Former Department of Foreign Affairs secretary Peter Varghese briefed think tank heads on Wednesday on the findings of his review into public funding for strategic policy work, which has been seen as an attempt to hobble organisations such as the Australian Strategic Policy Institutethat have been critical of government policy.

Under the Varghese blueprint, the Secretaries Committee on National Security – which includes the heads of national security departments and agencies – would determine think tanks’ research priorities.

Those that receive operational funding from the government would have their existing allocations rolled over for the next two years before being forced to compete for five-year grants.

The organisations would face constant government scrutiny, with Mr Varghese calling for each to be required to provide an “observer” seat on their governing council for a senior bureaucrat.

ASPI executive director Justin Bassi said he could not go into detail on the review’s findings, but “early impressions that this review was an effort to clamp down on ASPI and the contestability that it provides on national security policy has been confirmed”.

“It sends a clear signal to all Australian national security think tanks that the government will exercise greater command and control over their work,” Mr Bassi said.

“Every think tank will have to stop and ask themselves whether criticising the government or seriously challenging its national security agenda will affect their chances of receiving future funding.

“And that goes against the whole purpose of thinks tanks and contestability, which is to improve policymaking by challenging orthodoxies and the status quo.”

The review was ordered by the government in February as it sought to bed-down its newly stabilised relationship with China.

It followed the Chinese Embassy’s criticism of ASPI over its “anti-China” research in its 2020 list of “grievances” with the former Morrison government.

The proposed changes, if agreed by the government, will affect a raft of think tanks, including ASPI, the Lowy Institute, ANU’s National Security College, and the United States Studies Centre.

Former ASPI executive director Peter Jennings said the review was an “unsubtle attempt to exercise control over what ASPI says and does”.

“I think Labor is even more sensitive about negative commentary than the previous government,” he said.

“The overall outcome will be a quelling of public commentary on defence and security which Canberra officialdom doesn’t like.”

He said the government “should be very careful it doesn’t deliver China a victory by reducing scope for think tanks to make public comment in Australia”.