Why AI means reform in Albo's second term

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Anthony Albanese says Australians voted for progressive patriotism and to face global challenges the Australian way.

In his first national press club address since Labor won that thumping, enormous election, the Prime Minister outlined his second term agenda and laid out a vision for a stronger and fairer Australia.

He announced some things that give us a hint that maybe, perhaps, if you're dreaming, something big might happen.

A new productivity roundtable, sending a message that his government is serious about reform.

Welcome to Politics Now.

Hi, I'm Patricia Carvallis.

And I'm David Lipson.

And David, the Prime Minister, has just stepped off the stage after his first press club address as a re-elected Prime Minister.

He, of course, addressed the press club during the election.

You know, Peter Dutton didn't.

Just a note on that, Susan Lee plans to, so that's a signal from the new Liberal leader that she takes that venue seriously.

He, of course, didn't miss the opportunity to whip out his Medicare card, but there was other stuff in it and some signals about serious reform, maybe, if you read into it.

I think that's what he's trying to say.

David, what was that announcement?

Well, in a nutshell, as you mentioned, it was a roundtable.

So he's talking about a productivity and growth roundtable being hosted in August, which will involve representatives from the business community, from unions,

and from civil society.

So what is this all about?

Well, as you sort of inferred there, I think this is really about at least giving the appearance of laying the foundations, perhaps, for some bigger picture reforms.

So although the Prime Minister and his staff insist that they will be going through this second term doing what they promised to do and no more,

he's acutely aware of the need for some serious reform.

And that is very much in the space of productivity and, yes, growth.

And I'm sure he's aware as well that there's some huge challenges coming down the pipeline like AI.

Well, I mean, that's already here, really.

I mean, I've been thinking about it recently a little bit like climate change.

You know, we used to talk about it being in the future.

Now that's here.

And AI, that is very much here.

We're all using it, but it's also starting to have significant impacts on the workforce

and also on productivity, positive effects on productivity.

And I guess the hope is to maximise that.

But really, the big one is about the budget.

That's the big piece of reform that needs to be solved.

We've got a budget that shows deficit for as far as

we can forecast, as far as we can predict, right out to 10 years, and no sort of sign of bringing that under control.

That's the sort of difficult reform that perhaps you might need a roundtable for and some consensus between those important groups.

A couple of things.

You're absolutely right on AI.

And unless we actually start having a leadership over AI and how we're going to use it as a country and how we'll accelerate it, it will just decide for us.

I'll give you an example.

At the MCG, you know, the holy land of Melbourne, it really is.

It's a special place.

If you want to go buy a drink and a pie now, you don't, there's, there's sections that you don't have to deal with any humans.

You just walk in and it reads your card and it tallies up how much you've spent and you can walk out completely contactless with a human being.

Now, I was thinking the other day, because I spent a bit of time there, Hollywood Supporter, if you haven't missed it, if you've missed it, that's like, I don't know, I'm making it up because, you know, this is just my observation.

That's three jobs of 18-year-olds.

that now don't exist.

And I'm not opposing, I've used it myself as a measure, as a way of efficiently doing business, but we're not actually having these conversations.

And so when we talk about productivity, it's all happening without the government creating the guardrails or having a discussion about how to do it.

Maybe we should use more of it.

I'm not like giving a value judgment, but I feel like that's been the missing piece.

And the treasurer has certainly said it's the missing piece.

He wants this term to be about it.

So some of the changes they're making, like for instance, getting the Treasury boss, Stephen Kennedy, to be the boss of the Prime Minister's department is totally about trying to bring this into the center of the Prime Minister's process and, you know, him to lead some of this.

It is a game changer.

It will be huge.

It will hurt some people, but it will transform businesses and perhaps make us a super competitive country and allow us to grow because we haven't talked a lot about growth.

There hasn't been a growth agenda.

And I think successive governments have failed here.

So today I thought that was the first marker from the Prime Minister beyond what the Treasurer has been saying, David, that he wants to be kind of in the leadership of that by bringing these key figures into key roles, right?

That's exactly right, exactly right.

And just on AI, I mean, it's not just those lower-paid entry-level jobs, you know, being at a service counter and the like.

We are starting to see significant changes in the workforce amongst university graduates as well.

