OpenAI has hired Hanbury Strategies and Communications for government relations services. Hanbury has long operated in the UK but setup shop in Australia this year after recruiting both Liberal and Labor insiders.
Key Takeaways
- OpenAI last month appointed Hanbury Strategy and Communications for lobbying duties, according to the Attorney-General’s Lobbyist Register.
- Based in the UK, Hanbury setup shop in Australia just months ago and has recruited former staffers from both sides of Australian politics.
- It comes after Anthony Albanese in July outlined his plan to establish national AI standards by synchronising Federal, state and local rules.
- OpenAI last year recommended the Australian government provide tax incentives for businesses adopting AI, encourage data centre buildouts and modernise copyright law.
- In a speech outlining proposed legislation, Albanese rejected any copyright exemptions for AI model training and said data centre providers will need to supply their own energy and minimise water usage.
Key Background
On July 14 OpenAI appointed Hanbury Strategy and Communications as a lobbyist for its Australian operations, according to the Attorney-General’s Lobbyist Register. That was the day before Anthony Albanese gave a speech outlining his planned National AI Standards, which the prime minister hopes to legislate by early next year.
Hanbury’s Australian operations are led by Owen Torpy, a PwC alum who most recently served as chief of staff to Labor’s Minister for Social Services Amanda Rishworth. In May it hired as director Annabel Clunies-Ross, who has acted as media advisor for opposition leader Angus Taylor, as well as Josh Frydenberg and Sussan Ley.
London-based was founded in 2016 by Ameet Gill, a former strategist for David Cameron, before opening up operations in Brussels and Washington. Its Sydney arm is fresh, forming earlier this year.
OpenAI has for years used Hanbury for lobbying activities in the European Union, according to the EU’s Transparency Register. OpenAI had since mid-2024 used Bourke Street Advisory as its local lobbiest.
What to watch for
Anthony Albanese used his speech last month to declare that Australia was happy to play ball with US tech companies eager to setup AI infrastructure in the country, but that the Government would set the rules.
He said Australia would not weaken copyright to allow AI labs to train models on local content without permission, and data centre builders would need to be net electricity generators rather than suck power out of the country’s grid.
Albanese set up an Office of AI within the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, and says legislation will pass early next year.
But while the speech was heavy on swagger, observers are still keenly awaiting for more detail. The Government will in the coming months consult with industry and attempt to align legislation with state and local governments around the country.
Tangent
Cyber security will surely be a growing AI policy concern in Australia and abroad after OpenAI and then Anthropic both reported AI models going rogue and breaching other companies’ systems.
OpenAI last month announced a model had infiltrated European AI company Hugging Face as part of a benchmarking test. The company was testing a new model within an ostensibly closed environment, but discovered the model had slipped out of its sandbox, onto the internet and then into another company’s systems. It did so in order to retrieve information asked of it as part of the benchmark test, highlighting the unintended consequences that can occur as models become more powerful.
OpenAI’s admission led Anthropic to double check its own work – causing Anthropic to discover that its AI had similarly gained access to three other organisations.
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