Albanese’s digital crusade puts him on a collision course with Washington. The Medicare hack gives him ammunition

September 24, 2026 — 10:27am

You have reached your maximum number of saved items.

Remove items from your saved list to add more.

If one were being overly cynical, Anthony Albanese could not have been handed a more potent demonstration of the dangers of artificial intelligence at a more politically useful moment.

The prime minister’s hastily arranged press conference in New York revealed that an OpenAI agent had gained unauthorised access to the Medicare website in June, with public and private data accessed in the breach. He also revealed the company took three months to tell the Australian government what had happened.

Albanese said he’d spoken directly to OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman while at the United Nations to express his “extreme concern” and disappointment at the delay. He then took that very public.

Missing in all the detail offered was the fact he’d know about it for several days, but only chose to make it public now – a day after United States President Donald Trump pushed back against several middle powers demanding safeguards for the emerging technology.

In fact, the real story emerging from Albanese’s week-long New York trip is not that his relationship with Trump has become strained. It is that his carefully managed strategy for dealing with........

© The Age