Fiona Macdonald
Policy Director (Industrial and Social), Centre for Future Work
Dr Fiona Macdonald notes that Australia is out of step with other governments around the world that are responding to prevent AI harms in the workplace. She argues that for Australia to build the trust that is seen as critical to ‘winning’ in the AI era, the government will need to do more than taking a hands off approach to regulation.
Australians have low levels of trust in AI. In a 2025 global survey conducted in 48 countries, on average,42% of people perceived that the benefits of AI outweigh the risks. Australians came in in last with fewer than one in three (30%) people believing the benefits of AI outweigh the risks.
In the same survey, Australians were also among those most likely to disagree that current regulation of AI is adequate, with over half disagreeing (56%) compared with a global average of 38%
Australians’ lack of trust in AI does not mean we are slow to take up its use. A recent survey found 58% of Australians aged over 14 years used AI tools in the previous month.
The problem is not AI itself.
As the Assistant Minister for Technology, Andrew Charlton, put it recently ‘What Australians dislike is not technology. It is the feeling that technology is being done to them rather than for them.’
In the same speech Charlton noted, ‘The countries that win the AI era will not be the countries with the most chips, or the most capital, or even the most sunshine. They will be the countries that persuade their citizens that this technology is being built in their interests and that they share in the benefits.’
To this point in time, it would seem Australia has not done very well in persuading its citizens they will share in the benefits of AI. If we look at our country’s efforts on regulating AI, perhaps we should not be surprised.
Australia is not a leader in acting to ensure the safe, responsible and inclusive use of AI. In fact, the Australian government’s approach to regulating AI has been referred to as light touch, although it might be more fitting to call it hands off.
After several years of planning and consultation to develop Australia’s approach to regulating AI, in late 2025, all plans were abandoned. In the context of weak regulatory approaches to AI being adopted by international allies, including the USA and UK, and significant pressures from industry and business groups arguing productivity growth and innovation could be impeded, the Government dropped their proposal for mandatory guardrails for AI use in high-risk settings altogether.
The Government’s new strategy for the safe and responsible development and use of AI was outlined in December 2025 in a broad National AI Plan, that doesn’t actually include any new regulation.
The National AI Plan has 3 goals. The first goal is to ‘capture the opportunity’ of AI. The second is to ‘share the benefits’. This sounds positive, as does the Plan’s statement that:
Workers and unions must have a strong voice in how AI is adopted across workplaces. The government will work with unions and industry representatives to ensure workplaces introduce AI technologies transparently, safely, and in ways that allow workers to share in the benefits.
So far in 2026, action appears to be limited to an AI Employment and Workplaces forum with unions, business and government representatives convened in late April by the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Amanda Rishworth. The purpose of the forum was to progress discussions on AI workplace focus areas of trust, capability, safety, transparency and productivity.
This seems a bit like starting back at square one, given the work that has already taken place to understand the need for AI regulation and its possible forms over the past few years. Extensive evidence gathering on the workplace impacts of AI and extensive consultations on proposal for regulation, from 2022, include:
- consultation on automated decision making and AI regulation
- consultation on safe and responsible AI in Australia
- consultation on proposals for mandatory guardrails for AI in high-risk settings
- Senate Select Committee inquiry on Adopting Artificial Intelligence
- House of Representatives Inquiry into the Digital Transformation of Workplaces.
The third goal of the National AI Plan is to ‘Keep Australians safe’. The Plan identifies government legislative review and parliamentary inquiry processes as actions that will address the question of regulation of AI in workplaces. However, neither the review of the Closing Loopholes IR legislation nor the parliamentary inquiry into the National Employment Standards include any mention of AI at all in their lengthy terms of reference.
There is a new AI Safety Institute (AISI) but it is not a regulator, nor even a statutory body. The Institute’s role is to generate technical insights, advise and support bilateral and multilateral safety engagement, promote responsible practices and support a coordinated response across government and regulators.
Current plans and actions seem a far cry from what might be needed to achieve Australia’s early ambition that AI should be ‘designed, developed, deployed, and used in a manner that is safe, human-centric, trustworthy and responsible’.
We can and should intervene to influence how AI impacts on our workplaces and jobs. There are many governments all over the world responding to prevent AI harms in the workplace, while investing in positive innovation. For Australia to build the trust that is seen as critical to ‘winning’ in the AI era, the government will need to do a lot more than it currently is doing.
This article is part of a suite of papers written following the symposium ‘Which Way Forward? AI and Decent Work’. Read more here.