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

The Albanese government came to government on a promise of transparency, but the Prime Minister has proven to be secretive and has developed an allergy to transparency. Last week, my office was tipped off about a massively concerning secret plan being worked on by government to sell out Australian creatives' work to multinational AI companies. This is after promising to protect creatives' work and not water down our copyright protections.

What cabinet is considering is the ultimate dirty deal: selling out Australian musicians, writers, authors and other creatives in return for an eye-wateringly large investment in AI data centres, which, as we know, are currently wildly unregulated in this country. The government has criticised me a lot but has not denied this, because it's true. The government needs to get up in this place and categorically rule out any carve-out, any exemption or any watering down of copyright exemptions now and into the future. To sell out Australian creatives would be a reckless act. To sell out Australian creatives for a couple of hundred billion dollars in data centres, a bump to GDP, would be reckless.

The Copyright Act is a beautiful solution to valuing the work of creatives and making sure they keep control over how their work is used in our society. Caving to vested interests has become standard operating procedure on too many issues now. I urge the government to stand up for Australians and our future and the creatives that tell where we're from, where we are now and where we're going as a country.