Benefits for Indigenous Business

The Australia-United Kingdom Free Trade Agreement (A-UKFTA) contains commitments to implement reciprocal arrangements to provide for royalties to be paid to Australian artists where their artworks are resold in the UK.

Australia has also secured commitments from the UK in recognition of the importance of genetic resources, traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expression, including a commitment that the UK work with Australia at the World Intellectual Property Organization at the United Nations to progress a multilateral solution to the protection of Indigenous traditional knowledge.

The A-UKFTA contains a commitment to make all reasonable efforts to join the multilateral Hague Agreement on Designs, providing greater facilitated access to design protection for Indigenous fashion, decorative, and industrial designers in international markets where their products enjoy growing demand.

The agreement reserves Australia's right to implement policy measures which provide more favourable treatment to Indigenous Australian people. This includes a broad carve out against investment and cross-border Trade in Services disciplines, as well as preserving Australia's existing government procurement exceptions, including for measures that benefit Indigenous-owned businesses and small and medium enterprises more broadly.