PM announces taskforce in wake of OpenAI Medicare incident

At a press conference in New York on Thursday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese provided an update on a June 2026 incident in which an artificial intelligence agent infiltrated an Australian Government website. The incident involved an OpenAI agent gaining unauthorised access to the public-facing Medicare statistics reporting service portal, which is administered by Services Australia, with the AI agent accessing both public and non-public files.

“The Medicare Statistics Reporting Portal is a public-facing statistics portal that contains non-sensitive Medicare information relating to data and statistics such as spending,” Albanese said. “No personal information is believed to have been accessed at this stage, but investigations are ongoing. Evidence currently available is there is no broader compromise to the Services Australia network. Nonetheless, this situation is obviously unacceptable.”

In response to the incident, Albanese announced the establishment of a taskforce “to provide an urgent and immediate review into this incident to determine whether existing processes are appropriate to respond to AI-related cyber incidents”. To be led by his department and involve the National Cybersecurity Coordinator, the Office of AI, the Australian Signals Directorate, the Australian AI Safety Institute and Services Australia, the taskforce will produce a report that will consider possible law enforcement and legislative responses and how to ensure that incidents like this don’t happen again.

Albanese also said that the incident will be referred to the Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence that has been established by the Parliament. “We’ll seek urgent advice on whether any offences have occurred and whether this should be referred to the Australian Federal Police,” Albanese said. “And insights from this incident will inform the development of our government’s AI standards legislation.”

In the Prime Minister’s New York press conference, Albanese also said: “the Government is aware as well of three other systems that may be impacted. One is ours, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare may have been impacted. Also the New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research and the Victorian Department of Health.”

The following day, Friday, 25 September, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) released a statement acknowledging that it “is aware that its public-facing website was identified as one of several government websites with which an OpenAI agent interacted.

“Following investigation by the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) and the AIHW, there is no evidence that our systems were compromised, that any unauthorised access occurred, or that any information was accessed that was not already publicly available.

“The AIHW remains committed to maintaining the privacy and cybersecurity of the information it holds.

We appreciate the support of ASD and other government agencies in reviewing this matter and helping ensure a coordinated response across government,” the statement concluded.

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