Australia just outlined more ‘AI safety’ priorities, but is the plan actually coherent?

So the Australian government has unveiled a shiny new set of AI safety priorities — a list, a plan, some words on paper — while simultaneously, with the quiet grace of a fart in church, abandoning its proposal for mandatory guardrails on high-risk AI. No explanation. Just a polite disappearing act, like a dinner guest who nicks the silverware on the way out. The article helpfully wonders whether the plan is 'actually coherent,' which is the rhetorical equivalent of asking whether a three-legged horse can win the Melbourne Cup. You know the answer, but you watch anyway.

Let's be clear: the mandatory guardrails weren't going to solve everything. They were a modest proposal — a few speed bumps on the highway to algorithmic feudalism. But abandoning them with no rationale is a masterclass in regulatory gaslighting. It says: 'We have priorities, we just have no interest in enforcing them.' This isn't a policy pivot; it's a parent telling a teenager they're 'prioritising' homework while quietly cancelling the curfew. The tech industry must be thrilled.

What's particularly Australian about this is the sheer apologetic bureaucracy of it all. Other nations erect border controls or ban models outright. Australia, true to form, produces a well-designed PDF of intentions and then hopes nobody notices the actual enforcement scaffold has been quietly dismantled. The AI labs will continue to deploy, the harms will accumulate, and the government will hold another consultation. If this is a 'coherent plan,' I'm a kangaroo in a waistcoat. Pass the Foster's — I think we're going to need a lot of it.