MOTIONS

Senator SHOEBRIDGE (New South Wales) (10:01): I seek leave to move a motion relating to the regulation of AI and threats of extinction, as circulated. Leave not granted. Senator SHOEBRIDGE: Pursuant to contingent notice standing in the name of Senator Waters, I move: That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent me moving a motion to provide for the consideration of a matter, namely a motion to give precedence to a motion relating to the regulation of AI.

I can already almost hear the interjections from the chair here: 'You need to talk to urgency. You need to say why this motion is more urgent than the other business that the Albanese Labor government has before us.' So let's look at the great agenda that the Albanese Labor government has today: the Regulatory Reform Omnibus Bill—that's what they say is urgent to get to—or the Major Sporting Events (Indicia and Images) Protection Amendment Bill 2026.

That's what's up for us this morning—not talking about how this parliament, this government and this country should be moving to address an extinction-level threat to us as a species coming from AI. I'll tell you what the Greens think we should be talking about. It's not the Regulatory Reform Omnibus Bill, but the fact that major players from the AI industry across the world are saying we need to slow down the development of frontier models because it may make us extinct.

This isn't some kind of far-right conspiracy theory on the internet. Jacob Coxon quit Anthropic, one of the more ethical players in the space—if you can call them ethical. He accused Anthropic and AI of 'racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives'.

Then he said: The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade. That's what the Greens want this parliament and the Senate to be dealing with, not what Labor's got on the books, which is the Regulatory Reform Omnibus Bill. It's not just Jacob.

We could look at what Evan Hubinger, who's still at Anthropic, said. He came out just this week about the unlimited development of frontier AI models—which, to be clear is Donald Trump's plan. They're the models that will run on the AI data centres that Anthony Albanese, the Prime Minister, wants to put across our country like mushrooms.

Evan Hubinger said that he personally believes there is a chance, in the order of 10 per cent, that AI could cause human extinction within the next decade. The Greens are listening to this. A 10 per cent chance of human extinction is a reason for urgent action.

That is why we've brought this motion before the parliament. That is why we're saying act on this now. Our motion notes that major global AI corporations, multiple whistleblowers from big tech, are telling us that unregulated AI is a near-term extinction risk and that urgent guardrails are needed.

We're calling on the Albanese government to legislate mandatory safety testing and transparency obligations for frontier AI systems, rather than relying on industry self-regulation. We're calling on the government to urgently reach out to middle powers—starting with Canada, Singapore, Japan and South Korea—and push for a global treaty on AI regulation. We don't pretend that Australia can do this by itself, but I'll tell you what we think we should do.

We could lead the global debate here. We could bring forward legislation to put mandatory guardrails around AI. We could set out the rules for an ethical AI industry that constrains the frontier models, puts them back in the box and makes sure the checks are done before they're rolled out and sent into the wild.

We need to urgently work with other middle powers to push back against the likes of Donald Trump. Other countries are calling out to us to join them in global leadership in this space. Canada is calling out, and, in our region, South Korea, Japan and Singapore are calling out.

We should join with these other middle powers to do what is essential now for the future of our species and for the future of our jobs—to actually put in some global guardrails. I'll deal with a couple of other comments. Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, has said that there is a warning of an AI-agent swarm that would become capable of taking over the entire internet within a year.

That's what Anthropic is telling us—an AI-agent swarm taking control of the entire internet within a year. Even Sam Altman and Elon Musk—the crazy far-right end of the industry—are saying it. I can't believe anyone would vote against this motion.

I can't believe Labor would say: 'No, we don't want to deal with an extinction risk. We want to deal with the Regulatory Reform Omnibus Bill 2026.' But— (Time expired)