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Fund a world-leading AI Safety Institute

Partly in place

Give Australia's AI Safety Institute the funding, expertise and powers to contribute in areas of AI safety that allies and AI companies value.

What exists now

The Government announced Australia’s AI Safety Institute in November 2025 under the National AI Plan, with $29.9 million over four years. The institute sits within the Department of Industry, Science and Resources. It tests advanced AI models, supports regulators responding to AI-related harms, and represents Australia in the International Network for Advanced AI Measurement, Evaluation and Science. In May 2026 it signed a memorandum of understanding with the United Kingdom’s AI Security Institute.

Source: Australia’s AI Safety Institute, Department of Industry, Science and Resources.

Where it stands

Advisory only; cannot compel a developer to submit a model. Funding is about $7.5m a year and declining.

Risks this could address

  • AI governance failure
  • AI misalignment
  • Dangerous AI capabilities

Who is calling for this

  • Good Ancestors Policy

    Australia's position in the Age of AI (2026), Position 7 Read it ↗

    “Australia’s AISI is underfunded. The AISI receives an average of $7.5 million per year, with funding set to decline over time. This should increase to at least $50 million per year plus compute access, roughly matching the UK's world-leading AISI when adjusting for population or GDP.”

  • Institute for Integrated Economic Research - Australia

    Submission 65 to the Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence (2026), Recommendation 6 Read it ↗

    “That the Australian AI Safety Institute’s remit be extended to cover population-level and institutional cognitive effects”

  • UNSW AI Institute

    Submission 19 to the Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence (2026), Recommendation 5 Read it ↗

    “Recommendation 5: Increase the funding, technical resources and authority of the Australian AI Safety Institute in line with comparable international bodies.”

  • Uniting Church in Australia (Synod of Victoria and Tasmania) and U Ethical

    Submission 81 to the Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence (2026), Recommendations Read it ↗

    “Significantly increase resourcing to the Australian AI Safety Institute.”

  • Sovereign Acumen

    Submission 114 to the Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence (2026), Recommendation 4 Read it ↗

    “The Australian AI Safety Institute should have a formal role in continuous capability monitoring and in recommending when regulatory thresholds require adjustment.”

  • PauseAI Australia

    Submission 126 to the Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence (2026), Recommendation 6 Read it ↗

    “That the government increases the funding for the Australian AI Safety Institute to at least $50 million per year.”

  • Good Ancestors Policy

    Submission 257 to the Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence (2026), Recommendation 7 Read it ↗

    “Increase the Australian AI Safety Institute funding to at least $50 million a year.”

  • Gradient Institute

    Submission 259 to the Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence (2026), Recommendation 1 Read it ↗

    “Substantially increase funding for the Australian AI Safety Institute so that it can genuinely test and monitor frontier and agentic AI systems”

  • Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU)

    Submission 282 to the Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence (2026) Read it ↗

    “Unions continue to advocate for the AISI to be given appropriate resources and powers to actively protect Australians from harm – not just to monitor risks.”

  • Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees' Association (SDA)

    Submission 17 to the Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence (2026), Recommendation 16 Read it ↗

    “Recommendation 16: Strengthen regulator and AI Safety Institute capacity – The Australian AI Safety Institute, sector regulators and the Fair Work Commission should be properly resourced”

  • Palo Alto Networks

    Submission 45 to the Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence (2026) Read it ↗

    “The Australian AI Safety Institute and relevant national security bodies should be resourced not only to evaluate and monitor frontier AI systems, but to actively facilitate secure, managed access to frontier model capabilities”

  • Minderoo Foundation

    Submission 134 to the Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence (2026), Action 3 Read it ↗

    “Establish and properly resource the AI Safety Institute”

  • Mimecast

    Submission 135 to the Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence (2026), Recommendations under item Read it ↗

    “Give AISI a formal, resourced evaluation and assurance function for agentic and frontier systems used in security-sensitive contexts, with a clear escalation path to sector regulators.”

  • Infosys

    Submission 141 to the Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence (2026), Recommendation 7 Read it ↗

    “The Australian AI Safety Institute should be supported to evaluate AI systems in deployment environments.”

  • Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI)

    Submission 280 to the Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence (2026), Recommendation 2 Read it ↗

    “Increase funding for Australia’s AI Safety Institute, enabling it to recruit leading experts and contribute more substantially to global safety and alignment research.”

  • Centre for AI, Trust and Governance at the University of Sydney

    Submission 286 to the Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence (2026), Recommendation 3 Read it ↗

    “giving the Australian AI Safety Institute and the Cyber and Infrastructure Security Centre express statutory information-gathering and coordination powers, resourced on a footing comparable to peer regulators”

  • Victorian Trades Hall Council (VTHC)

    Submission 293 to the Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence (2026), Recommendation 1 Read it ↗

    “Recommendation 1: Enhance the powers of the AI Safety Institute.”

  • Tech Council of Australia

    Submission 299 to the Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence (2026), Recommendation 29 Read it ↗

    “Build Australia’s AI safety and assurance capability by strengthening the Australian AI Safety Institute”

  • Unions NSW

    Submission 301 to the Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence (2026), Item c Read it ↗

    “Principally, by empowering the Artificial Intelligence Safety Institute (AISI) to oversee a licensing regime for the development and deployment of large frontier models”

  • Commonwealth Bank of Australia

    Submission 316 to the Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence (2026) Read it ↗

    “The Australian AI Safety Institute should evolve its capability to independently evaluate advanced models, identify emerging risks, learn from incidents and provide evidence to regulators and industry.”

  • Microsoft

    Submission 322 to the Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence (2026) Read it ↗

    “we encourage the Government to continue increasing the AISI’s resourcing and technical capability as AI systems become more advanced and widely deployed.”

  • National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU)

    Submission 325 to the Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence (2026), Recommendations 1-2 Read it ↗

    “Provide funding to the AISI sufficient for it to meet the significance of the challenge that AI poses to Australia”

  • Finance Sector Union

    Submission 332 to the Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence (2026), Recommendation 7 Read it ↗

    “Expand the AI Safety Institute beyond its current staff of around 25 FTE, give workers and unions a formal voice in its work”

  • Orvelis

    Submission 409 to the Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence (2026), Recommendation 4 Read it ↗

    “Resource the Australian AI Safety Institute to develop harness-level assurance and evaluation.”

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