Anthony Albanese will deliver a landmark speech on AI this week as MPs are torn between attracting datacentre investment and protecting the rights of creatives
Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates
When Anna Funder stood before a pack of journalists at Parliament House this month, she presented herself not just as a writer but also a “victim of crime”.
The Stasiland author was using the analogy to illustrate how technology companies have flagrantly “hoovered up” her literary works for their own profit.
Authors, artists, musicians and media organisations were last year assured those laws wouldn’t be watered down when the federal government ruled out granting a legal exemption for artificial intelligence companies to mine content to train their large language models, which include ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude.
But continual lobbying from tech giants and a whistleblower’s tipoff to the independent senator David Pocock have ignited fears that the Albanese government might go back on its word – even as it continues to insist that it won’t.
The stoush has exposed splits within Labor about how to respond to AI and raised questions about how far the government should bend – if at all – to big tech to capture the supposed riches of the datacentre boom.
Ministers divided
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, is expected to deliver a major speech on Wednesday about the government’s plans for regulating and capitalising on the nascent technology.
After abandoning the former industry minister Ed Husic’s vision for a dedicated AI act in favour of a hands-off approach to regulation, the government is reportedly set to pivot back to a more interventionist strategy.
“These are complex issues, we’re working it through with the sector,” Albanese said. “But my government, I think, has a strong record of supporting people; one, having control over things that they have created, and secondly, if things are being used, being paid for it, being properly compensated for it.”
‘The ultimate dirty deal’
The Tech Council of Australia chair and Atlassian co-founder, Scott Farquhar, directly appealed for the carve-out last July, claiming that “fixing this one thing could unlock billions of dollars in foreign investment”.
The Productivity Commission floated the idea of an exemption in a report a few weeks later, provoking a furious backlash from the creative sector that eventually led Rowland to kill off the proposal in October.
Sign up for a weekly email featuring our best reads
The government’s stated preference is for tech firms to negotiate agreements with creatives to pay to use their content.
But the timeframe for a resolution remains unclear, leaving the tech industry and creatives in the dark.
The creative sector, Pocock and the Greens have grown fearful that the “text and data mining” option could be resurrected as the Albanese government eyes more investment in datacentres.
The independent senator for the Australian Capital Territory described the proposal presented to ministers as the “ultimate dirty deal” and demanded Labor immediately rule it out.
“To sell out Australian creatives would be a reckless act,’ Pocock told the Senate on 1 July. “To sell out Australian creatives for a couple of hundred billion dollars in datacentres, a bump to GDP, would be reckless.”
On Tuesday the Australian Financial Review reported that Anthropic was pushing for a deal in line with what Pocock was alleging as part of a plan to make Australia its second home outside the US.
Anthropic, whose chief executive, Dario Amodei, signed a memorandum of understanding with the federal government after meeting Albanese in April, was contacted for comment.
Industry and government sources, speaking to Guardian Australian on the condition on anonymity, poured cold water on such a deal with Anthropic or other companies.
‘We have negotiating leverage here’
Australia is viewed as an ideal host for datacentres as a safe, politically stable nation with access to land and renewable power.
But multinational tech giants are prepared to invest elsewhere in what has become a global arms race.
Husic, who now sits on the backbench, says the Australian government has the leverage and should not bow to their demands.
“Keeping with the best traditions of late-night TV infomercials, we’re being pressured by US tech that if we don’t sign up to these datacentre deals now, we’ll miss out on a huge opportunity,” Husic says.
“Impulse purchases are often regretted and our government should take a moment to remember we have negotiating leverage here and the ability to set the terms.”
The federal government has set “expectations” for datacentre developers, which include securing additional green energy and covering their share of transmission and distribution costs.
Husic wants further restrictions, including banning new centres on land set aside for housing.
The Labor MP has previously suggested a moratorium might be necessary if the datacentre “frenzy” makes it harder to hit the nation’s housing construction targets.
Other colleagues disagree.
One Labor MP says opposing datacentres is akin to “nimbyism” and the federal government should establish consistent rules across the country to ensure Australia secures benefits from the global investment race.
The MP argues that Australia is not seeing widespread protests against datacentre operation and construction, as have happened in the US.
Belinda Dennett, the chief executivee of Data Centres Australia, says the country has “all the attributes” to be an attractive centre for AI but “policy certainty” is critical to securing that investment.
“We support the principles of the government’s datacentre expectations, but we need to understand how they will be implemented and how they will work with state and local government requirements,” she says.
Polling shows Australians are split on how they view AI.
The Guardian Essential poll in May found 36% of voters think AI carries more risk than opportunity, while 41% see risk and opportunity about the same. Only 22% think AI has more opportunity than risk.
‘It would be a betrayal’
Charlton is spearheading the government’s AI plans, an usually large policy responsibility for a junior minister in just his fourth year in parliament.
The former top economic adviser to Kevin Rudd is considered one of Labor’s rising stars and sharpest and most business-savvy minds, having made a personal fortune after founding and then selling the boutique consultancy firm AlphaBeta Advisors.
The Parramatta MP’s close ties to the tech world make him uniquely qualified to understand the risks and opportunities of AI. Some colleagues believe he is too pro-tech, which clouds his perspective and priorities.
Charlton has sought to position himself as a centrist in the datacentre debate, neither a booster nor an alarmist.
In a 10 June speech he argued that Australia should not “blindly accept or reject” the investment on offer from the tech giants.
“Rather, Australia should actively set the terms on which that investment occurs, consistent with our values and aligned with our long-term interests,” he told the Sydney Institute.
“The government has said previously that they would not allow a text and data mining exemption,” says the Greens communications spokesperson, Sarah Hanson-Young, who is chairing a parliamentary inquiry into datacentres.
“But anything that quacks like that, moves like that, would be a betrayal.”
