The Australian government has written a lot about using machine intelligence safely. Most of it is genuinely good, and most of it is buried. Here is what's worth your time, what each one says, and what it means when the machine lives on your own shelf. We link the originals; we don't rewrite them.
If you read nothing else, read these two.
National AI Centre · ai.gov.au
The federal government's playbook for putting machine intelligence to work responsibly: six essential practices, written for organisations without a compliance department. Most of the governance it asks for gets much simpler when the machine sits on your own shelf, because the biggest question, where does the data go, has a one-word answer: nowhere.
Read it at the source →Australian Cyber Security Centre · cyber.gov.au
The security basics in plain language, from the same agency that defends government networks. Its best section is the list of questions to ask any provider about where your information ends up. Ask us those questions; we like them, because our answers are short.
Read it at the source →business.gov.au
The small-business doorway into the same guidance, with links out to everything else. If you'd rather talk to a person, the government also funds free advice through its AI Adopt Centres.
Read it at the source →Two short documents that give you a written policy in an afternoon.
Department of Industry, Science and Resources
Seven questions that sort which uses of machine intelligence in your business need real oversight and which just need common sense. Ten minutes per use case, and you end up with a defensible record of having thought about it.
Read it at the source →Department of Industry, Science and Resources
A fill-in-the-blanks policy for how your business uses these tools, ready for the day a client, insurer or tender asks for one. On a private machine, the hard blanks, who holds the data, who can see it, what leaves the building, each take one line.
Read it at the source →What the Privacy Act actually asks of a small business.
Office of the Australian Information Commissioner
Whether the Privacy Act covers you at all, and what it expects if it does. Worth reading even if you're under the threshold: health information, tenancy and a few other categories pull small businesses in regardless of turnover.
Read it at the source →Office of the Australian Information Commissioner
The thirteen principles behind every privacy obligation in the country, with the OAIC's own commentary. The recurring theme is collection and disclosure: what you take in and what you pass on. A machine that never passes anything on makes half of these principles easy.
Read it at the source →Every link on this page was checked on 25 August 2026. Government pages move; if one is dead, tell us and we'll fix it the same day.
Tell us what's eating your team's week. We'll tell you honestly whether a machine should be doing it, and what that would take.
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