Australia publishes draft workplace AI guide urging employers to consult workers

Australia released a draft workplace AI guide on 12 November 2026, urging employers to involve workers in decisions about automation and explain what it means for their jobs. Public consultation runs until 27 January 2027. The guide pairs potential gains in pay and flexibility with warnings about surveillance, discrimination and more demanding work.

Employment and Workplace Relations Minister Amanda Rishworth presented the draft as a practical roadmap for businesses to adopt AI in partnership with their workforce. It follows roundtables and forums with unions, employer representatives, academics, small businesses and large employers, including Microsoft, Commonwealth Bank, Telstra and Blackmores.

A roadmap beyond choosing the software

The Best Practice Guide on the Adoption of AI in the Workplace is organized around three themes: Plan, Enable and Embed. Its eight principles cover business opportunities, changes to jobs, skills and oversight—not just the technology itself. They ask employers to consider both their readiness to adopt AI and how they will manage its effects.

• Identify the opportunity: Find potential uses for AI and assess workplace readiness.
• Involve the workforce: Plan cooperatively with workers and consider how work and jobs will be designed.
• Prepare for change: Build capability and manage workforce transformation.
• Set oversight: Establish AI governance and proactively manage risks, including work health and safety.

The government’s release illustrates the intended benefits with workplace examples. Brisbane Catholic Education reported that AI helped 71% of its educators save time on administrative tasks. Blackmores said an AI-enabled solution cut a manual data-entry process from three days to 10 minutes. These are reported workplace results, not guarantees for other employers.

The Best Practice Guide makes it clear that AI works best when the workforce is at the centre of the adoption process.

Amanda Rishworth, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations

Saving time can leave harder work behind

The guide’s account of automation is not uniformly optimistic. It says removing basic tasks can leave people with more intense and complex work. Greater monitoring capabilities could also be used for performance management, alongside hazards such as poor rostering and unrealistic performance standards.

Rishworth warned that introducing AI without properly consulting staff could increase workloads, because workers may have to navigate an extra step rather than shed an existing task. She said workers wanted answers about support to learn new skills, whether their expertise would remain valued and whether they would share in the benefits.

The draft also warns that entry-level work may be among the first automated. Younger and older workers, First Nations workers, women and people with a disability could face disproportionate impacts. Its potential benefits—higher wages, shorter or more flexible hours and more meaningful work—are presented as possibilities, not assured outcomes.

The dispute over optional guidance

The Greens’ David Shoebridge argued that optional guidance was insufficient, calling for legal protections against surveillance and job cuts. He said sharing AI’s benefits through better pay and shorter hours should be written into law rather than left to employers’ goodwill. His response challenges the government’s reliance on a best-practice approach.

The wider employment picture remains uncertain. The Reserve Bank of Australia said this week that it had seen little evidence so far of AI disrupting the national labour market, while describing future effects as highly uncertain. It identified tentative signs of impacts in roles including clerks, computer programmers and call-centre workers.

For now, the government is seeking feedback on the draft through the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations consultation hub. Businesses can adapt its approaches to their circumstances; the consultation gives employers, workers and other participants an opportunity to respond before the January deadline.