Export control and sanctions compliance

Every person located in Australia, whether an Australian national or not, is subject to Australia’s export control laws. Some export controls also apply to Australian citizens and residents overseas.

Export controls apply to you when you are undertaking a controlled activity or using controlled goods and/or technology listed on the Defence and Strategic Goods List (DSGL) with foreign involvement (see Useful Links below to access the DSGL, along with a search guide).

Export controls also apply to you when there is foreign involvement in undertaking a controlled activity with any goods and/or technology that may be for a prejudicial military end-use, or that might be utilised in a weapons of mass destruction program.

* When the Defence Trade Controls Act 2023 amendments (due to AUKUS) are passed by parliament and signed into law, they will include restrictions to DSGL technology available to foreign nationals within Australia, unless there is a permit or an exemption.

The Defence Trade Controls Amendment Act 2024 legislation came into effect on the 1st September, 2024, with offences commencing on the 1st March, 2025.

The Act amends Australia’s defence export control framework by creating 3 new criminal offences in the Defence Trade Controls Act 2012 for the:

1. supply of Defence and Strategic Goods List (DSGL) technology to a non‑exempt foreign person within Australia (section 10A)

2. supply of goods and technology on Part 1 (Munitions) and Part 2 (Dual Use) ‘Sensitive’ and ‘Very Sensitive’ Lists of the DSGL, that was previously exported or supplied from Australia (section 10B)

3. provision of DSGL services related to Part 1 of the DSGL to foreign nationals outside of Australia (section 10C).

The new offences intend two primary effects. Firstly, they would expand the scope of export-control regulation to include foreign persons within Australia and secondly include re-exports to third countries of previously transferred technologies, and services related to the DSGL.

A key element of the Act is that it will provide a national exemption to the United Kingdom and the United States from Australia’s export control permit requirements under the Defence Trade Controls Act 2012. Other key exemptions under the Act are:

1. An Australian or dual-Australian citizen.

2. A person who holds a covered security clearance issued by the governments of Australia, the UK, the US, Canada or New Zealand.

3. Fundamental Research: Basic and applied research where the resulting information is ordinarily published and shared broadly within the scientific community. Research where the intellectual property (IP) is being protected for commercialisation purposes

is not exempt. Additional clarification on the relationship between the fundamental research exemption and the DSGL is provided as in the Appendix.

4. There is a subset of the DSGL referred to as the Excluded Technologies List, items on this list are not exempt from a permit, even if the recipient is a citizen on the Foreign Country List (FCL), see below.

5. FCL: Foreign employees who are citizens or permanent residents of a foreign country specified in the FCL (https://www.legislation.gov.au/F2024L01019/asmade/text). The FCL was recently updated and now contains 31 countries (up from 25), but still has notable omissions, including many strategically important countries and research collaborators across the Indo-Pacific, such as China, Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam, and Malaysia. The Act however does provide the Minister the authority to add countries where such additions are in the interests of Australia’s national security, economic prosperity or international relations.

6. Build-to-print: where a component of DSGL goods or technology, where the component built would not enable the Australian entity to reverse engineer and then make the DSGL goods or technology.