Allegra Spender (Wentworth, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I'm here to talk about AI, particularly how it's going to affect not only Wentworth but, actually, our country. AI is a huge opportunity, but it is going to be disruptive, and I do believe some of this disruption is going to be felt in my electorate. Many people in my area work in the knowledge economy, and we know that that is going to be particularly affected by AI. At the same time, we have some of the greatest tech entrepreneurs and venture capital in the country as well. So I think it is going to be a time of great change, and it's up to us in this parliament and in this country to seize the opportunities and manage the downsides and risks.

I want to raise the issue that I have in the parliament, which is that we are not talking about AI. So far, in question time, we've had four questions on AI this parliamentary term—three of those from the crossbench, one from Labor, none from the opposition. That is a challenge, because this is going to transform this country. We need to be talking about it here.

The government has released an AI strategy. I think that's great. It took them three years. That's too long, and that strategy—which I think is solid—doesn't have KPIs, and it doesn't have timelines. We need those because this is really going to matter. This is going to transform our economy.

There are five things I think that I would like to see the government move much faster on right now, and this is both for my community and for the country. Firstly, we need to make sure the benefits are shared. That means we need to make sure that AI is helping us in health care, in education, in the areas where it can actually really transform the daily lives of Australians for the better. Those benefits need to be captured.

We also need to back Australian companies in this AI revolution. We need to make sure that Australia benefits too, and that means starting with government procurement. Government procurement should be procuring from innovative companies and leading on AI so that AI systems and AI companies build up their capabilities here in Australia and then sell to the world.

We need to get capital unlocked for the companies that will benefit. The government has started to work on Your Future, Your Super and RG 97, which, really, stop superannuation capital investing in innovation. It needs to go faster on this. That capital needs to be unlocked now to back innovation.

There are the regulatory responses from the government. They have acknowledged there is slowness; it just has to move faster. I'll give you an example. I have a drone company in my electorate. They compete with helicopters, because they do unmanned drones and helicopters are the alternative. They can't actually bid on things at the moment, because it is so slow to get an answer from CASA, the regulator, in terms of whether or not they can fly. That is unacceptable.

Finally, we need to bring in the skilled labour in AI, those who are really talented. We can grow our own talent and bring it in as well when we need it. The visa processing on skilled labour is far too slow.

These are some of the things that the government needs to do now to help us manage AI.

See this speech in context