Tony Abbott has added himself to Australia’s register of foreign influence after the British government pressed ahead with his appointment to a trade position.
The former Australian prime minister registered his new role as an adviser to the UK Board of Trade – an appointment that attracted controversy in both countries – but wrote that he was not receiving any payment.
“The role is to advocate for free and fair trade especially trade with the UK and its allies,” Abbott said in the declaration, according to the public register.
Abbott had previously been asked to consider registering as an agent of foreign influence for speaking at a conference organised by the Hungarian government, at which he gave a controversial speech on migration and praised the country’s far-right prime minister, Viktor Orbán.
But the British role is the only current listing against Abbott’s name.
Australia introduced the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme (Fits) in 2018 along with a series of measures aimed at toughening up the country’s foreign interference and espionage laws.
The government says the scheme aims to provide the public with “visibility of the nature, level and extent of foreign influence on Australia’s government and politics”.
Abbott’s appointment comes at a time when Australia and post-Brexit Britain are negotiating a free trade agreement.
The British government officially confirmed Abbott’s appointment in early September, defying a barrage of criticism over accusations of misogynistic and homophobic comments, and his views on the climate emergency.
Boris Johnson defended the appointment by saying “I obviously don’t agree with those sentiments” but that “this is a guy who was elected by the great liberal democratic nation of Australia”.
The Australian Labor party last month called on the Morrison government to clarify how it would manage conflicts of interest “arising from Mr Abbott’s intimate knowledge of Australia’s trading interests and strategies, gained during his years as minister and prime minister”.
Rex Patrick, an independent senator from South Australia, last month called for Abbott to be forced to register as a foreign agent under Fits.
At the time the attorney general, Christian Porter, said Abbott would “no doubt be aware of the routine requirements for former cabinet ministers under the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme”.
“In the first instance, it is up to each individual to determine whether or not their circumstances meet the registration requirements,” Porter said then.
Documents previously released under freedom of information laws shed light on the circumstances in which Abbott was asked to register under Fits for an address to the Conservative Political Action Conference (Cpac).
An aide told the Attorney General’s Department on 22 October that the former prime minister was “happy to register if [Cpac] is found to be a registerable event” despite later complaining publicly the suggestion he do so was “absurd”.
The department also asked Abbott to consider whether he had obligations to register in relation to an address to the Budapest Demographic Summit hosted by the Hungarian government.
In that speech Abbott praised Orbán, warned about “military age” male immigrants “swarming” Europe and accused the left of attempting to undermine western society with migration and the “climate cult”.
Comment has been sought from Abbott on his decision to register his UK trade role.
The Australian government has said it hopes to finish negotiations on a free trade agreement with the UK by the end of this year or early next year.
When those talks were first announced in June, Johnson released a video in which he asked: “How long can the British people be deprived of the opportunity to have Arnott’s Tim Tams at a reasonable price?”
Scott Morrison, the Australian prime minister, said a deal would demonstrate the determination of both countries “to open not close our markets in the post-Covid era”.