The announcement by prime minister Anthony Albanese comes as the government also released the recommendations of the rapid review it commissioned after an OpenAI agent gained unauthorised access to a Medicare statistics portal in June, then waited a number of weeks before sending an email about the breach to a generic Services Australia inbox.
A new AI safety regulator will enforce the Australian AI Standards, with the power to impose significant penalties on companies that breach them. The concept sounds much like the eSafety commissioner role.
The government hasn’t yet laid out how quickly companies must report an incident or the size of penalties.
The rules would apply to companies developing the most advanced AI models. Developers would have to secure their systems from development through deployment, identify and manage serious risks, publish their safety and security frameworks, and comply with updated rules as the technology changes.
The government says the six obligations align with interim recommendations from parliament’s Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence.
Albanese said the government chose to announce the protections ahead of international talks on AI development and investment.
“These protections will ensure we keep Australians safe and secure our national interests, while seizing the generational opportunities that AI offers,” he said.
Defence minister Richard Marles said getting the rules right would “help ensure Australia can harness the opportunities artificial intelligence presents for our economy, our national security and our sovereignty”.
A spokesperson for the Tech Council of Australia said it shared the government’s goal of ensuring safety and security in the local deployment of advanced AI systems.
“Effective engagement between the tech industry and government will be important to ensure that this framework achieves our shared objective,” they said.
The safety rules are one part of the federal AI legislation Albanese flagged in July. Canberra wants global developers to train models here. Last December it welcomed OpenAI’s agreement for a $7 billion data centre in western Sydney.
But politicians discovered during last week’s US midterms that AI data centres are now electoral dynamite. Democrats made data centres a cost-of-living issue, and a number who opposed them in gubernatorial races had surprise wins in traditionally conservative states such as Georgia and Texas.
A DemosAU survey of 1,562 Australian voters in August found more than two-thirds (68%) expected a local data centre to push up electricity prices. In September, the federal government floated requiring large data centres to cover their power demand use with new renewable energy capacity. The Prime Minister and Cabinet’s consultation paper, Getting it right: Building AI infrastructure that works for Australia, also canvassed reserving compute for startups and researchers.
But with interest rates rising and the RBA expecting unemployment to increase too, the risk to jobs from AI is also a risk to the future employment for government MPs.
On the same morning Albanese announced the standards, Qantas told staff its outsourcing deal with Accenture would affect about 850 roles. With roles offshored to India amid greater use of automation and AI.
And a recent community panel convened by Swinburne researchers found that people value knowing when to trust an AI answer more than understanding how the tech works.
“The good news is that people in Australia are already approaching AI with care, curiosity and discernment,” Swinburne’s Dr Dominique Carlon said.
“The clearest message from the panel is that people want a meaningful say and to be part of the conversation about how AI is introduced and managed.”
Alongside the AI standards legislation announcement, the government also released the recommendations of the rapid review it commissioned after an OpenAI agent gained unauthorised access to the Medicare statistics portal in June, with Albanese saying they accepted all 18 recommendations and had already begun implementing them.
The review called for deadlines for reporting AI incidents and clearer procedures for Commonwealth agencies to escalate warnings.
It also recommended the Attorney-General’s Department examine a possible “failure to prevent” offence. Under that proposal, a developer could face criminal liability if its model caused harm and the company failed to take reasonable steps to prevent it.
