Government & public bodies
The most rule-driven market Selma could enter. Three deadlines land in the next few months, and the procurement rules just moved in favour of small Australian suppliers.
The most rule-driven market Selma could enter. Three deadlines land in the next few months, and the procurement rules just moved in favour of small Australian suppliers.
| Segment | Count | Fit | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Integrity and anti-corruption commissions | 9 | Strong | Highest sensitivity, often want air-gapped. 40–300 staff. Count from general knowledge |
| Ombudsmen | 9 | Strong | Complaint files and own-motion investigations |
| Ahpra and National Boards | 1 + 15 | Strong | 13,327 notifications about practitioners in 2024-25, up 19%. Overnight triage is a real use case. |
| Health complaints and legal services regulators | ~16 | Strong | Small, complaint-heavy |
| ACCHOs (NACCHO members) | 150 | Strong values fit | 550+ sites, 7,000 staff, 3.6M episodes of care. Indigenous data sovereignty. Grant-funded. |
| Statutory child protection agencies | 8 | High pain, central IT | Victoria's OVIC block makes DFFH the national case study |
| Local councils | 537 | Regional councils | 55% regional, rural or remote; A$48b spend. Metro councils will likely go Copilot. |
| Public hospital networks | 127 | Non-clinical | 704 hospitals. Policy, credentialing, complaints, research governance. Clinical use brings TGA risk. |
| Universities | 44 | Research groups | Sensitive research data; often build their own |
| Small Commonwealth agencies | many of ~190 | Good | Too small to build their own, still bound by DTA policy |
| Courts and tribunals | ~60–80 | Cautious | Practice notes restrict AI; registry use more plausible |
ALGA, NACCHO, Ahpra, AIHW. Integrity, ombudsman, regulator and court counts are from general knowledge and flagged for checking.
A caseworker used ChatGPT on a Children's Court report. OVIC ordered DFFH to block 15 named tools, including M365 Copilot, for child protection staff until 5 November 2026. The order targets "web-based or external API-based" tools, and DFFH can apply to vary it with "additional controls" backed by verifiable evidence. A local, no-egress system with citations and a ledger fits that wording closely. (Useful as a case study; no endorsement should be implied.)
From 15 December 2025, every Commonwealth AI use case needs an accountable officer, a register entry and an impact assessment. Chief AI Officers in every agency by July 2026, a new buyer persona. Constitution, Trace and Ledger outputs double as the evidence pack.
Automated decision transparency. It mostly binds Commonwealth agencies, health providers (including ACCHOs) and private contractors; state agencies and councils sit under state privacy law.
Maiam nayri Wingara and CARE principles, the APS Framework for Governance of Indigenous Data, Closing the Gap Priority Reform 4. A community-controlled box is "authority to control" made literal, if co-designed.
GovAI Chat reaches PROTECTED from late 2026 and Finance is scoping ~200,000 users. It only serves the APS. States, councils, ACCHOs, universities and corporate Commonwealth bodies sit outside it.
Regional councils and remote ACCHO clinics with poor connectivity get something cloud tools can't give them.
| Buyer | Rule | Route for Selma |
|---|---|---|
| Commonwealth | A$125K threshold; below it, non-panel buys restricted to Australian businesses; DTA panel buys under A$125K restricted to SMEs | BuyICT seller profile; Digital Marketplace Panel 2 at its next refresh (services); hardware through a panel reseller |
| NSW | Direct from SMEs up to A$250K; ICT Services Scheme up to A$250K | Prequalify on the ICT Services Scheme |
| Victoria | ~A$25K single quote, A$25K–150K three quotes | eServices Register, open any time (Fair Jobs Code certificate) |
| Victorian councils | Council policy, commonly A$150K–300K | MAV AI Procurement Register: 19 pre-assessed vendors, co-designed with 70% of councils |
| Qld, NT, Tas councils | Tender at A$200K+ (Qld) | Local Buy LB308, which explicitly includes AI |
| NSW councils | Tender above A$250K | LGP contracts |
| WA councils | Tender above A$250K | WALGA Preferred Supplier Program |
| Indigenous Procurement Policy | Set-aside for remote contracts and A$80K–200K | A Supply Nation partner |
The catch is security assurance. PROTECTED work needs an IRAP assessment (roughly A$30K–100K+ and 2–6 months), Essential Eight evidence and an ISM control mapping. A custom-built tower raises supply-chain questions that a panel-listed Dell or Lenovo workstation would answer. Cost is an estimate
| Offer | Price | Runs where | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft 365 Copilot | A$44.90/user/month (Business A$31.40) + E3 A$58.40 or E5 A$89.80 | Cloud, US company | Blocked for Vic child protection. DTA trialled it with 7,600 staff in 2024. |
| GovAI Chat | Free to APS agencies | Azure + AWS onshore | OFFICIAL now, PROTECTED from late 2026. APS only. |
| Azure OpenAI, AWS Bedrock | Per token | Onshore, but newest models often processed offshore | IRAP PROTECTED platforms |
| Gemini for Government | Bundled in Workspace | Cloud | Australian processing for Gemini unclear Conflicting sources |
| ChatGPT Enterprise | ~US$60/user/month | Storage in Australia, inference in US | |
| Maincode (Matilda) | Not published | Australian sovereign cloud, private deployments | Australian-trained model |
| Sovereign Australia AI | n/a | Sovereign cloud (planned) | Website says "launching soon" |
| Vault Cloud, AUCloud, Macquarie | Not published | Certified sovereign clouds | Hosting, not an AI product |
| QChat and other state tools | Internal | Tenant-hosted cloud | Queensland Audit Office found safeguards lacking |
| TechnologyOne, Civica, Objective | Bundled | Cloud | AI arriving inside systems councils already own. Integrate rather than compete. |
| Nuix | Not published | On-prem capable | Investigative analytics; the closest incumbent in the integrity niche |
| Dell, HPE, Lenovo, DGX Spark | DGX Spark ~A$6K–9K; HPE/Dell stacks six to seven figures | On-prem hardware | Hardware with no governance, ingestion or delivery |
One way to see it: cloud under US jurisdiction; cloud run by government; Australian sovereign cloud; on-prem hardware only; and on-prem with governance and delivery. That last group looks largely empty in Australia.
Seat counts invite a direct comparison with Copilot and trigger licensing reviews. A fixed annual price with no token costs suits finance teams. For reference, Copilot for 100 users is about A$53,900 a year before base licences.
| Tier | For | A$ (ex GST) | Why this level |
|---|---|---|---|
| Discovery and commissioning pilot (90 days) | Any agency or council | 25K–45K fixed | Under every direct-purchase threshold, one decision-maker |
| Standard (per site) | Small agency, council, ACCHO, regulator, up to ~150 users | 30K–60K / yr | Cheaper than Copilot from ~70 users; opex avoids capex problems |
| Secure (air-gapped, investigations) | Integrity bodies, child protection, courts | 80K–150K / yr | On-site support, documented control mapping |
| Enterprise / multi-site | Departments, health networks, universities | 150K–500K+ / 3 yrs | Needs panel access and a security assessment |
| Community rate | ACCHOs, small councils | 30–50% off | Values, reference value, funding limits |
New Zealand looks like the only near-term Five Eyes market: same time zone, trans-Tasman procurement recognition and Māori data sovereignty principles. AWS and Microsoft now process AI in New Zealand, which weakens a pure residency argument there. The UK (G-Cloud) and Canada (algorithmic impact assessments, OCAP principles) are later options once an assurance story exists.