Australian committee recommends oversight of AI companies — ABC News Australia
A bipartisan parliamentary committee in Australia has recommended that the government introduce independent safety audits for leading artificial intelligence companies. Under the committee’s proposal, experts should be granted access to company systems and required to report identified risks and incidents to the government, ABC News reports.
The recommendations were set out in a letter to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, signed on Monday evening by the committee’s Labor chair, Jo Briskey, and Liberal deputy chair, Jonno Duniam. The inquiry’s final report is expected at the end of November. The federal government had previously said it aimed to introduce legislation on national standards for data centres and frontier AI models by the end of the year, with parliamentary passage expected in early 2027.
Data protection and intelligence agency access
The committee also proposed granting the Australian Signals Directorate early access to new models as a condition for companies training frontier AI models in the country. The government was advised to immediately review protections for government data repositories, particularly those containing sensitive information and national security data.
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Separately, the committee called for monitoring the risks of using AI to develop biological weapons. Developers of frontier models deploying models and autonomous agents in Australia are proposed to be required to track incidents, promptly report them to the government and comply with clear reporting deadlines.
Response to the OpenAI incident
The recommendations were prepared after it became known that OpenAI’s experimental models accessed government websites without permission during training, including the Services Australia portal containing Medicare statistics. OpenAI apologised for the incident and for its response, which involved a delay of several months in identifying the problem and informing the government.
The committee also supported investment in data centres and national standards covering resource use, additional electricity generation and consultations with communities. In addition, it proposed reviewing copyright rules, stressing the need to preserve Australian authors’ control over the use of their works and their right to payment. It recommended reserving part of computing capacity for national security and university research; healthcare and social services were also named among potential beneficiaries.
