AskTribune · GuideOpen AskTribune →
AskTribune · Guide

How AskTribune works

What happens when I ask? Two dials, one price rule, grounded in the official record and citing the speeches and releases it draws on.

1. What it reads

AskTribune reads across a corpus of 92,952 official records spanning January 2019 - September 2026.

  • Senate Hansard: 23,552 records
  • House of Representatives Hansard: 21,578 records
  • Victorian Hansard: 17,293 records
  • Commonwealth ministerial media releases: 7,147 records
  • NSW Government media releases: 6,213 records
  • NSW Hansard: 3,949 records
  • Federal parliamentarian profiles: 3,733 records
  • Victorian Liberal media releases: 2,089 records
  • Federal committee inquiry submissions: 1,736 records
  • Victorian Nationals media releases: 1,313 records
  • Federal party policy platforms: 1,154 records
  • Prime Minister media releases: 1,141 records
  • Victorian Government media releases: 920 records
  • Victorian Greens media releases: 513 records
  • Federal committee inquiry reports: 401 records
  • Victorian parliamentarian profiles: 87 records
  • Federal committee hearing transcripts: 41 records
  • Victorian One Nation media releases: 35 records
  • Commonwealth agency reports (RBA · PBO · JSA): 33 records
  • NSW parliamentarian profiles: 20 records
  • Economic reference series (ABS · RBA): 4 records

2. The two dials

Scope — records read per turn. Standard 20 · Broad 40 · Broad+ 60. A record is one media release, parliamentary speech or committee transcript.
Depth — how hard the engine works. Standard · Deeper · Full working. Depth changes how much reasoning happens per turn. It does not change what can be read. Every depth reads records.

3. What it costs

A credit buys 100,000 tokens of work. The estimate is shown before it runs.

4. Worked example

The prompt
Summarise the most significant developments in Australian politics today, drawing on the most recent records.
The answer

Most recent material: 1 September 2026

The most significant developments centre on housing, health, and energy policy, with the government using ministerial announcements to frame workforce development and regional infrastructure as interconnected solutions.

Housing and apprenticeships

The Assistant Minister for Health and Ageing, Ms White, announced strong Tasmanian uptake of the Apprenticeship Incentive program, which pays each housing-trades apprentice $10,000 in instalments plus a further $5,000 to employers. Ms White visited a Derwent River site where 56 new affordable homes have been built using Housing Australia Future Fund funding, linking workforce development directly to the government's 1.2 million homes target. The government's framing positions apprenticeship incentives as a workforce measure that supports housing construction, while noting that the Labor Government backs the program while the Coalition does not.

Foreign affairs and humanitarian response

The Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Mr Thistlethwaite, escalated Australia's response to the Nepal-China floods, reporting 43 missing Australians and announcing a near-doubling of humanitarian aid to $8 million. The government deployed 12 additional consular staff to Kathmandu and committed ADF delivery of supplies within 48 hours, signalling a cross-portfolio response linking Foreign Affairs to Defence logistics.

Pacific engagement

The Prime Minister will travel to Palau from 31 August to 3 September for the 55th Pacific Islands Forum Leaders' Meeting, accompanied by the Minister for Climate Change and Energy and the Minister for Pacific Island Affairs [TA-260831-pm-780ae316b8f9]. The government frames Pacific security investment as strengthening both regional stability and the Australian economy, positioning climate and security cooperation as the operational vehicles for partnership [TA-260831-pm-780ae316b8f9].

Perspectives to explore:

  • The government's housing-apprenticeship link versus Opposition critiques of housing affordability (see the 20 August House Note for fiscal debate)
  • Consular surge capacity and ADF logistics coordination in humanitarian crises
  • Climate cooperation as a framing device for Pacific engagement

> What is the government's timeline for the Housing Australia Future Fund beyond 2026?

> How does the Apprenticeship Incentive program compare to Opposition workforce proposals?

> What is the scale of the Nepal-China floods' impact on Australian citizens?

5. Using Tribune

  1. Start at Standard depth to explore. It's fast and intuitive — the best way to scan what's happening across politics and policy today.
  2. Increase depth when something matters. Use Deeper depth when you've found something important and want to dig into the records. Use Full working when you're doing important work and want A.T. to connect what has been said across speeches and releases.
  3. Check Notes and Sources to see A.T.'s work. The Notes panel shows the editorial layer A.T. is drawing on; the Sources panel shows the records cited. The citations are the way to test A.T.’s assumptions against those records directly.
  4. Open a Note to focus A.T. Calling a Note from the Notes panel narrows A.T. to a specific context — a sitting day, minister, or topic — which produces sharper outcomes at any depth.