5 December 2025

Welcome

Australia has decided to let business and industry surge ahead with AI, deciding not to develop any compulsory “guardrails“ — I do so hate that term — although as reported last week there will be an AI Safety Institute that will do... something.

AI is an opportunity not to be missed, apparently, and existing laws will be just fine.

Meanwhile we’re just days away from the social media not-a-ban-but-a delay, and we’re still no clearer about how it will work in practice or how successful it’s likely to be — although “success” hasn’t been defined in any way.

Apart from that, you’ll be shocked to hear there’s other AI news too, while Russia starts blocking foreign apps and services. All that and more, as they say.

Finally, a big thank-you to the Campsie Library and Knowledge Centre for their excellent air conditioning today.

Oh dear, Australia has a National AI Plan

Australia has abandoned mandatory guardrails for AI and will instead rely on existing laws as part of the National AI Plan announced on Tuesday by industry and innovation minister Tim Ayres.

“Closing the door on AI would be impractical, maybe impossible,” Ayres said in a speech to the Lowy Institute.

“It would also be an act of intergenerational robbery, because this technology will unlock so many possibilities for future Australians.”

The announcement also included a $7 billion boost in Australia’s “AI ecosystem”, with a new “next-generation” data centre to be built at NEXTDC’s S7 site in Eastern Creek, Sydney.

I’ll leave you to read the plan for yourself. It’s only 37 pages and there’s lots of fluff you can skip over.

However much of the political commentary focuses on how this is a significant break from the strategy outlined by former minister Ed Husic last year, when he announced that ten guardrails were under development.

In other commentary:

• Who will benefit from the plan? Business, industry, and data centres, probably.

• Strategic advisor Ian Gribble notes that Australia is relying on legacy laws to regulate AI, but other countries are racing ahead with purpose-built AI regulation.

• Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) condemned the lack of guardrails, saying that the plan prioritises “opportunity-first” adoption at the expense of “citizen safety, fundamental digital rights, and basic legal safeguards”.

• Digital Rights Watch (DRW) was equally unimpressed. “A wait-and-see approach to AI regulation is insufficient when we know that there are AI harms happening right now that urgently require regulatory intervention,” said Tom Sulston, DRW’s Head of Policy.

• Or as the Financial Review ($) put it, “Business has been given the green light to turbocharge artificial intelligence use and development in the Albanese government’s national AI plan, which shies away from heavy-handed regulation but warns of tough interventions if employers behave badly.” I think they see this as a Good Thing.

• Scimex has plenty more expert reaction.

Social media age restrictions: 5 days to go and the teens say they’re sick of being ignored

“Young people said that they rarely see parents or other adults acknowledge the nuance or benefits of using social media, and doubted they understood how it works,” reports Crikey.

“We’re only getting their news about kids who are being cyberbullied rather than the ones who found a network,” a 13-year-old girl said.

These comments are from new research by QUT’s Digital Media Research Centre. In short, teens say they haven’t been listened to.

Even more on the social media age restrictions:

• ABC News has a explainer, which has a different structure and focus from the one I published last week. They’re more practical, while I was more about the policy.

• Two more platforms, Lemon8 and Yope, have been put on notice. They’ve come to the government’s attention thanks to a surge in new downloads.

• YouTube will log out under-16s next week. Indeed, I first noticed a warning on their website on Thursday. Facebook and Instagram have also started dumping teens.

• The High Court has agreed to hear two teenagers’ challenge to the ban, but not until next year.

• ETFM reports how avoiding the ban was easy, at least for one 15-year-old Snapchat user.

• From Mumbrella, “Six things Australia’s social media ban will not achieve”.

• The BBC has a long interview with communications minister Anika Wells.

• The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has published a guide to the terminology of age verification, estimation, and assurance, as well as the privacy implications of each. The differences are important.

• The Tech Policy Design Centre has run a five-part miniseries on the social media restrictions in its Tech Mirror podcast.

THE SOCIAL MEDIA AGE RESTRICTIONS IN PODCAST FORM: Last week I spoke with noted digital rights enthusiast Justin Warren in The 9pm Social Media Ban and the Special Duck with Justin Warren. We also discussed the controversy over the new Bureau of Meteorology website and its budget blowout, and much more. Look for “The 9pm Edict” in your podcast app.

Also in the news

• Some Australian retailers are still using facial recognition technology, despite the OAIC ruling against its use by Kmart and Bunnings.

• The government plans to target “dark patterns” such as hidden fees, drip pricing, and subscription traps. Legislation banning these manipulative tactics will be introduced by the end of next year, according to Dr Andrew Leigh, Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury. Here’s more.

• The Department of Home Affairs is planning to allow generative AI on PROTECTED information, the classification level above OFFICIAL.

• Next year the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) will start using computer-generated management plans for disabled people, with obvious concerns.

• Three lawyers have been done for submitting AI-sourced rubbish — sorry, “erroneous citations”.

• The government’s proposed restriction on freedom of information is likely to be defeated in the Senate, with some senators saying Labor is “addicted to secrecy”.

• The Guardian has a solid feature on how the rise of massive data centres strains Australia’s drinking water supply. Meanwhile AI companies could be forced to invest in renewable energy.

• Google has been hit with $55 million in penalties for anti-competitive conduct. For them that’s not even a mosquito bite. The penalties relate to an agreement from 2019 to 2021, when Telstra and Optus were required to pre-install Google Search on the Android phones they sold, but not other search engines. No rush, right?

• Southern Phone Company copped a $2m5 million fine for breaching the anti-scam rules.

• The government introduced Australian production quotes for the major video streaming platforms, but apparently they already prop up the screen industry, according to data from ACMA.

• The Australian Border Force passport system failed on Sunday, causing airline delays nationwide. Meanwhile there were further delays as Airbus recalled around 6,000 A320 airliners after finding problems with their computers.

• The Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) has published a set of principles for the secure integration of AI in operational technology.

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Elsewhere

• Half of the US states now require age verification to view porn, with Missouri being the 25th.

• In India, Apple has been ordered to preload iPhones with a state-run app that can track and block lost or stolen phones. It could easily be repurposed for surveillance, some say. Apple will refuse to comply.

• Russia has blocked Apple’s FaceTime messaging app. They don’t seem to like foreign tech platforms these days.

• Russia has also blocked Roblox, the children’s gaming platform, accusing it of distributing extremist materials and “LGBT propaganda”.

• The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) has published a new report, “The party’s AI: How China’s new AI systems are reshaping human rights”.

• More consumers are using AI tools to help them shop, which probably explains why I’ve been getting spam from people who reckon they can “improve my brand’s presence” in chatbots.

• The Observer has published The Global AI Index, which they claim is “the first index to benchmark nations on their investment, innovation and implementation of artificial intelligence”. The US is leading on “scale”, unsurprisingly, with China in second place. But on their “intensity” scale it’s Singapore in the lead.

• From The Economist ($), “Investors expect AI use to soar. That’s not happening”.

Inquiries of note

• Treasury has released the Scams Prevention Framework – Draft law package and position paper. Submissions close 5 January.

I love how the public service pushes out consultations before their holidays, which means anyone commenting has fewer actual work days to do so

What’s next?

Parliament is scheduled to return on Tuesday 3 February 2026, per the sittings schedule posted last week, although the public service is likely to push out a few more things before Christmas.

There will be two more editions of this newsletter for 2025, the last one being on Friday 19 December.

DOES SOMETHING IN THE EMAIL LOOK WRONG? Let me know. If there’s ever a factual error, editing mistake, or confusing typo, it’ll be corrected in the web archives.