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Latest / Government and geopolitics

PolicyGovernmentComputeFrontierAustraliaReported

Australia’s National AI Plan relies on existing laws and drops a standalone AI act

See how this story connects

Source: Minister for Industry and Innovation: National AI PlanAlso reported by AAP, InDaily

Industry Minister Tim Ayres released the National AI Plan on 2 December 2025. The government chose to rely on existing laws instead of standalone AI legislation, the approach pushed by former minister Ed Husic, saying it would monitor AI and respond to challenges as they arise. The plan covers data centre investment, worker reskilling, the GovAI platform for public services and a $29.9 million AI Safety Institute from 2026.

Why it matters

Companies deploying high-risk AI in Australia face no new AI-specific duties for now, and compliance runs through existing privacy, consumer and sector laws.

When
2 Dec 2025
ID
WTA-N-2025-0146
Who
Department of Industry, Science and Resources; Tim Ayres
Rules involved

Summary by wheresthe.ai, from Minister for Industry and Innovation and the reporting credited above. We could not open the primary document, so it is marked Reported. Checked against the source on 9 Oct 2026.

Read the original at Minister for Industry and Innovation

Source copy: download the page as saved on 21 Oct 2026 (PDF). Also held by the Internet Archive.

Next stop on this Storyline: What happened nextAustralia will legislate national AI standards and sets up an Office of AI

Data to measure this

Compare the years before 2025 with the years since in these series.

  • Epoch AI: frontier AI data centresEpoch AISite-level timelines of IT power, compute (H100-equivalents) and capital cost for large AI data centres.live · download · CSV
  • IEA Energy and AI dataInternational Energy AgencyWorld and regional data-centre capacity, power usage effectiveness, load factor and electricity use.download · XLSX
  • Epoch AI: GPU clusters (archived)Epoch AIMore than 500 GPU clusters and AI supercomputers with country, owner, performance, power and cost.Years: 2019-2025 · one-off · download · CSV · Covers before and after
  • OECD.AI: AI talent and skillsOECD.AI (data from LinkedIn)AI talent concentration, AI hiring, AI job posting share, AI skills and net AI talent migration by country.Years: 2015-present · monthly · query tool · Covers before and after
  • Our World in Data: share of AI job postingsOur World in Data (Lightcast via AI Index)Share of job postings requiring at least one AI skill, by country.Years: 2014-2025 · annual · download · CSV, JSON, API · Covers before and after

All data for Australia

Cite this story

WTA-N-2025-0146: “Australia’s National AI Plan relies on existing laws and drops a standalone AI act.” wheresthe.ai, 2 Dec 2025. https://wheresthe.ai/d/au-national-ai-plan-2025-12/ (source: Minister for Industry and Innovation: National AI Plan).

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