White Lotus: One Nation edition, plus the PM’s landmark AI speech

[00:00:00]Paul, here at Inside Politics we're generally pretty low-fi, but how much do you use artificial intelligence in the course of your work?

[00:00:07]>> Well, I've had a few conversations with people about this this week, actually, and I I'm actually surprisingly and almost embarrassingly bad with technology. My default when I have a tech issue is to call the IT guys without even trying to have a crack. I don't have a AI app on my phone, and I feel like I'm at the point where if I don't start to learn the skills to just do some basic stuff, not write stories, but do research and other admin things, I will be left behind like Australia might be in the AI arms race. So, I need I need to get onto it, I think. I'm a bit embarrassed by my lack of use.

[00:00:40]>> You'll be the basket weaver, the basket weaver of the press gallery. Um look, I'm I'm also I would not say that no one could accuse me of being a tech genius, but I definitely use AI.

[00:00:51]Um I use it a lot in sort of my personal life if that like for, you know, various bits and pieces like home maintenance, etc. And in terms of my work, I use it um increasingly a lot. Like I use it for transcripts, I use um Google Pinpoint, which is a really good tool if you want to put of documents together. I use it to search documents, etc. I would never in a million years use it to write anything, but um I'm sure there are probably journalists who already do. And of course, we're talking about AI because the Prime Minister gave a landmark speech this week about the government's approach to AI. It's an issue that's been bubbling away for them politically on a few fronts, most notably with data centers and sort of local and community opposition to data centers and bigger questions about how much resources these things are going to suck up. And then also there's been lobbying to the government by artists, musicians, authors um about the protection of copyright laws because the big AI companies basically have been asking or lobbying the government for a blanket exemption to copyright law so they can take all of this artistic content and use it to train their AI models, as they call it. So, Albanese gave a speech this week on Wednesday at his alma mater, at which is Sydney University. What did he say in the speech?

[00:02:04]>> Yeah, it was a highly anticipated speech. This was on Wednesday at lunchtime. It was his first big set piece moment to speak at length about AI.

[00:02:14]>> Australians have always been enthusiastic adopters of new technology, and AI is of course already part of our daily lives.

[00:02:25]>> opportunities it presents, the risks it presents, how it might affect the workforce, what it might mean for governments, and more broadly, how the government saw AI almost in a moral sense. And he did actually quote the papal encyclical on AI from the new pope last year, which made waves, also.

[00:02:44]>> Because the real issues that AI presents are not technical ones, they are economic ones, legal ones, social ones.

[00:02:54]And as Pope Leo has made clear in his superb first papal encyclical, Magnificat Humanitatis, there is also a moral and a spiritual one.

[00:03:07]They are tests of our national values.

[00:03:11]>> And really in a political sense, the key intent from the Prime Minister was to let all the groups who are becoming increasingly interested in this topic know that the government was aware that there was bubbling concern about job losses. It understood that there were local communities who felt uncomfortable about water usage and potential electricity price spikes caused by data centers. And particularly to the union movement, it knew that there were the potential there was the potential for huge economic upheaval. And that unlike a year ago, when the government rejected the idea of making specific laws for AI, which were put forward by the then industry minister Ed Husic, who was dumped from cabinet, has become quite a critic of Albanese. The government was now of the view that there was a requirement to put something in legislation, not quite as expansive and as interventionist as the EU's regulatory approach from a couple of years ago, which was has been unwound and has left the EU a bit behind in the AI race, but some significant new, you know, guardrails is the buzzword to put around this new emerging technology which we'll see in legislation next year.

[00:04:18]>> Yeah, so they they're talking about a legislation early next year which will basically set up AI regulatory standards. There's going to be an office AI office of AI which will sit in his own department, the Prime Minister and Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. He said it was a bigger challenge than social media and he also said with the data centers that they're going to have to generate at least as much electricity as they soak up and I think the same with water and the other question with the data centers is whether or not they're going to take resources and even land away from construction home construction which we so desperately need. So, he he sort of had some words to say on that and said that, you know, they'll they'll be required to build on land that is couldn't is not going to be used to build build houses on.

[00:05:02]How much of this is sort of about jobs because the Australian Council of Trade Union President Sally McManus has been out. She's been pretty punchy in her statements and said, you know, if businesses think that this is just an opportunity to cut lots of workers, then they're going to have a fight on their hands. How much of Albanese's speech was about placating the unions particularly in the lead up to the ALP national conference?

