Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take notice of the answer given by the Minister representing the Prime Minister (Senator Wong) to a question without notice asked by the Greens today.

Palantir CEO Alex Karp published a manifesto earlier this year declaring that 'some cultures are dysfunctional' and that Western tech firms have a 'moral debt' to US military dominance. This is cartoon-level villainy. So why is Labor rolling out the red carpet to this Trump-aligned fantasist?

Palantir identified Australia as a lucrative market for its surveillance software, and the Albanese government said, 'Here are the keys'—$60 million in government contracts with favourable terms and little public scrutiny. Palantir staff are embedded inside Defence. The company holds top secret clearance. Australian Signals Directorate, AUSTRAC, the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission—'Have at it,' the government says. Those contracts are in addition to the $100 million that Labor has invested in Palantir through Australia's Future Fund.

Palantir's AI has been linked to lethal targeting in Gaza, contributing to tens of thousands of innocent civilians' deaths. That fact alone should have triggered an immediate review of every Australian contract, but, no, this government doesn't take that approach to genocide. Palantir also has deep ties to Westpac, Rio Tinto and Coles—Coles, where, every week, millions of us are scanning our groceries, tapping our cards and, as it turns out, handing our data to Palantir, a Trump-linked surveillance corporation owned by a far-right billionaire whose core business is building AI data and surveillance tech for actors like ICE and the US military.

Whether it's war, surveillance, data centres or workers protections, Labor have shown they don't have the guts to stand up to big AI corporations any more than they have for the gas corporations or the big banks or the supermarkets. AI policy in this country shouldn't be a tech bro free-for-all, where big tech just gets wealthier at our expense, but Labor can't help themselves. At every turn, they choose big business and their billionaire mates over people. There's only one party in here putting people before corporate profits, and that's the Greens.

David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) | Link to this | Hansard source

Three times, the leader of the Albanese government in this place was asked, 'What are you doing about Palantir?' How have you let Palantir and the US tech bros, who no doubt are funding and pumping the tires of One Nation, come in here and get their teeth, their contracts, into the defence department, into AUSTRAC?

I hear Senator Hanson over there wanting to go to the defence of Palantir. She always does the same. Why? Because Palantir is also funding Donald Trump, the same bloke that One Nation flies off to Mar-a-Lago for. They're of a type. Is it any wonder Australians are suspicious about the online activities of One Nation, when they come into this place and defend the likes of Palantir? Palantir have said what their priorities are. Their priorities aren't to back in Aussie battlers and to back in the Australian economy. One Nation and Labor's mates in Palantir have made clear what their priorities are. Their priorities are to back in the US military and to back in the US government.

What is really extraordinary is that they haven't been hiding it. They published a manifesto. They put a manifesto out online talking about their basic plans to push fascism—to push this hard-right politics. Their having published that, what does the Albanese Labor government do? It gets the Future Fund to buy $160 million of shares in Palantir. It signs more defence department contracts to literally bring the wolves inside the defence—Palantir is the same company that is giving targeting data to Israel to kill people in Gaza. Palantir is the same company that's giving targeting information to ICE in the United States to deport Americans. That's who the Albanese Labor government has invited in. That's who they keep signing contracts with.

It's the Greens in this place who are saying: 'What about Australia? What about protecting our national interests?' Why would you let in these international bottom feeders, who have said their interests are serving Washington, not Australia? We want a full public audit, and table the results here, because the Australian public want politicians on their side, not some US tech bro's side. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.