Where we work · Australia
AI meeting notes in Australia.
Australia is the market where the recording law genuinely changes when you cross a state line, so the state you are standing in matters more than the company you work for.
Australian working life is spread out and largely off-camera. A toolbox talk on a Perth site, a strata committee meeting in a Sydney building, a farm advisory visit outside Wagga, a community legal centre appointment with an interpreter, a mine site pre-start — these are rooms and paddocks, not calls. GetNotes records them on a phone and returns a transcript with speakers labelled plus minutes setting out the summary, decisions and action items with owners, which is the part that usually never gets written.
The legal wrinkle here is genuinely Australian: recording is regulated by state and territory surveillance devices legislation rather than one national rule, and the rules diverge. In some jurisdictions a party to a private conversation may record it; in others every principal party has to consent. Because staff, clients and contractors routinely cross those borders, the only habit that works everywhere is announcing the recording and getting agreement before you start — which also gets that agreement captured in the recording itself.
Above that sits the federal Privacy Act 1988 and the Australian Privacy Principles, which govern how personal information is collected and handled and have been under staged reform. Meeting audio containing identifiable voices is personal information, so the ordinary questions apply: why are you collecting it, did you tell people, and who can access it. GetNotes keeps recordings and notes in private storage with row-level security, accessible only to the owning account, but your organisation's own policy still governs what you record.
This is general information, not legal advice. State and territory rules differ and get amended, so check the position where you actually are before recording anything sensitive — and remember that the jurisdiction is wherever the conversation happens, not wherever your head office is. For a crew that works across borders in a week, announcing the recording every time is simpler than tracking which rule applied on which day.
Where it earns its keep
A strata or body corporate committee meeting
Owners argue about a special levy for remedial work, motions get amended on the floor, and the secretary has to produce minutes that will survive scrutiny from anyone who was not there. Recording the meeting, with the committee told at the start, turns an evening of write-up into a check-and-correct job against a speaker-labelled draft.
A pre-start or toolbox meeting on site
Fifteen minutes at the start of shift covering hazards, permits, plant movements and who is doing what. It is legally significant if something goes wrong and almost never recorded properly. A phone recording produces a written record of what was communicated, in the crew's own words, without anyone standing there with a clipboard.
A client session with an interpreter
A community legal centre or migration adviser meets a client with an interpreter present, and the file note has to be accurate about instructions given in two languages. GetNotes transcribes both sides of that conversation and labels the speakers, so the adviser can write the file note from what was actually said rather than from the interpreted summary alone.
How GetNotes works
- Record or upload. Hit record on your phone or laptop in the room — or drop in an audio file you already have. No bot joins anything.
- It writes it down. Every word transcribed, every speaker labelled, in 90+ languages including ones that switch mid-sentence.
- Share the minutes.Summary, decisions, and action items with owners — ready before everyone's back at their desk.
Questions, answered
Do Australian recording laws differ between states?
Yes, and that is the main thing to know. Recording is regulated by state and territory surveillance devices and listening devices legislation rather than one national rule, and jurisdictions differ on whether a party to a private conversation may record it or every principal party must consent. GetNotes cannot resolve that for you — announce the recording and get agreement first. General information, not legal advice.
Does the Privacy Act apply to meeting recordings?
Meeting audio containing identifiable voices is personal information, so the Privacy Act 1988 and the Australian Privacy Principles are relevant to how it is collected, stored and disclosed where your organisation is covered. The Act has been under staged reform, so check the current position. GetNotes stores recordings and notes in private storage with row-level security, accessible only to the owning account.
Will GetNotes cope with strong accents and multilingual workplaces?
GetNotes transcribes 90+ languages and handles meetings where speakers switch between them, which suits Australian workplaces where Mandarin, Arabic, Vietnamese, Cantonese or Punjabi sit alongside English. Speaker labels are applied throughout. As with any transcription system, clear audio helps, so put the phone near the people talking rather than at the far end of the table.
How much is GetNotes in Australian dollars?
There is no AUD price list: Pro is $19 per month billed in US dollars, so the Australian amount tracks the exchange rate on the day and may attract an international transaction fee. Pro covers unlimited meetings, up to 3 hours per recording and a fair-use cap of 25 hours of processed audio a month. The first meeting is free, no card.
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