As of 2026-10-07, 21 official documents govern AI use by lawyers, judges or litigants in Australia. 14 require disclosure or certification of AI use, 19 impose an explicit verification duty, and 7 prohibit some use outright. The incident tracker records 7 incidents in this jurisdiction.
Practice Note SC GEN 25 of the Supreme Court of Victoria, issued 14 May 2026, replaces the court's May 2024 guidelines for litigants. Court users must keep meaningful human control over AI-assisted work, may not verify one AI tool's output with another, must ensure sworn documents are in the deponent's own words, and may be directed to identify AI-produced portions.
Practice direction / note · Verification duty · Disclosure
Guidelines issued by the Supreme Court of Victoria on 14 May 2026, alongside Practice Note SC GEN 25, governing judicial officers' and chambers staff use of AI. Judicial officers must not use generative AI for judicial decision-making; supportive uses such as organising materials, summaries, chronologies, research aids and proof-reading are permitted, and case-related work may use only Court-approved AI tools.
A practice direction issued by the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia in May 2026 as a companion to the Federal Court's GPN-AI. It sets expectations for lawyers and self-represented litigants using generative AI in family law and general federal law matters, including verification of AI-assisted content and readiness to explain AI use to the court on request.
Practice direction / note · Verification duty · Disclosure
Practice note GPN-AI, issued by the Federal Court of Australia on 16 April 2026, sets the court's expectations of all participants who use generative AI in proceedings. Practitioners and parties remain responsible for verifying AI-assisted content, must be able to explain how AI was used if asked, and the court may make orders regulating AI use in a particular proceeding.
Practice direction / note · Verification duty · Disclosure
A practice note of the Local Court of New South Wales, commencing 12 January 2026, extending the Supreme Court's SC Gen 23 regime to the state's busiest court. Generative AI may not be used to produce the content of affidavits, witness statements or character references, such documents must disclose that AI was not used, and practitioners must verify AI-assisted submissions.
Practice direction / note · Prohibition · Disclosure · Verification duty
A guide published by the Law Society of New South Wales in January 2026 for solicitors on responsible AI use. It explains how the Solicitors Conduct Rules and court practice notes, including SC Gen 23, apply to AI-assisted work, and sets expectations on verification, confidentiality, client communication, supervision and selecting tools with appropriate data protections.
The Personal Injury Commission's direction, in force from 1 January 2026, applies the New South Wales model to workers compensation and motor accidents disputes and goes further in two respects: expert witnesses must disclose AI use, program and version and keep prompt records, and parties may not use AI technology during a hearing.
Practice direction / note · Prohibition · Disclosure · Verification duty · Confidentiality · Record-keeping
Guidelines published by the Courts Administration Authority of South Australia on 24 December 2025 and effective 1 January 2026, applying to all South Australian courts operating under the Uniform Civil, Special Statutory and Joint Criminal Rules. Parties must verify AI-assisted material, protect confidential information, and the rules are to be amended to give the guidelines effect.
Principles-based guidelines of the Supreme Court of Western Australia for lawyers, self-represented litigants and expert witnesses. AI-generated content relied on in proceedings must be verified by a human who takes legal responsibility; confidential, suppressed or privileged material must not be entered into public tools; and AI use must be disclosed when the court directs.
Issued by Chief Justice Bowskill on 24 September 2025, this practice direction responds to generative AI by requiring every written submission to name the individual person responsible for its contents. Naming oneself certifies that all references have been verified and that the document reflects the practitioner's own professional judgment.
Practice direction / note · Certification · Verification duty · Record-keeping
Queensland Courts guidelines for non-lawyers using generative AI, issued 13 May 2024 and revised 15 September 2025. Non-lawyers must check AI output before relying on it in court, keep private, confidential, suppressed and privileged information out of chatbots, and keep affidavits in the deponent's own words; fake citations causing delay risk costs orders.
NCAT's procedural direction extends the New South Wales Supreme Court's generative-AI regime to Australia's busiest tribunal. It bars Gen AI from the content of statements, affidavits, statutory declarations and character references, requires verification that must not itself be done with an AI tool, and restricts what may be entered into any program.
Practice direction / note · Prohibition · Verification duty · Confidentiality · Disclosure
A consultation note by which the Supreme Court of Western Australia sought input on whether to make a practice direction on generative AI. It surveys the approaches taken in New Zealand, New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and the United Kingdom, and characterises the New South Wales regime as prohibitive.
Practice Note SC Gen 23 of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, issued 21 November 2024, amended 28 January 2025 and in force from 3 February 2025. It prohibits using generative AI to draft affidavits, witness statements or expert reports without leave, requires affidavits to disclose that AI was not used, and holds practitioners responsible for verifying submissions.
Practice direction / note · Prohibition · Disclosure · Verification duty
OAIC guidance applying the Privacy Act 1988 and the Australian Privacy Principles to organisations that deploy commercially available AI products. Privacy obligations attach to personal information input into an AI system and to output containing personal information, and the OAIC advises against putting personal information into publicly available generative AI tools.
A joint statement issued 6 December 2024 by the regulators of Victoria, New South Wales and Western Australia on how the Legal Profession Uniform Law and conduct rules apply to AI. Solicitors must not enter confidential client information into public AI tools, must verify AI output, should disclose AI use to clients where appropriate, and remain responsible for their work.
Issued by the Chief Justice of New South Wales on 21 November 2024 alongside Practice Note SC Gen 23 and developed with the other heads of jurisdiction, these guidelines apply to all courts in New South Wales. They prohibit generative AI in the reasoning and drafting of judgments and list red flags for detecting undisclosed AI use.
Queensland's expert-evidence practice direction for criminal proceedings contains the most granular AI disclosure requirement in Australia: where an expert used generative AI to formulate or express an opinion, the report must name the program used and annex complete records of the prompts given and of the outputs delivered.
Practice direction / note · Disclosure · Record-keeping · Verification duty
Guidance Statement No. 37 from the Queensland Law Society, issued 31 May 2024, applies the Australian Solicitors Conduct Rules to solicitors' use of AI. It is permissive with cautions: solicitors must be competent in the tools they use, protect confidentiality, verify output before reliance, supervise staff use, and consider whether to inform clients about AI use.
Queensland Courts' guidelines for judicial officers on using generative AI, adopted across all Queensland courts and tribunals as the companion to the May 2024 non-lawyer guidelines. Seven guidelines: understand AI's limitations, uphold confidentiality and suppression, ensure accountability and accuracy, be aware of ethical issues, maintain security, take responsibility, and be alert to court users' AI use.
Guidelines issued by the Supreme Court of Victoria in May 2024 for litigants and practitioners using AI in litigation. They asked parties to understand the tools they used, verify output, and disclose AI use where it was material to a document before the court. They were replaced on 14 May 2026 by Practice Note SC GEN 25.
Guidance · Verification duty · Disclosure
2024-05-01Superseded
Descriptive reference only: this page records what each rule requires. Missing a document? Tell us.
Reuse this register
Show the latest rules in Australia on your own site with a widget, run the weekly block in your newsletter, or pull the JSON. Everything links back to the versioned record; data CC BY 4.0.
Australia