South Australia will hold the country’s first royal commission into artificial intelligence, Premier Peter Malinauskas announced this week, opening a formal public inquiry into how the technology should be governed as it reshapes work, education and public services.
What the inquiry will cover
The royal commission — a major public inquiry mechanism used across Commonwealth countries — is due to begin work on October 1, 2026, according to the state government. Three commissioners will examine AI’s effects on jobs, healthcare, creative industries, education and public administration. Terms of reference are expected within four to six weeks, and a final report is due by July 1, 2027.
“It is clear the current public policy response worldwide does not match the scale of the technological changes that are coming,” Malinauskas said, framing the goal as “ensuring South Australians maximise the benefits and minimise the unwanted risks” of the technology. He separately argued that unchecked AI systems pose “a material risk to the way our society operates.”
A US trip first
The announcement follows a recent Malinauskas trip to the United States, where he met executives from OpenAI, Anthropic and Apple, and signed a memorandum of understanding with OpenAI co-founder and president Greg Brockman to explore AI skills training and investment in the state. Opposition leader Ashton Hurn criticized the inquiry’s roughly AU$3 million cost, calling it “a headline on the taxpayer dime,” while the government has defended the spending as small relative to the risks under review.
Ahead of the pack
South Australia’s move puts it ahead of Australia’s federal government, which has not committed to a national inquiry of similar scope. It also joins a growing patchwork of state and national efforts to regulate AI before its effects on the labor market become harder to reverse — echoing moves like the White House’s still-secret frontier AI review framework and the EU’s newly enforced AI Act transparency rules. Whether South Australia’s findings shape policy beyond its own borders will depend on how far federal and international regulators are willing to follow.