In a simmering debate centred on the same legal point as the movie The Castle, the question of acquiring property "on just terms" is emerging as a key concern amid furious lobbying from tech companies and rights holders ahead of a looming federal government announcement on AI. "We could be liable for'just terms' compensation for acquiring that property for every rights holder on Earth," Ross Cadell, a Nationals senator, told Guardian Australia. Michaelia Cash, the shadow attorney general, said the government should not "sell out Australian creators and rights holders in the rush to entice AI investment". Anthropic suggested an "opt-out" model which would allow it to scrape content unless a rightholder deployed digital protections signaling an objection. "If they go ahead with an opt-out model, it does raise a real question of whether the government is acquiring the intellectual property rights of others," said Cadell, a member of the federal parliamentary committee on AI . "How we support property rights is core to this." Anne Twomey, professor emerita of law at the University of Sydney, said the issue was exceedingly complex and noted no legislative proposal had been aired.

Lawyers say clients who use chatbots are adding to their workload, forcing them to correct errors made by AI. Lawyers say clients who use chatbots are adding to their workload, forcing them to correct errors made by AI. Research finds 55% of lawyers are using AI in legal practices, up from 37% last year, though efficiency gains aren't as high as expected More than half of Victoria's lawyers have reported using AI in their work, according to a new study, but just over a quarter say they have reduced fees as a result of efficiency gains. They also say clients seeking advice from chatbots have added to their workload, forcing them to correct errors made by AI. The 2026 census of 2,221 of the state's lawyers, conducted by the Victorian Legal Services Board and Commissioner's legal services research centre, found a big increase in lawyers using AI in their practices, rising from 37% to 55% in the last year.

ASD director general Abigail Bradshaw says'we must harness the technologies that are reshaping the threat environment'. ASD director general Abigail Bradshaw says'we must harness the technologies that are reshaping the threat environment'. Australian Signals Directorate chief says advanced AI tools are needed to defend against'AI-enabled attackers' Australians should prepare for more basic and important online services to go offline unexpectedly, the nation's signals intelligence agency has warned, urging that "system security must be prioritised over system availability". The Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) also says businesses and critical infrastructure must use cutting-edge AI models to defend against digital threats, raising alarm that artificial intelligence is enabling more dangerous threats than ever. In its annual cyber threat report, ASD warns hostile foreign governments, criminals and hackers are using AI to gather intelligence, disrupt critical infrastructure and steal money, and that Australians should fight fire with fire.

Deloitte is under pressure after a report into the potential merger of three WA universities contained AI-hallucinated references and incorrect figures. Deloitte is under pressure after a report into the potential merger of three WA universities contained AI-hallucinated references and incorrect figures. 'Extremely disappointed': WA government seeks reimbursement from Deloitte over flawed university report The Western Australian government has said it is "extremely disappointed" and is seeking an "expedited" cost recovery from Deloitte after errors were discovered in a report about a potential university merger, including AI-hallucinated references and hundreds of millions of dollars in cost discrepancies. The government paid Deloitte $166,000 for a feasibility study on merging the University of Western Australia, Curtin University and Murdoch University. Deloitte considered three merger options between the three universities, with "low", "mid" and "high" cost scenarios, and broke down the calculations of those costs in the report's appendix.

Jason Kwon, chief strategy officer for OpenAI, appeared at the joint select committee on AI on Tuesday. Jason Kwon, chief strategy officer for OpenAI, appeared at the joint select committee on AI on Tuesday. Revelation comes after company's executive told parliamentary inquiry he did not believe AI had been used to write message OpenAI used AI to help write the email to the Australian government advising that its AI agent had hacked into key departmental websites, Guardian Australia can reveal. On Tuesday, one of the company's executives told a parliamentary inquiry that he didn't believe that its own technology had been used to create the email, but said the company needed to confirm this. Guardian Australia understands AI was used by OpenAI's legal and security teams to generate parts of the wording of the email, including word selection and formatting of the message.

OpenAI's chief strategy officer, Jason Kwon, said the company had'learned our lesson'. OpenAI's chief strategy officer, Jason Kwon, said the company had'learned our lesson'. Jason Kwon's answers were provided in a helpful, quiet and calm manner. Open AI's Jason Kwon flew 15 hours from San Francisco to Sydney to give the company's first in-person mea culpa after it admitted - in an unsigned email, to a public departmental inbox - that one of its AI agents had accessed a Services Australia website without authorisation and grabbed data related to Medicare. Kwon - polite, friendly, even-toned - got through a potentially dicey committee hearing unscathed, promising to do better and pledging assistance to Australia.

Anthropic says AI agents didn't breach Australian government websites - video During a joint parliamentary hearing on artificial intelligence, Anthropic's head of safeguards, Dave Orr, says that investigations of hundreds of millions of transcripts reveal no unauthorised interactions with Australian government systems. However, Orr acknowledges Anthropic has limited visibility into customer usage due to standard'zero data retention' policies

OpenAI admits response to Australian government hacks'not good enough' OpenAI has admitted its actions were not good enough after one of its rogue agents breached Australian government websites in June and apologised again. The company's chief strategy officer Jason Kwon faced a parliamentary hearing into AI on Tuesday in Sydney, saying the breach should not have happened and it should have handled our response better. It took weeks before Australia was notified via an email to a generic inbox. We are sorry and we know we have work to do to rebuild trust with the Australian people, Kwon said. Anthropic also appeared at the hearing and said it had carried out a lengthy, deep investigation in recent months and not found any cases of Australian breaches.

OpenAI has'work to do to rebuild trust' in Australia, executive tells AI inquiry Mon 5 Oct 2026 20.53 EDTLast modified on Tue 6 Oct 2026 03.33 EDT Accept'bad things' in return for benefits of AI, says Sam Altman "We've just shared information about how the training works, and then discussed what its implications would be with respect to our capacity to operate here," he said. Anthropic suggests current Australian laws mean AI companies need to obtain a licence for the use of every piece of content on the internet as training material. Bleich said this was "technically impossible". Anthropic was keen to explore what the Australian government wants to do to incentivise training in Australia, and Bleich said Australia could shape frontier models if they were trained here, otherwise it would ultimately rely on models trained elsewhere. The multibillion-dollar company notified the government via an email to a public-facing address three months after the breach.

Australian authorities are investigating the links between the country and a Flydubai co-pilot who attempted to take control of a plane travelling to Israel. The co-pilot is alleged to have attacked the captain with a crash axe during a flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv before passengers managed to overpower him and successfully take control of the plane. The Australian authorities have not identified the co-pilot, who has been named by multiple media outlets including Reuters, CNN and The New York Times as Hamam al-Hammami. The prosecutor in the UAE has said it is investigating the incident and any possible motives. In a statement to the BBC, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) confirmed its investigation into the man's links to Australia. The investigation involves state police and the country's security agency, it said, adding that an update would be provided at the appropriate time.