We're starting to see, for example, I read a figure the other day, I think it's in the United States for the first time.

We're starting to see unemployment rising in a significant way for uni uni graduates.

So some of those law clerks, for example, you know, those lower entry tertiary educated jobs are also starting to evaporate.

So yes, this is a huge opportunity for productivity, but it's a huge challenge, AI, for the workforce and, you know, how we're going to imagine our country and our world

in the future.

And we're not talking, you know, the distant future.

You know, there are some very smart people who think that the world will be very different in just a couple of years, 2027, 2028.

So

the thinking is that once this happens, once we sort of have AI

better at coding, at programming itself in a way,

this rapidly transforms and everything sort of gets plugged into computers because they'll do a better job than we will.

Yeah,

but originally we designed them.

So don't take the person out of of the original concept.

Please no, please no.

I'm always here, centering the humans.

David, in terms of this productivity and growth roundtable, it does send a signal.

It's going to be in August.

It will be a real thing.

Unions, business, everyone comes together.

And the government did something similar at the beginning of its first term, the jobs roundtable.

I have to be a little bit cynical and just

it seems

a roundtable.

What do they've already decided on what they want to do?

Should we be a little cynical about what they're doing here?

We should, and particularly, you know, after the last Jobs and Skills Summit three years ago, the business community in particular was a bit miffed.

They felt like they were muscled out by the unions in particular.

Now, the Prime Minister was asked about this today at the press club, and he made no apologies for the unions being involved, not just in the last summit, but in this one as well.

But, you know, there would be questions in the business community in regards to what is this really about, because sometimes there's a view that these summits are sort of put in place to justify a decision that perhaps behind closed doors has already been made.

So they're kind of looking for the reason

after the fact.

And that's, I guess, how some business leaders felt the last time around because there were significant changes to industrial relations law, certainly in the eyes of business,

after that last jobs and skills summit.

So there will be some who'll be sceptical.

The Prime Minister today was urging people to come in with an open mind, have a free-flowing discussion, take all their ideas to the table.

But, you know, this, I think the electorate would also look at this a little bit cynically, like, let's keep an open mind.

But

remember Kevin Rudd did his big

kind of, I can't remember what it was called, do you remember the big, the big,

you know, everyone had butcher's paper and was sitting on the floor.

You're talking about the 2020 summit?

That's it, 2020 summit.

Highlight of my youth career, let me tell you.

I was deployed to that summit like a tiger for journalism.

There was cynicism then, and there's sort of still cynicism, I reckon, about these.

They feel a little bit predictable that after an election, you have a summit.

Let's talk about what to do.

Yeah, yeah.

I think there's always a bit of cynicism at what people describe as talk fests and people are right to kind of raise an eyebrow.

But I'll also say better that they're talking, convening these things, bringing people who are, you know, adversaries sometimes together to come up with solutions, especially on big national complex problems.

I mean, we all need jobs.

We all need...

our nation to be strong.

We want this to happen.

And so watch that space because the Prime Minister obviously wants to,

I think I've said it a few times of this cliche, but he just doesn't want to die wandering, right?

He's won a thumping majority, doesn't want to mess with people by sort of being radical and moving change really fast so that people go, ah, we didn't agree to this.

But he certainly wants to make an impact clearly.

His treasurer is red hot for it.

He's made it clear.

And so let's see what they deliver.

And thinking about the future as well.

And I think that's interesting in the sense, and you mentioned this earlier, that Susan Lee is also facing the press club.

That's something new for the opposition.

We haven't seen that for a number of years.

Certainly Peter Dutton didn't go near it as leader.

And her message is all about building a modern liberal party.

So she's kind of trying to bring

the party forward, if you like, in time to the present or the future.

And that, I guess, for her will be a huge opportunity too, to lay down some markers

and see if she can bring the party along because that's a challenge right.

So she's got a pretty important job and that's going to take a while.

Like there's so much work to do for the coalition.

Like really they must be exhausted just thinking about the road ahead.

The Prime Minister has all that time, can I say, if he's smart, to get the skates on.

and achieve some real things because nothing like your opposition still being in disarray to get you know ahead of things.

So let's see what he does.

David, the Prime Minister was also asked a question

about black deaths in custody and whether there should be a potential federal intervention into that.