[00:05:23]>> Yeah, I thought there was some some of his firmest language yet outlining his his view that the AI revolution should not be used to replace workers, but rather should be used to augment workers, make them more productive. Of course, he he was keen to say that it wasn't a Luddite approach in his speech.

[00:05:44]He was he emphasized and event and also on 7:30 report on ABC at night time emphasized that it it would be folly to try and keep this technology out of workforces. He encouraged workers to embrace AI where they could. But he sent a pretty clear signal to big corporate firms in Australia that he wouldn't he would not like to see mass layoffs which would cause potentially social upheaval, create put pressure on, you know, uh, workers insurance schemes uh, and generally create anxiety in the community. This is obviously in line with the union movement. On the other hand, and this is what's so tricky and murky about this policy area because there are so many competing imperatives here. He on the other hand said to big AI firms like Anthropic and Google and Microsoft who are keen to play out not just billions but tens and potentially hundreds of billions of dollars into Australia to build these data centers which they've already been doing. In one in 2024 we were the second biggest data center investment destination in the in the world. I've seen some dispute on those figures but the government repeatedly says it and I think there is good evidence for it. So this is already occurring in Australia. He's tell telling those firms who want to invest even more. Anthropic Anthropic wants Australia to become its second home that these guidelines and these new laws, you know, the detail of which we've not seen and we'll see how rigid they are will in his view create more investor certainty and facilitate increased investment also. So on the one hand he's saying we want to protect jobs. On the other hand he's saying we want to maintain sovereignty, build up our own AI tools. And then on a, you know, you know, you don't have three hands so my metaphor's not really working here but on on the other side he's telling big US tech behemoths who have famously, if they follow the the the pattern of their social media counterparts do not really respect sovereign nations uh, laws. They're telling those firms that they want more investment and that we're open for business. So there was a message for all all the stakeholder groups on Wednesday.

[00:07:43]>> Yeah, it was it was very upbeat. It was kind of reassuring. He He definitely downplayed the risks, or he didn't really talk about the risks. And he certainly didn't talk about what some people, including economists and some of the AI architects themselves, think of as a basically a threat existential threat to humanity.

[00:08:00]How was the business response to this speech? Cuz he was really keen to talk up the the investment prospects and that Australia is going to be a really good environment to invest in.

[00:08:09]>> Mhm. I think most of the stakeholders yesterday were keen to give the Prime Minister credit for trying to take grip of such an unwieldy policy area. As he tends to do, his his approach as a politician is to try and bring disparate groups together to create commonality and try and move forward in with a sense of cooperation.

[00:08:30]He invoked the Hawke-Keating era accord when Australia was faced in a moment of globalization. Thatcher and Reagan took a a more laissez-faire approach to that period, whereas that that that very successful Labor government sought to create a greater social welfare dividend at that time. So he invoked that Labor spirit to say that business and unions and government needed to come together to ensure we were not left behind, but also make sure that there was a of the profits that would be made, a significant proportion of that profit would flow to workers, not just firms.

[00:09:06]Now, that's that's a polyamorous view.

[00:09:09]It'd be fantastic if Australia could go down that road. But the the unsaid part of Albanese's speech, and you know, some of the business figures pointed this out, is that we have no idea how this technology will play out. There are wildly different forecasts from different economists, and there seems to be, if you go by a statement that 200 very prominent economists put out early this week in the US, including 15 Nobel laureates, there's a growing consensus that there might be more speedy and highly disruptive change in the workforce in the space of 5 or 10 years than than the median opinion in the in the economist world was a year ago.

[00:09:46]So, the business community and and the AI firms themselves were happy that Albanese was seeming to seize the moment, but there was also a kind of let's wait and see what we actually provided here by way of legislation.

[00:10:00]>> Yeah, there's so much unknown about the layoffs question, I think.

[00:10:05]The federal Department of Employment and Workplace Relations has put out a report last week that found no evidence to date of broad labor market upheaval driven by AI. However, there are increasingly economists and even banks, the UBS bank um put out an analysis this week um that said on a sort of moderate AI adoption scenario, then ASX um listed Australian companies might shed or could potentially shed 10 to 15% of their workforce. And if it's an extreme adoption or high adoption scenario, then it could be up to 20% of their workforces. And I mean, Sally McManus says, "Well, you know, companies have got another thing coming if they think they can lay off workers." But ultimately, the job of a company is to do its work the most efficiently it can so as to maximize shareholder returns.

[00:10:51]So, the the heavy adoption of AI could well be in a company's interest. I mean, it there could be an enormous um public policy challenge that we're facing as we could be facing around the world. And you know, a government a Labor government that is on the side of workers, you know, um by ideological bench, will could face an enormous conflict, right?

[00:11:14]>> Absolutely. And and and that that that Labor tradition is why Albanese has made the noises he's made in this speech. And at that estimate you just cited at 10 to 15% turnover, even if AI does create a new set of jobs sometime down the track and ultimately lead to higher living standards and higher productivity, which is the which is the aim, the great aim, particularly in a low productivity economy like ours. That churn in the medium term could could generate a huge level of political tension, uh uh unease in the society. People have done research on what the growth in Chinese um manufacturing and exports did to Western societies in the early 2000s and onwards in terms of the reduction in manufacturing jobs in places like America. And even much smaller uh uh uh rates of workforce turnover than 10 to 15%, even in the single digits.

[00:12:08]Though that that group of workers shifting out of the workforce needing to find new places to um express themselves and find their identity caused huge uh political upheaval, in part led to the populist moment that we're in, uh and created a general sense that the country was on the wrong track. So, we really are headed into a moment where, you know, far be it for uh the much smarter people than us to try to get their head around what this means for a modern society is quite profound. It's quite confusing because there are so many different trade-offs and so many possibilities, and we're in the center of it. So, it's a fun time to be talking about politics.

[00:12:46]Fun and a bit scary.

[00:12:48]>> Yeah, it is particularly when you think that um you know, if it is sort of entry-level or graduate-level jobs that are going to be um going to be defunct because of AI, then it'll be young people coming out of university or coming out of education, you know, young people, the next generation, they might, you know, they might be facing mass unemployment. We don't know. We just don't know.

[00:13:06]>> Yeah, telemarketers, bank workers, people in software, um low low-level lawyers and accountants. It's it's it journalists.

[00:13:15]>> I think a lot of journalistic jobs could go, absolutely. Um the people in the care economy in service industries are the ones who are going to be protected.

[00:13:23]And um you know, tradies, I guess. Send your kids into a trade.

[00:13:27]Um, all right, Paul. Let's switch to sunnier climes. I want you to imagine we're in Sicily. We're in the resort town of Taormina. You We're staying at the Grand Hotel San Pietro. At the moment, we're just about to order some cocktails. We're sitting by the pool.

[00:13:40]Um, this is the scenario that Pauline Hanson and her friend and benefactor, um, political benefactor Gina Rinehart, uh, currently facing. That's where they are right now, according to photographs that we've just published on our websites.

[00:13:54]Pauline Hanson has been in having a hot girl summer in Europe, and she's been in the UK doing some political business, and now she's obviously having a few days off in Sicily. What What Why is she over in in Europe? What's she been doing?

[00:14:07]>> So, Hanson left Australia after the last sitting of Parliament when Labor passed its budget bills. There's a big 5-week break from, uh, sittings in Canberra.

[00:14:16]So, there's a little moment where pollies tend to, uh, quite often jet off. But, this is quite a unique trip.

[00:14:23]Hanson has been in London for, uh, conservative political conferences. The CPAC conference, where there's an Australian variant, and the ARC conference, which is a bit of a more highbrow version of, uh, CPAC. Uh, CPAC's a a forum where, uh, which is really become the global leader in highlighting the populist agenda. Nigel Farage, many many figures from the Trump world, uh, and increasingly Australian politicians are part of it as well. Um, figures like Jacqui Lambie, Tony Abbott, various others have spoken at these forums. They kind of, um, highlight conservative ideas and, um, the agenda of what, you know, many people describe as the new right. Um, so, there is an Australian version of CPAC, but the London and US versions are, uh, are places where there's often global attention. Uh, so, she's been over there for those conferences, but she's also on a little bit of a tour of the, uh, European or more more more appropriately UK, um, populist, uh, milieu, if you'd like. Um, she's said that she'd meet with Nigel Farage, the leader of Reform UK, who's been in a little bit of a, um, pickle himself, calling a by-election in his own seat due to a scandal over donations from a dubious crypto billionaire.

