David Pocock (ACT, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'll see what I can do, Matt. My question is to the Minister for Industry and Innovation and the Minister for Science, Minister Ayres. Minister, the Commissioner of Jobs and Skills Australia is warning that AI driven job losses are likely to exceed 600,000 Australians. Assistant Minister Leigh said in a recent opinion piece that any gains in productivity may be captured by tech companies and will not necessarily reduce inequality. What modelling has the government commissioned of AI's fiscal and labour market impacts, and when will it be made public?

Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Industry and Innovation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thanks, Senator Pocock. In terms of the labour market impact, I think there is a report from Jobs and Skills Australia that goes, in fact, squarely to those issues. I don't have it at hand, but it's been publicly released and has been the subject of discussion with all of the stakeholders in the labour market, the business community, trade unions and the tech sector itself—principally, the Australian tech sector. You'll have seen that, in addition to the National AI Plan that was released at the end of the year—that is about making sure that we capture the opportunities of this technology in Australia, that we spread the benefits through our suburbs and regions, not just our CBDs and inner cities, and that we keep Australia safe—we announced our data centre expectations earlier this year. That has been matched with a series of commitments from some data centre proponents that go, in particular, to energy additionality, and I'm very pleased with the progress that Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Chris Bowen, is making with his state counterparts on those questions to make sure that new development in this area is driving additional electricity generation and transmission to drive costs down for Australians, rather than what we're seeing in some of the other jurisdictions around the world, where it's putting pressure on energy and water systems.

So we are focused on the interests of Australians here and on making sure that this works for Australia. (Time expired)

Sue Lines (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Pocock, first supplementary?

David Pocock (ACT, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government recently signed a $25 billion MOU with Microsoft. On the most recent ATO figures, Microsoft pays two per cent tax on Australian revenue. Can the government commit to taxing tech companies to allow the government to address the risk of mass unemployment, or are we likely to see Australian workers bear the cost while foreign tech firms bank the upside?

Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Industry and Innovation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Indeed, there's a series of memorandums of understanding with Anthropic and Microsoft that go to the issues that I referred to in my first answer, which is making sure that, in energy terms, in terms of water security, operationalised through the states, through their development approval processes, we are delivering an approach where, yes, we secure much of the technology stack here in Australia to make sure that Australia has agency and capacity here, that we have sovereign artificial intelligence capacity and that we are not just customers at the end of other people's supply chains. That is the objective, and the counterfactual is that the government doesn't engage and that investment happens somewhere else and that Australia goes backwards in technological terms. (Time expired)

Sue Lines (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Pocock, second supplementary?

David Pocock (ACT, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Minister, my concern is that having some data centres will be cold comfort to 600,000 Australians who no longer have a job. So I'm interested in whether Treasury has done the work of actually modelling the projected reduction in income tax from the impacts of artificial intelligence, and if not, why not?

Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Industry and Innovation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is the first time I've heard a figure like that, Senator Pocock. I don't know where on earth you've got that figure from. What I would say about technological change and Australia's position as a middle power, in strategic terms and in economic terms, is that it is in Australia's interest and in the interest of Australian workers that we make sure that we secure the best position for Australia, where adoption of this technology will determine, in many cases, our future competitiveness. It will determine the future quality of our jobs. It will determine the capacity of Australians to grab hold of opportunity, and it is our job, as a government, to make sure not just that we capture that opportunity for Australians but that we spread it right throughout the whole economy. (Time expired)