Independent senator David Pocock has condemned the federal government and renewed his push for dedicated artificial intelligence safety laws after an OpenAI agent accessed a Medicare statistics portal without authorisation.
“This is not a new problem,” Pocock said during an interview with ABC’s Afternoon Briefing on Friday, as he criticised Australia’s continued lack of specific AI legislation.
“Experts have been warning for years that action is needed. The crossbench has repeatedly pressed the government to respond.”
He said the government’s previous response — promising guardrails and publishing them online — had fallen well short. “That’s not enough. Clearly, it’s not. This is a huge challenge facing us,” he said.
The Albanese government proposed mandatory safeguards for high-risk AI systems in 2024 and examined legislation that would have made those protections enforceable.
That plan was abandoned in December 2025. Instead, the government’s National AI Plan placed much of its emphasis on existing laws and voluntary guidance.
Assistant Minister for Science, Technology and the Digital Economy Andrew Charlton told the ABC on Friday that the government hoped to introduce legislation requiring AI safety standards in early 2027.
Pocock said the earlier proposal had been shelved after pressure from industry.
David Pocock has repeatedly warned about the risks of leaving artificial intelligence unregulated
“It looks pretty silly now,” he said.
Pocock sits on the Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence, established through resolutions passed by the House of Representatives and Senate on August 20.
The committee must report by November 30 on AI’s opportunities and risks, including its impact on copyright and intellectual property law and whether Australia’s existing regulatory and legal systems are adequate.
Pocock said a former government-appointed expert panel had already recommended ongoing monitoring of “high-risk government websites and datasets”.
He welcomed the prime minister’s calls for international cooperation on AI but said Australia’s domestic policy weakened that message. “It’s great to see the PM on the world stage saying we need global cooperation on this — we absolutely do — but it’s a bit rich when, at home, the government has shelved plans for an AI Safety Act,” he said.
Pocock also took aim at the government’s support for major data-centre investment, arguing that the rapid expansion was proceeding without sufficient oversight.
“We’re seeing dozens and dozens of data centres approved with basically no guardrails,” he said, adding that communities had told him facilities were being built as close as 20 metres from homes. “That’s ridiculous.”
He said companies were being given too much latitude to develop new facilities. In New South Wales, he claimed, the state government had classified data centres as state-significant projects, allowing them to bypass council consultation and limiting residents’ ability to question whether proposals were appropriate.
Pocock said AI companies such as OpenAI should be allowed to operate in Australia, but only under clear regulatory safeguards
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese addressed the United Nations in New York on Thursday, urging global cooperation on the challenges posed by artificial intelligence and climate change
Pocock also questioned the long-term public benefit of the data-centre boom. “We’re told these AI data centres are among the greatest things that will happen to the country,” he said. “But once they’re built, what is the long-term return for Australians? I still haven’t received a good answer to that.”
When questioned by Afternoon Briefing host Sarah Tomevska about the government’s new Intergenerational Report, which assumes average annual productivity growth of 1.2 per cent and identifies AI as a potentially significant contributor, Pocock said he was not convinced.
‘I don’t think that’s enough of an argument to say we’re going to give up land, water, electricity, have big multinationals set up shop here … once the big construction boom is over, what’s the long-term return?’
He added that he believed companies like OpenAI should be welcome to operate in Australia ‘as long as [our] laws and regulations are up to scratch… currently they’re not.
‘This Medicare breach highlights that. It seems very unlikely under our current laws that you could actually press any charges.
‘If any Aussie did that I’m sure they would be on their way to gaol shortly, but because it’s a big AI company and they say, “these are autonomous bots we’ve created and we didn’t know or direct them to do it”, that doesn’t really cut it.’
Pocock’s comments come in the wake of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s address to the United Nations in New York on Thursday, where he urged world leaders to cooperate on challenges posed by artificial intelligence and climate change.
On Saturday, AAP reported Albanese again called for an international response after OpenAI confirmed its agents had accessed US education and commerce department sites.
Albanese again called for an international response after OpenAI confirmed its agents had accessed US education and commerce department sites
The company said only publicly available information had been accessed.
‘There needs to be an appropriate national response as well as an international response to make sure humans stay in charge of this new and emerging technology,’ he said.
‘It’s up to OpenAI to state why it is then that there are now multiple cases where this has occurred.’
Albanese added he was not surprised by similar activity occurring in the US.
‘If you have an AI agent act independently in the way it did here in Australia, it would make common sense that would have occurred in other places.’
