Australasia’s AI unveiling: pedagogy, practice and policy

The paper examines the impact of generative AI on journalism and politics in Australia and New Zealand, highlighting a gap between technological adoption and regulatory oversight. It advocates for a shift from piecemeal digital literacy efforts to mandatory curricula and the adoption of AI labelling standards, drawing on OSINT transparency models and industry-academic collaborations to ensure information integrity.

• Australia's response to AI has been characterized as purposeful regarding social media safety by design but 'piecemeal' in the areas of digital literacy and media empowerment.
• The lack of AI labelling regulations in Australia led to public confusion and political instability, exemplified by the discovery in April 2025 that a popular radio DJ named 'Thy' was AI-generated and the presence of unlabelled AI campaigns in the May 2025 federal election.
• The authors propose using Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) techniques as a template for AI transparency, where journalists explicitly show the tools and methods used to gather evidence, similar to the framework used by Bellingcat.
• While the Australian Government established the eSafety Commissioner and the News Media Bargaining Code (NMBC) in March 2021, it has been slower to regulate misinformation and disinformation, often relying on voluntary codes like those developed by the Digital Industry Group Inc. (DIGI).
• New Zealand has adopted a voluntary framework called the Aotearoa New Zealand Code of Practice for Online Safety and Harms and a non-legally binding best practice principles-based framework for AI use in the public sector.
• The document recommends that the Australian government introduce mandatory, long-term funded media literacy curricula and legislation addressing truth in political advertising to prevent the spread of AI-enhanced disinformation.
• To ensure quality and avoid 'hallucinations' in newsrooms, experts suggest using structured tests, benchmarking AI output against human-written content, and having senior writers blind-test prompts.

APA

Kruger, A., & Murray, R. (2025). Australasia’s AI unveiling: pedagogy, practice and policy. World Association for Christian Communication. https://waccglobal.org/australasias-ai-unveiling-pedagogy-practice-and-policy/

Chicago

Kruger, Anne, and Richard Murray. Australasia’s AI unveiling: pedagogy, practice and policy. World Association for Christian Communication, 2025. https://waccglobal.org/australasias-ai-unveiling-pedagogy-practice-and-policy/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Kruger |first1=Anne |last2=Murray |first2=Richard |title=Australasia’s AI unveiling: pedagogy, practice and policy |publisher=World Association for Christian Communication |date=13 August 2025 |url=https://waccglobal.org/australasias-ai-unveiling-pedagogy-practice-and-policy/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{kruger2025australasias, author = {Kruger, Anne and Murray, Richard}, title = {{Australasia’s AI unveiling: pedagogy, practice and policy}}, institution = {World Association for Christian Communication}, year = {2025}, month = aug, url = {https://waccglobal.org/australasias-ai-unveiling-pedagogy-practice-and-policy/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }