Mr Morrison used a major foreign policy speech on Thursday to reject isolationism but said it did not serve the national interest when international institutions - which he did not name - "demand conformity rather than independent cooperation on global issues".

A Labor spokeswoman said Mr Morrison's attempt to find a middle ground between isolationism and an "unaccountable internationalist bureaucracy" mischaracterised organisations such as the United Nations (UN).

"He knows very well that international bodies operate by consensus among countries and don't dictate to Australia," she said. "Our international commitments have not been forced upon us; we have taken them on voluntarily."

The Prime Minister on Friday said Australia was happy to engage in multilateral forums but would not sign up to a "global agenda" at the expense of Australia's interests.

"Australia has an exemplary record when it comes to our international participation," Mr Morrison said. "But Australia's interests will determine our involvement and we won't be coming from any global organisation or institution with any instructions or directions that are at odds with the national interest."

Deputy Labor leader and shadow defence spokesman Richard Marles said the speech shared similarities with rhetoric used by US President Donald Trump, who told the UN General Assembly last week that "the future does not belong to globalists".

"There's a whole lot of challenges that face the world today which require global solutions, climate change being one of them, and I think this sort of almost nationalist talk that we hear at the moment in the speech last night and also what we heard from the [US] President a few weeks ago, I think is not the right tone at this moment in time," Mr Marles said.

In his speech to the Lowy Institute, Mr Morrison said he had tasked the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade with auditing Australia's role in international organisations.

University of Sydney international law professor Tim Stephens said the speech marked a departure from Australia's long-time approach to international bodies.

"It rang some interesting alarm bells in my head," he said, "because it does signal a pretty significant shift in Australia's attitude towards multilateral institutions."

Professor Stephens said it was surprising the government had moved in a different direction "quite on the hop" and against the grain of the last foreign policy white paper published in 2017. Former foreign minister Julie Bishop and former trade minister Steven Ciobo wrote in that white paper that Australia "must guard against protectionism" as a "regional power with global interests" amid growing threats to the rules-based international order.

"If this is some kind of organic movement or shift away from Australia's engagement with international institutions then I think it could be of big concern," Professor Stephens said.

"We have a foreign policy white paper from not long ago and there's an awful lot of discussion in there about rules-based international order and there's nothing in there about Australia having any concern about globalism."

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg rejected claims Mr Morrison was echoing Mr Trump.

"We don't have the same national interests as the United States," Mr Frydenberg told ABC radio. "We do disagree with the Americans on a number of issues, not least of which is the big trade tensions that we've got right now between China and the US."

Greens leader Richard Di Natale accused Mr Morrison of using wariness about globalism as a "thinly veiled justification to refuse to take action on climate change".