions with Professor Williams included discussions around the concurrent power in the Constitution, which indicates that the Commonwealth doesn't have exclusive responsibility for external affairs, but only the Commonwealth can set foreign policy on behalf of Australia—although acknowledging, as this bill does, that both the Commonwealth and the states can legislate with respect to external affairs and states and territories can, for example, as we are contemplating in this conversation, enter into relationships with foreign countries.