Hansard AI mentions
How often federal parliament talks about AI, by month, counted from Hansard since 1901.
In August 2026 parliament mentioned AI in 70 of 1366 Hansard sections, 5.1% of everything said in both chambers that month, across 7 sitting days. So far in 2026 that is 287 sections, against 181 over the same months of 2025. The share peaked at 8.2% in January 2026.
The series since 1901
The last thirteen months
| Month | Count | Of | Share | Index |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| August 2026 | 70 | 1,366 | 5.1% | — |
| July 2026 | 19 | 367 | 5.2% | — |
| June 2026 | 55 | 1,370 | 4.0% | — |
| May 2026 | 42 | 1,074 | 3.9% | — |
| April 2026 | 4 | 191 | 2.1% | — |
| March 2026 | 59 | 2,405 | 2.5% | — |
| February 2026 | 34 | 1,271 | 2.7% | — |
| January 2026 | 4 | 49 | 8.2% | — |
| November 2025 | 39 | 1,588 | 2.5% | — |
| October 2025 | 23 | 810 | 2.8% | — |
| September 2025 | 25 | 709 | 3.5% | — |
| August 2025 | 34 | 860 | 4.0% | — |
| July 2025 | 32 | 996 | 3.2% | — |
How we make it
We read every sitting day's Hansard as XML, for both chambers, and split it into sections the way Hansard does: a subdebate where there is one, otherwise the debate. A section counts once if any AI term appears in it, however many times. We publish the count and the share of all sections that month, because Hansard has divided its proceedings more finely over the decades, so the share is the number to compare across years. The current series counts the phrases and the bare token AI; the long series counts phrases only. Months with no sitting day are left blank, not zero.
| Code | What we count | Why it is in |
|---|---|---|
| artificial_intelligence | artificial\s+intelligence | |
| machine_learning | machine\s+learning | |
| generative_ai | generative\s+ai\b | |
| large_language_model | large\s+language\s+models? | |
| neural_network | neural\s+networks? | |
| deep_learning | deep\s+learning | |
| chatgpt | chat\s?gpt | |
| openai | open\s?ai\b | |
| deepfake | deep\s?fakes? | |
| AI | the bare token, case-sensitive | Counted in its own column; excluded from the long series because pre-2010 text is OCR. |
Method version 0.2. When the terms or the basket change, the version changes and we re-run the whole history.
Source and licence
Parliament of Australia, Hansard, via OpenAustralia's republished XML (methodology). Reference month August 2026, read on 10 September 2026. Licence CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 AU (Commonwealth of Australia); derived counts only. Hansard © Commonwealth of Australia. XML republished by OpenAustralia; 1901–2005 harvest by Tim Sherratt, GLAM Workbench.
Read it with care
- Hansard's sections have become finer over time, so the count rises with the granularity of the record as well as with the topic. Compare the share, not the count.
- Text before the 1980s is recognised from print, so the bare token AI is unsafe there and the long series uses full phrases only.
- A mention is a mention: a minister praising AI and a senator condemning it count the same. This series measures attention, not tone.
- Proof Hansard is replaced by the final transcript some weeks later; the trailing two months are re-read on every run.
- OpenAustralia's XML covers 2006 onwards; the earlier record comes from the GLAM Workbench harvest of ParlInfo and is only as complete as that harvest.