[00:15:40]That meeting I haven't seen reporting on yet. I'm not sure if it's occurred. Uh, she's also met with Rupert Lowe, who is a figure who had defected from the Tories, which is the their version of the Liberal Party, to Reform before being pushed out by Nigel Farage due to his extreme views, but also his, uh, personal, uh, alleged abuse towards other officials in Reform. He's now started a party called Restore, which is kind of the right-wing upstart that's, uh, on, on, you know, pushing Reform to the right. And most controversially, Hanson has teased, but not yet released, a podcast with Tommy Robinson, who's the anti-Islam kind of provocateur, who's been widely condemned by figures including Farage, the Australian conservative Andrew Bolt, for being a thug who's, uh, been charged with various criminal offenses, and who has been involved in a number of scandals where his his his credibility's been, um, brought into question. She's been touring the streets of a town called Luton, uh, which Robinson and others have used to highlight what they say is the scourge of, uh, you know, political Islam in Britain. We're yet to see a Spotlight, uh, episode by Channel 7, which is their version of 60 Minutes, uh, which will air on Sunday, which has some of her UK trip. She's apparently grilled quite heavily by Liam Bartlett, the very experienced Channel 7 reporter, who also has a, uh, a bust-up with Robinson.

[00:17:03]Uh, and all of this, and sorry to drone on, all of this has raised questions even inside One Nation. I'm trying to write something on this, which our, uh, sorry, listeners could read in the next few days on some of the questions inside One Nation about Hanson's approach and what they what they're questioning is why she would go on a trip like this and vacate the domestic political terrain giving the coalition much more oxygen than they've had in a while and at a moment when she was polling around 30% which is an extraordinary figure leading labor and the coalition she's dipped in quite a few polls to the mid-20s still averaging around 26% but the trend is just a is that she's having she's clearly having a down moment and she's taking some really big hits on her personal popularity numbers as well. So, you know, it's it's it's not worth exaggerating. 26% is still a huge number but there's there there appears to be a miscalculation.

[00:17:58]>> They're still outpolling the coalition we might add um to the to you know, which is on 23% according to our resolve political monitor um compared to One Nation's 26%. So, I mean she's keen to connect with all these far-right figures from overseas who may or may not be familiar to Australian voters. I suspect they really not particularly kind of low-information voters. Um it's generating some publicity for her in you know, our newspapers. Um I I just wonder what the political strategy is here because you know, if there are people at home who are struggling with the cost of living or struggling with whatever they're struggling with and she's sort of um I don't want to say swanning about Europe but it does look a little bit like she's swanning about Europe. She's she's in this really fancy hotel in in Sicily.

[00:18:43]Admittedly that's a private holiday she's allowed to have a private holiday but even when she she met up with Holly Valance who's of course a former Neighbors star who was who's recently divorced from like a a billionaire a UK billionaire who was a strong her and her husband or ex-husband were very strong supporters of um of Nigel Farage and they're sort of at Blenheim Castle like they're doing some touristic sightseeing. I just wonder like how yeah, how does that land with voters back here that she's trying to win over?

[00:19:10]>> Yeah, well this is the question that some of our own colleagues are asking.

[00:19:14]She had a a poor time at the Press Club, which we've been been through in length, so we won't go through that. And you know, the argument that some of them and many in the coalition are surprised she didn't take this course is to, you know, bed down her position over winter, regain any lost skin that she had at the Press Club. Instead, she's gone overseas, met with a bunch of figures that most Australians, I agree with you, would have would not know. Um and if you're searching for a rationale, and I I have been thinking about this and asking people about this. I guess there's a there's a few a few fronts where you could um you know, create a a logical explanation for what she's done.

[00:19:50]One is that there's a very influential world of wealthy um populist-friendly donors and other figures around these conferences and in a in a hub financial hub such as London, where because of Hanson's rise, she's treated as an absolute superstar in these circles now. There's a lot of energy in the European and North American populist world. She's a darling in that world. She wants to take >> allowed to Australian politicians aren't allowed to take donations from overseas donors.

[00:20:18]>> Yeah, exactly. So well, yeah, precisely.

[00:20:21]So there's I I imagine there are wealthy Australians in that scene such as Holly Valance and people around Valance and and Rinehart perhaps.

[00:20:31]Um but also I guess there's there's people who can actually donate and then there's powerful and wealthy and intelligent figures in the populist political world in that part of the world where she can learn ideas, um gather resources, find uh you know, recruit helpful pieces in the One Nation jigsaw puzzle to boost her brand here and attract, you know, um thought leadership and advice and and and donors potentially if there are Australians there. So that that's that's some of the thinking. And and and the other part that that put to me is that you know, where Farage has Nigel Farage has been a you know, very potent figure there for two or three years speaking about the what they say are the ills of mass migration and political Islam, she's trying to uh latch on to some of that uh to to to to to utilize the um the example of Britain and to show that to an Australian audience. Now, whether that lands or whether she appears to be off on a frolic, people will make their minds up.

