Oct 2, 2026 · 16 min · 8 segments
Former Industry minister Ed Husic says his work on AI safety in the first term of the Albanese government has been 'validated'. He says the work done two years ago on regulation should be picked up…
Justin HendryHost
James RileyHost
I caught up with, uh, the former industry minister this week, and I think you've got a piece on the site.
He's talking about the work that was done on AI regulation in the previous term of this government.
He says this Medicare breach, for want of a better word, kind of validates the work that was being done and suggests we pick it up again now.
You know, he's been quite vocal about the need for a, a national AI act, and he made that quite clear soon after being dumped from the cabinet last year.
You know, up until that point, government had been going through this consultation period, and we didn't really hear what he had thought so much.
And ever since then, basically, he's maintained that we need mandatory guardrails.
And in the wake of the breach against Medicare in June that was revealed by the Prime Minister last week, he's basically said that everything we're seeing now with these security incidents and reports are many hundreds, if not thousands, that are being looked at by security researchers.
And it may even explain why there was such a delay in notifying the government from Open AI's perspective.
But basically, Ed is saying that this validates the need for these guardrails, and we've seen it work with the government, what they're doing now.
They're looking at introducing these safety requirements into those AI standards around transparency, breach reporting, other aspects of security and safety.
So yeah, it's really come full circle because the government obviously walked back that line late last year and very quickly this year has moved in the other direction.
I mean, I, I would say it kinda started with the inauguration of Donald Trump in the US, so, well, January twenty twenty-five, when there was that kind of let it rip attitude.
I caught up with, uh, the former industry minister this week, and I think you've got a piece on the site.
He's talking about the work that was done on AI regulation in the previous term of this government.
He says this Medicare breach, for want of a better word, kind of validates the work that was being done and suggests we pick it up again now.
You know, he's been quite vocal about the need for a, a national AI act, and he made that quite clear soon after being dumped from the cabinet last year.
You know, up until that point, government had been going through this consultation period, and we didn't really hear what he had thought so much.
And ever since then, basically, he's maintained that we need mandatory guardrails.
And in the wake of the breach against Medicare in June that was revealed by the Prime Minister last week, he's basically said that everything we're seeing now with these security incidents and reports are many hundreds, if not thousands, that are being looked at by security researchers.
And it may even explain why there was such a delay in notifying the government from Open AI's perspective.
But basically, Ed is saying that this validates the need for these guardrails, and we've seen it work with the government, what they're doing now.
They're looking at introducing these safety requirements into those AI standards around transparency, breach reporting, other aspects of security and safety.
So yeah, it's really come full circle because the government obviously walked back that line late last year and very quickly this year has moved in the other direction.
I mean, I, I would say it kinda started with the inauguration of Donald Trump in the US, so, well, January twenty twenty-five, when there was that kind of let it rip attitude.
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