MATTERS OF PUBLIC IMPORTANCE
Dr CHARLTON (Parramatta—Cabinet Secretary and Assistant Minister for Science, Technology and the Digital Economy) (15:29): I thank the member for Curtin for raising this issue as an MPI, because artificial intelligence is a matter of significant public importance. I also appreciate the member for Curtin framing this MPI in the way that she has, recognising both the promise and the risks of this new technology, because the promise of AI is so great and because the risks are so critical.
That is why the Albanese government has been acting with urgency, with a cross-government approach led by the Prime Minister and the Minister for Industry and Innovation, to get Australia's settings right. That began last year when our National AI Plan was released. That plan had three parts.
The first part was to make sure that Australia captures the economic opportunity of AI—that we build the compute, data centres and the connections, that we make sure we get foreign investment and have sovereign AI, and that we build an economy in the AI world that will deliver prosperity for our people. That was the first objective: capture the economic opportunity.
The second objective that we laid out in that plan was to spread the benefits—to make sure that all Australians are participants in the AI revolution, and that we provide skills for our workers, tools for our small businesses and a fair go for our regions. The third element of the government's AI plan was to make sure that we keep Australians safe—that we are testing models, backing our regulators and protecting our workers, our creators and our consumers.
Those are the three goals in the Albanese government's National AI Plan. We have to achieve each of those goals at the same time. There is no point capturing the economic opportunity if we lose control of the risks, as we just won't have the social licence to grab that opportunity.
Since the release of that plan, the government has been working at pace on delivery. We announced the Australian AI Safety Institute in November 2025. We launched the AI plan for the Public Service that same month.
In December 2025, we started to attract some significant compute investment, consistent with that plan. In that month, we had a $7 billion announcement from NEXTDC for a new data centre in Eastern Creek—critically, a new data centre that runs on renewables and uses no drinking water. In that year, as we rounded out 2025, figures were released showing that Australia was the second-highest destination for compute in the world.
Early in 2026, we released our expectations on data centres, because it's one thing to attract this compute and to recognise that that compute is the industrial capacity of the 21st century, but we also want to make sure that that compute doesn't bring harm to our local communities. In those expectations, we laid out very clearly that we want these data centres not to be pushing up power prices for Australians.
We don't want these data centres to be restricting Australians' access to water. We said clearly in those expectations: if you build here, you build on our terms, and you deliver benefits, not harms, to Australians. In May and June, we were working with technical bodies and with the states on the implementation of those expectations.
I give great credit to the Minister for Climate Change and Energy and the Minister for the Environment and Water, who've been working through the delivery of those expectations to make sure that the introduction of data centres to Australia is done in a way that benefits Australians, not the tech companies. In the budget in May 2026, we backed Australian builders of AI with up to $70 million in AI Accelerator grants and other benefits.
This was on top of the investments that the NRF had made to build Australian capability and on top of the excellent work of the National AI Centre. And then, in July 2026, the Prime Minister brought it all together. He announced a world first.
Australia was going to be the first country in the world to introduce nationally consistent frameworks that cover large AI data centres. The Prime Minister's AI standards cover energy, water, skills, local communities and safety elements. He also said, in that same speech, that Australia is going to support our creatives.
We are going to ensure that, when creatives' work is trained upon, it is only done so with the artist's control, including over the price. These principles that the Prime Minister laid out are again another world first for Australia in AI. That same month, the government released our AI safety priorities.
This is a set of priorities that span right across government: the digital duty of care led by the Minister for Communications, updates to our privacy law led by the Attorney-General, safe AI at work led by the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, a framework for automated decision-making led by the Attorney-General and a framework on agentic commerce led by the Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury.
Right across government, we are placing AI safety in every element of our government, making sure that these priorities are at the forefront in the government's agenda. In August 2026, National Cabinet backed the plan—nine governments in Australia, one rule book. Large data centres will have to put as much power into the grid as they take out.
They'll have to be efficient in their use of water and fund additional water infrastructure they require. What this means is that we can look Australians in the eye and tell them that, as data centres come into Australia, they will not push up the power prices of Australians and they will not restrict access to drinking water for Australians. Then, this very month, the parliament established the Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence with a report to be delivered in November.
I acknowledge the member for Maribyrnong for her leadership of that committee, and I acknowledge the contribution as well of the member for Curtin as a member of that committee. In the same month, we launched our Buy Australian AI program. This is a critically important program to make sure that we support the more than 1,500 AI startups that we have in Australia to get them that first customer by encouraging Australian corporates and Australian procurement officers to look at Australian AI as a solution to their AI needs.
That's what we've been doing month in, month out—building out our program as we forecast in the government's national AI plan. What's the result of this? After all that work, what has the government been delivering?
On safety, Australia is leading the world. Labor has always been willing. We've always shown our willingness to lead the world on online risks.
We were the first country in the world to do a social media ban for young people. Similarly, in AI we are leading the world as the first country to introduce AI standards, we are the first country to introduce a digital duty of care, and we are doing world-leading research into safety through the AI Safety Institute. Safety is only part of it.
Of course, we also need our own domestic capability, and again here Australia is leading the world in many areas. We have the National AI Centre promoting adoption across the country, making sure that AI can be used by all Australians. Let me tell you how that is going.
Australia ranks No. 1 on the Anthropic index for adoption. We are the highest country in the world for AI use per capita on that index. Australians are using Claude at 6½ times the rate predicted by our country's population.
We've also attracted globally significant compute, the industrial capacity of the 21st century. Despite being a relatively small country amongst the G20, we are the No. 2 destination for compute in the world, and we have a thriving ecosystem of researchers and more than 1,500 AI startups. That is the result of getting the settings right in Australia: leading the world on safety and leading the world in many areas of capability.
Of course we have more to do. This is a rapidly evolving area. Things are changing not just year by year but month by month.
We'll continue to flesh out and lay out our plans as we described in the National AI Plan. It's important that we do this because AI is becoming a critical input into all of our economies. It will determine the competitiveness of nations in the 21st century.
We must have our own AI and, to have our own AI, we need to build it safely and maintain the trust of the Australian community. This year Australians got a bit of a shock when the Strait of Hormuz closed and we recognised our significant dependence on foreign oil. It was a difficult thing for this government to manage, albeit we managed it very well.
I ask the House to cast forward, to think about a future where every Australian business and organisation has AI embedded in it. If all of that AI and all of those tokens come from abroad, we are introducing a new and dangerous vulnerability into our domestic economy. That's why we have to have domestic AI Australian sovereign capability supported by a framework that delivers trust and social licence.