Thursday, 7 August 2025

EO&E

LAURA JAYES Let's go live now to Shadow Industrial Relations Minister Tim Wilson, I want to talk AI with you. You know, I'm obsessed Tim. So let's get down to it, there's a lot of noise around this upcoming productivity summit. There needs to be some guardrails around AI. There's so many different aspects to this. When it comes to these this roundtable, it's going to be the first of many. It should be the first of many, but what do you think? The government should be concentrating on when it comes to AI. What's the most important aspect of it?

TIM WILSON The most important thing is to make sure that AI is working for the Australian people and for the Australian economy. It is not just a tool but it's a team-mate in the workplace to empower small businesses to be competitive and to be part of building the future of the Australian economy. At the moment, what we're hearing from the government is how do they resist technology, how do they resist the contribution it can make, and particularly how do they make Australian businesses uncompetitive, which is frankly just naive and foolish. And one of the important parts of that is how do we also make sure. That we respect property rights of creators and I see my colleague James Paterson has been out about this today very strongly and rightly so. Respect the private property and the intellectual property and moral rights of creators through intellectual property, through artificial intelligence so that Australian creative industry gets the advantage and thrives off the back of artificial intelligence as well.

LAURA JAYES Yeah, so there needs to be guardrails. We've got to be careful not to over-regulate here. I thought it was striking in the latest interview that Sam Altman has done. He did it with Theo Von in the US. He talked about the legal aspects. Many people are using ChatGPT as a bit of a psychologist, a counselor. That could be used in a court of law, could it not? Does that need to be clarified?

TIM WILSON I don't think that's appropriate for me to comment, to be frank. I think, you know, we're still working with how AI is going to be used in lots of different settings. But I do think it's important to understand that it will play an important role in the future. And I was speaking to people in the tech industry yesterday and they said you know jobs aren't going to be replaced because of AI but people who don't use AI are at risk of being replaced by those who don't use it. So you know people need to see this as an opportunity and to see how they can upskill and integrate into their work practices. One because it will make them more productive and more better contributors in the workplace but of course it also broadens out the landscape of employment opportunities where we'll see people being able to play a bigger role in the workplace. So, you know, obviously when we see new technology come along, people can potentially see things as threats, people can see them as opportunities. Really, people need to be leaning into the opportunity for themselves and up-skilling themselves because I think as I use it in my daily life on my iPhone like everybody else, I'm excited as well as cautious about its opportunity.

LAURA JAYES But how do you upskill yourself? And is it naive to think that jobs won't be lost? I mean, if you're talking about some views from at least the boss of Anthropic, he was saying 20% of the current workforce. Yeah, and a lot of those would reinvent themselves into other jobs that are compatible with AI, but jobs are gonna disappear.

TIM WILSON Well, I think what we're gonna see is task disappearing, but we're not gonna see skills disappearing. So that's why, like with any new technology coming in, it's really important. When we got mobile phones came in, they replaced certain behaviours, they replaced people, obviously, who used to sit on phone exchanges, who moved things between here and there, but instead we got this whole new burgeoning area of mobile phone telephony. So it's a whole new industry that developed as a consequence. So we know this is gonna be dynamic. How do you skill yourself up? Well, firstly, you actually look at the technology and see its opportunity. You ask it questions, you engage with it in your existing workplace. You can do training and skills and I think that's gonna be one of the, you know, important things for government to lean into. But going with an open mind.

LAURA JAYES So just can I pick you up on that, a government to lead into skills and the training, this would take in you know a government working with universities to make sure, quite frankly, that we're offering the right courses for our young people to be prepared for the jobs of the future. I think back to just five years ago, well there's this massive push to get girls in particular into coding, young people into coding because that's where all the jobs of the future we're going to be. And that's no longer the case because you can get ChatGPT to code in about 10 seconds.

TIM WILSON Well, I remember when Kevin Rudd stood in a classroom and said, holding about a 10-year-old laptop, and said this is the toolbox of the 21st century. You can't really trust Labor to understand the future of the economy. Business understands the future the economy, and in the context of AI, they're figuring it out themselves as they go along. So I think our universities are still struggling to understand what impact it's going to have on them, because I think you're going to see more and more people pursuing short courses, where people are going to upskill off them rather than necessarily being dependent on degree programs which means universities are going have to adapt. We're not developing university policy and higher education policy here, but it requires an open mind, understanding that if you don't adapt and look at pathways forward, there will be others who will and they'll become disruptive. So now is the time for Australians to be honest with ourselves, see the competitive opportunity because there's no reason, there are plenty of Australians who are innovators in the AI space, and currently they're going overseas because they don't see the opportunity here. We should want to be a country that is at the leading edge of this conversation at the moment, unfortunately under the current government we're a laggard.

LAURA JAYES Well, let me quickly ask you about the roundtable. One issue that's come up today, GST, I mean, it's put forward by people that aren't going to be at the round table. Anthony Albanese, he doesn't want to rule things in and out. And look, I welcome that in a way because you need this debate, you need everything on the table if you're going to get serious tax reform. But in terms of the GST and recirculating that money so people don't lose out, is that the antithesis of the conversation that we need to have? I mean, with changes, there's always going to be people that lose out, and we need to be honest about that, don't we?

TIM WILSON Well, firstly, the Prime Minister has actually ruled out a conversation around the GST, slapped down Jim Chalmers only a few weeks ago on that topic. Secondly, I mean, it's a bit rich hearing this from the sideline Teals in the lead up to the last election, lead up to the 2022 election, they said that they wouldn't raise these issues. Then they did. Then they said they wouldn't in this term of parliament. Now they have again. What you actually need if you're going to have a conversation about tax reform is courage. That means putting things on the table, standing up and fighting for them, making the case. You don't find your courage around a round table...

LAURA JAYES But what's the Opposition? What's your attitude to this? Tim, what's your attitude to this then? Are you going to stand by, wait for the government to come up with the ideas that you'll either support or oppose? Are you gonna come up some ideas of yourselves?

TIM WILSON Laura, no-one would ever say that I am absent-ideas or I'm willing to put things on the table and will most certainly do so. Of course, this will be led by the Shadow Treasurer, Ted O'Brien, and of course, I'll impart my views through him, but to me, it's very clear Australia's economy faces big challenges. We want to make sure we're open, competitive and part of building out the future opportunity for jobs growth in this country with standards of living rising. At the moment, standards of living are falling. We have unemployment rising, businesses collapsing, and so absolutely we are going to put forward a compelling policy offering at the next election focused on growing the economy from the foundations up in communities, in small businesses, as part of building out the success of the future of Australia.

LAURA JAYES Hopefully we don't have to wait a full three years for that, Tim. Thanks so much for your time today.

TIM WILSON I never suggested you have to wait that long.

LAURA JAYES Okay, good. We'll see you soon.

TIM WILSON Thanks, Laura.

LAURA JAYES Tim Wilson joining us live on the program and that wraps up the show for today.

ENDS