The Australian government has suddenly disbanded its artificial intelligence advisory body after spending 15 months assembling a panel of experts, raising questions about whether Canberra is serious about regulating the technology as it races ahead.
The ABC reports the decision leaves Australia without a coherent AI strategy at a critical moment when other nations are establishing frameworks to govern the technology's deployment.
Mate, Canberra spent more than a year finding AI experts, then binned the whole thing before they could do anything useful. This is policy-making by press release, and it leaves Australia flying blind while AI reshapes the economy.
The AI advisory body was announced with fanfare as the government's answer to growing concerns about artificial intelligence's impact on jobs, privacy, and security. The promise was to bring together Australia's leading AI researchers, ethicists, and industry figures to advise on responsible development and deployment.
Then came the 15-month process of actually assembling the panel. Finding experts, negotiating terms of reference, establishing working groups — all the bureaucratic machinery of government consultation churned away. And just when the body was finally ready to start substantive work, it was scrapped.
No clear explanation has been provided for the decision. The government has offered vague statements about "streamlining processes" and "evolving priorities," but nothing that addresses why an advisory body specifically designed for this moment would be dissolved right when it's needed most.
The timing is particularly puzzling given the rapid advancement of AI capabilities. Large language models, autonomous systems, and AI-powered decision-making tools are already being deployed across Australian society — in healthcare, criminal justice, financial services, and government itself.
Other nations are moving ahead with AI governance frameworks. The European Union has implemented comprehensive AI regulations. The United States has executive orders and agency guidelines. Even China has established AI governance structures. Australia now has... nothing.
The decision also wastes the time of the experts who agreed to serve on the body. Leading researchers and industry figures committed to advising the government, only to have the entire exercise cancelled before it produced anything substantive.
This is not how serious countries approach transformative technology. Whether AI delivers benefits or harms depends enormously on how it's governed — on the rules around transparency, accountability, and human oversight. Without an advisory structure, Australia is making those decisions ad hoc, with no expert input and no coherent strategy.
The ABC report suggests the decision may have been driven by political considerations rather than policy substance. Advisory bodies can be inconvenient when they recommend regulations that industry opposes or when they highlight government failures.
But that's precisely when expert advice matters most. Australia has just chosen to fly blind on one of the most consequential technologies of the century, and it spent 15 months and substantial public money to reach that conclusion.