[00:21:36]>> I mean, I suppose it makes her look kind of um yeah, as she's accepted in these global sort of circles, it makes her look a bit more it gives her a high profile. Maybe people like that, I don't know. We'll see if it it it it pays any political dividends for her. Um meanwhile, just quickly, there has been a fair bit of reporting about her Senate colleague uh Malcolm Roberts, who is you know, fellow fellow One Nation senator, um who has been I would say on the extremes of Australian political life for his entire um tenure in the Senate, and he has often dabbled in conspiracy theories, anti-Semitic tropes, and we're seeing a lot of that reporting come out.

[00:22:08]He's sort of always done it, and he's always done these things that would might maybe cause a bit of outrage on Twitter or whatever, but it hasn't really been reported in mainstream media like ours. But now, you know, he's done stuff like he he reposted or he he praised this really notorious anti-Semitic mural image, um which people can read about on our websites, um you know, a lot of it is really really deep rabbit hole extremist sort of right-wing conspiracy stuff that if you don't if you're not across those tropes, then you sort of wouldn't even recognize them. He also praised Russian President Vladimir Putin for invading Ukraine. He's endorsed conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who's a disgraceful individual from the United States, who of course um said that the Sandy Hook um school massacre was a false flag operation, and he has insisted that the US was controlled by globalist sect of bankers, which as we know is a common anti-Semitic trope. So, I mean that's pretty embarrassing for One Nation, is it? Barnaby Joyce has tried to distance himself from Malcolm Roberts and says those views don't reflect the party, but clearly they do because he's a One Nation senator.

[00:23:15]>> He's and he's a he's a long-time very close ally of Pauline Hanson in Queensland.

[00:23:19]Um who's been intrinsic to the One Nation show even though he's not very well known in the public. I think you're right, it is embarrassing and it you know, they there is a a tendency in the left to label uh whatever uh view that a you know, an activist may not like as misinformation or conspiracy, but this is proper deep end lunacy.

[00:23:38]>> It's crazy crazy stuff. It's like it's like your grandpa's gone mental because he spent too much time on YouTube. Like it's really mad stuff.

[00:23:45]>> Yeah, that that that a that a a party that wants mainstream attention would accommodate this is a sign that it's not a serious organization which has boundaries and Pauline Hanson admitted just in front of the seat I'm I'm sitting in a month or two ago to us that her branches have been and this is a quote from her. I've seen lots of people on Twitter criticize me for repeatedly saying this, but she said the words herself. She's been infiltrated by extremists in her branches. She's had to shut down four branches because she can't control the types of characters coming into her branches. Now, the suspicion is that white supremacist groups, potentially people with neo-Nazi links and others potentially with views similar to Malcolm Roberts. Now, those kinds of characters are absolutely on the fringe of Australian political debate, but if they see a party leader like Pauline Hanson is now grabbing mainstream attention uh hanging out with someone like Tommy Robinson, uh then you could only imagine that people who have Malcolm Roberts' view of the world might see an incentive to try and get themselves into One Nation because they see people like Roberts and Hanson fraternizing with Tommy Robinson and think that's my home. So, you know, One Nation's had this amazing surge because of the coalition's ineptitude and it's it's it's it's it's just been a you know, in such a parlous position.

[00:25:06]Labor has obviously activated a lot of people on the right to feel quite animated about politics. This has led to a surge to One Nation, but as time goes on, if stories like the ones that you've referenced written by our colleague Rob Harris keep emerging, you'd imagine that that would continue to chip away at One Nation's One Nation's mainstream credibility.

[00:25:24]>> Yeah. I'm aware that we haven't really talked about the coalition or Angus Taylor this podcast, but we're going to we will next week, I think, because Angus Taylor is sort of trying to reclaim a bit of political space for himself and he gave a speech to the Sydney Institute this this week that was um laid out a little bit of his vision and gave a sharper attack on One Nation.

[00:25:42]We don't have time for that this week, but we will talk about it next week amongst many other fascinating topics, I'm sure. Um Paul, when is our hot girl summer? When when are we going to do that?

[00:25:51]>> I spent all my I spent all my money in in the US. I'm done for holidays.

[00:25:55]>> Okay, we'll have to wait for 2027 and take we're going to take this show on the road to Sicily. Um I look forward to that and I look forward to next week, too, and we'll just be in Canberra and Sydney.

[00:26:05]>> Thanks [laughter] Thanks for talking. I'll talk to you next week.

[00:26:07]>> Bye.

[00:26:08]>> Bye.