MATTERS OF PUBLIC IMPORTANCE
Ms BRISKEY (Maribyrnong) (15:44): I remind the member for Ryan that Australia was the first country in the world to tell the biggest tech companies on the planet that our kids and their safety come first. This government is about to lead the world again on artificial intelligence. AI is in our homes.
It is on our phones. It's in our workplaces. It's becoming more and more accessible every day, and, every day that we are in this place, this government is working on this vital issue.
We are working on it because Australians are asking us the big questions: What does this mean for my job? Is my child safe? Who is making sure it works for us?
The member for Curtin rightly mentions the promises and the perils of AI and the need to get both aspects right. I'm confident that not only is our government well placed to do this but also this parliament and our nation are. As the assistant minister said, our National AI Plan, which was released last year, is built on three key pillars: capturing the opportunity, sharing the benefits and keeping Australians safe.
The AI Safety Institute that is up and running is already testing the most advanced AI systems out there and working on exactly the risks that the tech bosses have been warning us about this week. It sits within an international network alongside our allies in the UK and Canada. In July this year several government ministers set out our AI safety priorities, including the digital duty of care, which puts the onus back on the tech companies to build safety into their product from the very start.
And AI safety at work is now on the table as the government talks across unions and employers because workers deserve a say in how this lands in their workplaces. Like most technological advances in human history, you don't get the promise of AI without dealing with the peril. I don't say this to downplay the peril; rather, we must confront them if we are to get this right.
If Australians don't trust AI, we won't share in the benefits. We, on this side of the House, understand that. Although Australians have always been excited, early adopters of technology, we understand people are also rightly nervous about their jobs and about their communities.
Parents are worried about their kids, what they're being exposed to and who and what they might be talking to online. We get that. Before I came into this place, I spent years working alongside parents at the Parenthood and with early childhood educators at the United Workers Union.
The lesson from both of those was pretty simple: change only works if the people it affects get to have a say in it. The promise of AI is huge. Just this week, a team at the RMIT showed off a tiny chip that can see and remember what it's looking at.
They reckon it could sit inside a bionic eye. That is Australian research done in Melbourne; that is exactly what our government is backing. I think about the world first on social media—when this government put a minimum age on it.
I was proud to help champion those laws. Parents told us they were exhausted at holding that line on their own, and we listened. We're doing it again.
In July, the Prime Minister announced Australian standards for AI. They are the first of its kind by any government in the world. Big data centres will need to bring their own energy and pay their full share of the network, so it doesn't land in our power bills.
This is about acting with urgency, so we can seize this opportunity. This is a moment, a window that is open to us now, and we can and we will walk through it together to shape our own AI future, not let it shape us, because this is exactly how we drive safety. This is how we mitigate the risks.
Over the coming weeks, I'll be glad to chair the Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence, and I acknowledge the work of the member for Curtin on it. We'll be working together to make sure that we get this right. We all, in this place, have a responsibility to ensure that we are able to capture the benefits whilst also ensuring we keep Australians safe.
We have an important role in that, and I'm very glad to be able to contribute to it.