OpenAI, the American company behind ChatGPT, has quietly retained a newly arrived British lobbying firm to manage its relationships in Canberra, a sign the maker of the world’s best-known chatbot is taking the Australian policy debate far more seriously than a market of 27 million people might otherwise warrant.
According to Forbes Australia, OpenAI has engaged Hanbury Strategies and Communications for government relations work. Hanbury has spent years operating in London, where it is best known for its ties to senior figures in British politics, and only set up shop locally this year. To do that, it went hunting for insiders on both sides of the Australian aisle, recruiting operatives with links to the Coalition as well as Labor.
The timing is the interesting part. The engagement lands as the government of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese works up the details of a national approach to artificial intelligence, a piece of policy that could shape how the technology is regulated, funded and deployed across the economy for years. For a company whose commercial fortunes increasingly depend on how governments choose to fence in generative AI, having the right people in the room in Canberra is no small matter.
Why a global giant bothers with Canberra
On the surface, Australia is a modest market. It is not where OpenAI’s largest revenues are booked, nor where its most consequential regulatory fights are being waged. Those battles are playing out in Washington, Brussels and, increasingly, London. Yet the country punches above its weight in ways that matter to a firm like OpenAI. Australia has a well-resourced public sector that is an eager buyer of software, a sophisticated financial services industry that is moving quickly on AI, and a habit of writing technology rules that other middle powers watch and sometimes copy.
There is also the question of precedent. Australia has form as an early mover on hard tech policy, from its world-first attempt to make platforms pay for news to its under-16 social media restrictions. Any AI framework that emerges from Canberra could ripple well beyond the country’s shores, which gives a company like OpenAI every reason to try to influence the shape of it early rather than react to it later.
A British firm with local muscle
Hanbury’s arrival is itself part of a broader story about the professionalisation of AI lobbying. The firm built its reputation in the United Kingdom advising corporate clients on political risk and government engagement, and its decision to plant a flag in Australia this year suggests it sees a growing appetite among global technology companies for exactly this kind of help.
The bipartisan hiring is deliberate. By bringing on people with connections across the Coalition and Labor, a firm hedges against the political weather. Governments change, ministers get reshuffled, and a client that has spent millions building relationships with one side of politics does not want to find itself frozen out after an election. For OpenAI, which will be dealing with Australian governments of various stripes for the foreseeable future, that kind of insurance is worth paying for.
Two ways to read the move
Supporters of this sort of engagement would argue it is entirely normal, even healthy. Every large company with an interest in public policy retains advisers who understand how Canberra works, and there is a reasonable case that policymakers are better off hearing directly from the firms building this technology than legislating in the dark. OpenAI has consistently said it wants to work with governments on sensible guardrails, and hiring experienced local counsel is consistent with that posture.
The more sceptical view is that the AI industry’s growing lobbying spend risks tilting the policy conversation toward the interests of the biggest players. Critics of Big Tech’s influence have long warned that well-funded government relations campaigns can slow or soften regulation, entrench incumbents and crowd out smaller voices, including the researchers, civil society groups and unions who have their own stakes in how AI is governed. When a company valued in the hundreds of billions of dollars starts assembling a Canberra operation, those concerns tend to sharpen.
The Australian stakes
For Australia, the arrival of serious AI lobbying money is a milestone of sorts. It confirms that the country is now viewed as a jurisdiction worth influencing, not merely a market to sell into. That brings both opportunity and risk. The upside is that global firms are engaging with Australian institutions and, in theory, bringing expertise and investment. The risk is that the domestic debate about AI, which touches everything from jobs and copyright to safety and sovereignty, could become increasingly shaped by the priorities of offshore vendors.
The policy backdrop makes this especially live. The Albanese government has been weighing how heavily to regulate high-risk uses of AI, how to support local capability so the country is not wholly dependent on American and Chinese models, and how to reassure a public that remains wary of the technology. Recent research has repeatedly found Australians are cautious about trusting AI in sensitive settings such as banking and health. Into that environment steps a lobbying push designed to make sure OpenAI’s perspective is heard loudly and early.
There is a transparency dimension too. Australia’s lobbying registers and codes of conduct have been criticised as patchy, and the growth of AI-focused government relations will test whether the current disclosure regime is fit for purpose. Voters and parliamentarians have a legitimate interest in knowing which companies are seeking to shape AI rules and through whom.
What happens next
The immediate question is how visible OpenAI’s Canberra push becomes. Lobbying is by nature discreet, and much of the work will happen in meetings that never make headlines. But the direction of travel is clear. As the government’s AI plan firms up, expect the company and its new advisers to be pressing for a framework that encourages adoption, treats generative models as tools rather than threats, and avoids the kind of prescriptive rules that could complicate its Australian business.
Whether that framing wins out will depend on how the government balances industry input against the concerns of workers, creators and the wider public. For now, the significance is the signal. OpenAI has decided Australia is worth lobbying properly, and that alone tells you how much it thinks is at stake in the decisions Canberra is about to make.
Sources: Forbes Australia
