The Federal Opposition has accused Anthony Albanese of withholding knowledge of the OpenAI’s Services Australia breach until it was politically convenient to justify his international travel to New York.
Liberal Senator James Paterson argued that “hack” was the wrong term to describe the incident revealed by Mr Albanese at the UN General Assembly, insisting that in terms of system breaches, it was the “least sophisticated”.
He said the data that was accessed from a Services Australia statistics portal was intended to be made public for academics and researchers.
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“Medicare wasn’t hacked. I’m not even sure you can really call it a ‘hack’. If it is a hack, it’s the least sophisticated from a technical point of view,” he told Sunday Agenda.
“But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be treating this as basically a free warning. Next time this happens it could be much more serious.”
The Shadow Defence Minister questioned the timing of the public announcement — asserting that the Prime Minister’s office deliberately held the information to coincide with OpenAI boss Sam Altman’s UN address to maximise public impact and justify his political junket.
“The Prime Minister’s motivations I think are pretty transparent. He was at the United Nations, he was seeking to justify the purpose of his international travel,” Senator Paterson said.
“He picked the day that Sam Altman was addressing the United Nations to dress him down and announce this, and he amped it up.
“So I think a deliberate choice was made to release it when he did.”
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaking during the OpenAI DevDay event in 2023. Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Defence Minister Richard Marles defended his government’s response to the “utterly unacceptable” incident, denying that the PM had been deliberate in the timing of his announcement to hype up his trip and image on the world stage.
“We’ve tried to be as plain as we can be about this,” Mr Marles told News24 on Sunday.
“This is an AI agent, non-human, acting in an unintended way, gaining unauthorised access to an Australian government website
“So, this is very serious and we are treating it as such.”
The Coalition has also cautioned the Albanese government over legal threats over OpenAI’s Services Australia breach, insisting that these companies would be key to protection from more powerful frontier AI models.
Senior Labor Senator Murray Watt said on Friday a new taskforce established to investigate the recent AI hack and how reported cyber incidents are handled in Federal departments, would also examine if Australia’s laws were up-to-date.
“If it is possible to press criminal charges, that will happen,” Senator Watt said.
Mr Albanese had confirmed he had sought advice on whether the Australian Federal Police should examine the breach and whether the tech company should be charged.
Deputy Coalition leader Jane Hume questioned the feasibility of criminal charges, remarking that she wasn’t “entirely sure who they’re going to put in cuffs”.
She added that the incident showed how “woefully inadequate” Australia’s cyber defences were, particularly for Services Australia.
Both Senator Hume and Senator Paterson said Australia needs to be actively collaborating with major US artificial intelligence developers who are leading the global AI race to help enhance the nation’s cybersecurity capabilities.
Senior Liberal senator James Paterson says Australia must work with major US artificial intelligence developers. Credit: News Corp Australia
“Ultimately, the only thing that’s going to defend a network against a rogue AI agent or one that’s deliberately tasked with infiltrating our systems is a more sophisticated AI agent,” Senator Paterson said.
“And the truth is that the United States’ leading frontier companies like Anthropic and OpenAI have the most advanced models in the world, and what we should be seeking to ensure is that we have sovereign access to those models.”
He said if Australia partnered with AI developers it would boost not just investment DownUnder and offer protection from frontier models but also give it a better seat at the table on regulation.
“The truth is right now we are irrelevant jurisdiction for AI regulation, we are a man shouting at the clouds. But if we get the investment here, then we will have a say,” Senator Pateron said.
Months after the breach and just days before OpenAI formally reported it to Australia, Mr Marles and Mr Albanese’s AI lead Andrew Charlton had travelled to the US and met with tech boss Sam Altman.
There had been no public acknowledgement that the group discussed a potential breach.
OpenAI’s vice president of global policy Ann O’Leary had also been in Canberra on September 14 to speak at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s summit about AI.
Asked on Sunday Agenda about the meeting in California on September 1, Mr Marles said “we didn’t speak about the incident”.
“We didn’t speak about the incident. And this was before there had been a notification to the Australian government in any form of the incident”
While the breach occurred on June 18, OpenAI only alerted Australia via email to the address public.disclosure@servicesaustralia.gov.au on September 10.
It then took five days for the disclosure to be escalated to Australian Signals Directorate.
Senator Paterson said it was a concern that the email inbox, which is a dedicated contact to report cyber security incidents to the department, was only checked once a day.
Under the terms of reference released for the rapid review, the escalation of cyber breaches in Australian government departments will be investigated.
It comes as a Greens-led parliamentary inquiry will seek to haul OpenAI and Anthropic representatives before a Senate inquiry next week into AI and data centre investment.
Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young accused Labor of ‘rolling out the red carpet’ to tech companies. Credit: News Corp Australia
Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young accused Labor of “rolling out the red carpet” to tech companies to build data centres despite the breach and warnings they could become too powerful for humans to control.
“I think it would be very bad form if they refuse to show up,” she said.
“they want Australians to give over their land, their water, their energy… even their own data, and intellectual property.
“The least they can do as these big AI companies is to front the Senate inquiry.
“While we see the big AI companies themselves warning of how powerful their technology could be, they are still really pressuring governments to get out of the way while they roll out the infrastructure.
“Australians are rightly concerned and sceptical about just rolling out the red carpet.”
