STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS

Ms WATSON-BROWN (Ryan) (13:30): Who is AI really for? Australia has a sorry history of letting multinational corporations extract our resources, leaving everyday people to carry the costs. The gas export boom was sold as a national windfall, yet we've seen the reality.

It's corporations paying no company tax and shipping our gas offshore while making billions in profits. With artificial intelligence, foreign billionaires and multinational corporations want to do it again. Australians, not billionaires, should be in control of how AI gets implemented in this country, and we should be the ones who capture the gains from it, not billionaires.

There are no royalties on AI, no framework for taxing the wealth generated by AI and no democratic say over AI, so pause AI data centre development and institute proper democratic control until it's developing in the public's interest. If AI is so great for productivity, then let's institute a four-day work week. If AI is good for medical research, let's develop it there.

If AI is harmful for education, then get it out of there. This is why thousands of University of Sydney staff and NTEU members walked off the job earlier this month around AI. They're showing us the way.

If we want AI to work for us, we need to fight for it.