Canberra stands up a tripartite AI Employment and Workplaces Forum
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Canberra stands up a tripartite AI Employment and Workplaces Forum

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The federal government has launched an elevated tripartite AI Employment and Workplaces Forum spanning government, employers and unions, organised around five themes, with the minister ruling out any union veto over workplace AI.

The federal government has stood up an elevated AI Employment and Workplaces Forum, announced by Employment and Workplace Relations Minister Amanda Rishworth at the [AFR Workforce Summit in Sydney](https://ministers.dewr.gov.au/rishworth/afr-workforce-summit-sydney), with the first ministerial-level meeting held the same day. The forum is tripartite: government, employer groups and unions at one table, delivering on a National AI Plan commitment. Its work is organised around five themes: trust, capability, transparency, safety and productivity. The Department of Employment and Workplace Relations is also running a gap analysis of how existing workplace frameworks interact with [AI adoption](/ai-news/dewr-ai-employment-australia-report). The sentence HR teams should clip is Rishworth's boundary-setting: "Tripartism does not, and should not, involve a right of veto." Unions get a seat and a voice on workplace AI, not a brake. The minister framed the goal as working out how to capture productivity benefits together rather than litigating each deployment. The signal for employers: consultation expectations on workplace AI are about to firm up, and a forum communique will be an easy benchmark for what good looks like.

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