Cut Through

Australia’s National AI Plan: What you need to know

Cut Through

Show Notes

The government has unveiled its National AI Plan, laying out a roadmap to scale up AI infrastructure and adoption that Industry and Innovation Minister Tim Ayres claims will help “create a fairer, stronger Australia where every person benefits from this technological change”.

But the plan did not include the mandatory guardrails that many expected would serve as proactive regulations for tech companies.

Professor Kimberlee Weatherall, co-director of the Centre for AI, Trust and Governance at Sydney University, joins the podcast to explain the government’s AI strategy, what’s missing from the plan and how Australia measures up against other countries when it comes to AI policymaking.

Weatherall’s book recommendations: The Shortest History of AI by Toby Walsh and any from this list by London School of Economics and Political Science

Read more: Australia’s national AI plan has just been released. Who exactly will benefit? Labor goes hands-off in productivity-focused national AI plan Can wise heads fix the hard problem of AI policy? How Australia’s national security chief used AI to write speeches and ‘personnel communications’ How data centres are killing Australia’s climate progress How AI is reshaping religion and mental health

Sign up to Crikey’s free newsletter: https://bit.ly/crikey-newsletter

Crikey’s independent journalism is supported by readers — 98% of our revenue comes from our subscribers. We’re not accountable to billionaires; we’re accountable to you. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

More from Cut Through

Oct 21, 2026

With the fragmentation and loss of belief in the Liberal Party, the future of liberalism itself these days doesn’t look bright. But what would a “post-liberal” world look like?

Oct 15, 2026

Parliament is back in session, and there’s a new Greens leader on the scene to cause trouble for Anthony Albanese. Crikey’s politics reporter Anton Nilsson and journalist Tina Quinn discuss how Labor’s agenda is holding up against attacks from all sides.

Oct 8, 2026

In a special Q&A episode of Cut Through, Rachel puts your questions to long-time Crikey contributors, climate analyst Ketan Joshi and Dr Ben Eltham, about the unfortunate topic de jour: the rapid proliferation of data centres. What are they? Do we actually need them? And what is the benefit — if any — of having them operate on Australian soil?

Oct 2, 2026

It’s been a busy month for our tips hog, Cochon Truffier. The intrepid pig snooped out some internal discussions between NACC staffers which probably should have been had at the pub, investigated the backlash to Mia Freedman’s comments about the Ed Sheeran/Macklemore saga, and dug into why student politicians at Sydney Uni were getting their knickers in a knot over allegations involving horse meat and bribery in Kazakhstan.

Sep 16, 2026

Paul Keating was prime minister of a very different Australia, in a very different geopolitical environment from that of today. How does his ambition for Australia hold up 30 years later? Crikey politics editor Bernard Keane and Professor James Curran from the University of Sydney discuss Keating’s legacy, and whether his approach to foreign policy suffered from the curse of being “right, but too early”.

See all episodes →