Why is Australia falling behind on AI governance - and what can we learn from the UK?

Something Remarkable Happened on Newsnight

For those of you who aren't familiar with British television, Newsnight is about as serious as it gets. It's the BBC programme that politicians actually prepare for. So when a clip surfaced showing politicians from the left and from the right not just appearing in the same room, but genuinely agreeing with each other - I sat up straight.

What they were agreeing on was AI governance. And what was particularly striking was Lord Gove - from the Conservative side - making the case not only for bipartisan agreement within the UK, but for international agreement. The framing was clear: this is not a partisan issue. This is not a national issue. This is a global one that requires grown-up, coordinated governance - and it needs to happen now.

Why This Moment Lands Differently When You've Been In the Research

Over the past several weeks I've been doing a deep dive - into the literature, into conversations with Australian organisations, and into a benchmarking exercise with Trish Uhl, who brings an extraordinary global lens to everything she touches. Together we've been looking at where Australian organisations sit against what's happening worldwide, and what the trajectory actually looks like from the inside.

What we're seeing is both hopeful and sobering. AI is not primarily a technical challenge. The research makes that abundantly clear. What's actually determining success or failure in organisations right now is how people operate within them - and most critically, how leaders choose to lead through this transformation. The technology is almost the easy part.

I've come to believe this deeply, even if it doesn't show up as a clean data point: AI doesn't change an organisation's culture. It amplifies it. If your culture is one of openness, curiosity, and psychological safety - AI accelerates all of that. If your culture has siloes, fear, or a blame dynamic running underneath the surface - AI will surface and amplify those things too.

Which, paradoxically, is part of why I'm leaning into excitement rather than anxiety. Because if AI is going to hold up a mirror to the way we operate - that's actually an opportunity. An opportunity to reset. To look honestly at the culture we've built, and decide whether it's the one we want to amplify. Not every organisation will see it that way. But the ones that do? They will move differently through this.

Being Human in the Age of AI

Since the sale of Lever, my focus has been on one central question: what does it mean to be human in the age of AI? It's the lens through which I look at almost everything now - and it turns out, it's a question that doesn't sit neatly in one box.

It's personal - how do we hold on to our sense of self, our creativity, our relationships, in a world where the line between human and machine output is increasingly blurred? It's professional - how do organisations retain the human skills, the judgement, the irreplaceable things that no AI can replicate? And it's societal - and you truly cannot talk about any of this without lifting your eyes to the bigger picture.

That's what made the Newsnight clip so significant for me. Here were politicians - not tech people, not researchers - publicly naming that the societal dimension of AI requires governance, requires coordination, and requires urgency. Some of the most vocal calls for this kind of framework, interestingly, are coming from inside the AI industry itself. The leaders of some of the biggest AI companies have been among the most consistent voices saying: we need guardrails. We need international cooperation. We need a serious conversation about what kind of future we're building.

The Australian Conversation We Aren't Having

Here's my honest frustration. One of the things I've found most difficult over the past few weeks is that in Australia, we aren't really having this conversation - not at the level it needs to happen. Awareness among C-suite leaders and boards is lower than it should be. Politicians aren't yet finding that cross-party consensus. And in many organisations, AI is either being banned quietly, or adopted chaotically, with very little in between.

Here's what makes this genuinely puzzling, though - because it's not that Australia doesn't have the appetite or the courage to lead on technology legislation. Quite the opposite. In November 2024, Australia became the first country in the world to ban social media for children under 16, with the Online Safety Amendment Act coming into force in December 2025. We went first. More than a dozen countries - including Brazil, Indonesia, France, Norway, Denmark, Spain and Malaysia - have since enacted or are actively legislating similar bans. The UK, Germany and Italy are in the conversation too.

So the question isn't whether Australia is capable of bold, principled action on technology and its impacts on people. We've already shown we are. The question is: why haven't we brought that same energy to AI?

The pace of AI development does not leave a lot of time for a measured wait-and-see approach. The trajectory is clear, and the organisations and nations that are moving deliberately, and moving now, will be the ones that shape what this looks like for everyone else. Australia has already shown it knows how to go first. It's time to do it again.

What I'm Committing to Do About It

Watching that Newsnight clip has galvanised me.

I'm going to be doing more - much more - to raise awareness among C-suite executives and boards here in Australia. Not fear-based awareness. Not doom-scrolling dressed up as a briefing. But honest, grounded, practical awareness of what is happening, what it means for organisations, and what good leadership through this transition actually looks like.

And I'm going to keep building the practical tools and frameworks that help learning professionals and HR leaders bring their people through this - gently, kindly, and with real positivity. Because the research is clear on one thing: the organisations that succeed aren't the ones with the cleverest AI strategy. They're the ones where people feel safe to learn, safe to experiment, and supported by leadership that has taken the time to understand what they're asking of them.

There is so much opportunity in this moment. I genuinely believe that. But seizing it requires that we talk about it - honestly, openly, and with enough urgency to match the pace of what's actually happening out there.