The Albanese government has set out the most comprehensive statement on AI any Australian government has made.

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The Prime Minister covered AI as a tool of influence and AI as a defence capability. The next frontier that must be tackled is AI as a force multiplier in the hands of someone attacking an Australian network.

Australian Standards for AI, mandatory and national, have been endorsed by the national cabinet and will go to Parliament in early 2027, an Office of AI inside the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, effective immediately, rules for data centres and copyright protections, and more. It is a serious piece of work, and it has plenty to say on national security.

AI and machine learning were identified by this year's National Defence Strategy as holding the most significant potential for technological disruption - including extremists and state actors using AI to generate propaganda and target democracies with disinformation - a threat the Deputy Prime Minister and Home Affairs are now working to counter alongside relevant agencies and Five Eyes partners.

Australia's cyber policy architecture is genuinely strong and far from stagnant. The 2023-2030 Cyber Security Strategy, the Horizon 2 Action Plan, the reforms to the Security of Critical Infrastructure (SOCI) Act, and the ongoing revision of the Essential Eight all represent serious and sustained investment in getting the fundamentals right. They mark a meaningful shift from a framework built around compliance checklists to one oriented around resilience.

But resilience is a relative term. It only means something when measured against the actual threat, and the threat has changed faster than any policy cycle could anticipate.

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