Now, famously, everyone will recall the federal intervention by the Howard government into Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory.

There has been a call for the federal government to kind of come in because black deaths in custody have become, again,

a really big issue for Aboriginal communities and those who just are alarmed to see this still happening to Indigenous Australians.

So it's not just Aboriginal people that are concerned about this.

Prime Minister says something really interesting that essentially he wasn't convinced that interventions work or that you send people from Canberra and they can necessarily have a big impact.

Okay, fair enough.

I kind of get that point.

There wasn't exactly a real leaning in either.

And I think that should be mentioned, called out perhaps.

He talked about Melindiri McCarthy, whose father has just died, being you know, someone who will engage in this, and that's great, she should.

But if you want to shift the dial on stuff like this, you need the Prime Minister at the centre.

Do you can get the sense from him?

Not that he doesn't care, I'm sure he does very much, but that he had anything new to say that involved him getting involved, David.

That's how I heard it.

Yeah,

I think that's a really astute observation.

Uh,

and the obvious trickiness with an issue like this in political terms only is that

if you're going to get involved, you'd want to kind of sense that you can do something.

And he had that lesson very bluntly thrown in his face last term with the voice referendum.

But, and this is important.

You are the Prime Minister, if you are the Prime Minister, you know, you do have a responsibility

when things

are not working in a very serious way, as is the case in this topic, in Black Deaths in Custody.

This is something that I think we all need to keep a close eye on

because it's something you can't just throw your hands up on and say, not my responsibility, there's not much we can do about it from Canberra.

I think, you know, ultimately there comes a point where

you've got got to get involved.

Yeah, and there is a sense that it is all pretty hard.

And then he does that line, which I've heard a zillion times, we've all failed here.

And I'm always yelling at the television by then, thinking, yes, you all have.

I think that's a true statement.

Let's start trying not to fail.

I think that's what we expect.

Let's try things that maybe won't fail.

There are some ideas.

Probably will leave Indigenous people pretty disappointed, I think, who are waiting for more leadership there.

That's not to say the minister's not working hard, but she's even put treaty and truth back on the agenda, saying she wants to listen.

I had a very senior Labor person say to me the other day, because I've said, well, that's significant, say, unless he engages, she can't do that on her own.

And so she might be listening, but unless he engages, and it's an important thing for him, it won't happen.

David, of course,

you know, these domestic stories have become a little more,

well, I'm just going to call it a little more mediocre because over the Pacific, our mates in the United States are going through what is an absolute crisis in their democracy in many ways.

A Channel 9 reporter, an Australian journalist, Lauren Tomasi, was shot in the leg by a rubber bullet, shot by a policeman while covering the LA protests.

Quite obviously targeted.

She is shot at.

She's said to be okay, but that's incredibly painful and frightening and you're doing your job.

The Prime Minister was asked about this.

He was questioned by Charles Croucher from Nine about whether he'll raise it with Donald Trump.

He wouldn't commit or not commit to what he'd say with Donald Trump, but I think that's a consistent thing where he's going to do the old, I'm not going to tell you what I'm talking about with the president.

It's confidential, you'll hear later.

I think that's pretty smart actually as a sort of set of words to deal with this so you don't front run your conversations through the media, especially with a volatile figure like Donald Trump.

But he did make it quite clear that this kind of behaviour is something we denounce, which I think was a strong message.

What did you think?

Yeah, it was strong.

And he's spoken to Lauren this morning as well, the journalist.

He spoke, you know, called her this morning to check on her.

But he also pointed out that

the government, the Australian government has

made representations, if you like, has spoken with the US administration.

So, you know,

to kind of voice its concern about this, You know, the Prime Minister used some very strong language in regards to that.

He said it was unacceptable.

I think he said it was a horrific incident that he saw.

He really spoke in support of journalists doing their work, but he wouldn't.

And you're right, it is wise to not talk about, not to telegraph what he's going to speak.

to Donald Trump about whether he will raise this directly.

And to be frank, he probably has, you know, bigger things to raise.

Well, he does have bigger things to raise, much more thorny things like defense spending and

that sort of thing, that for a nation, for our two nations,

are much more pressing.

But the situation in the United States is a crisis, you're right.

It seems quite contained now to just a small part of LA, but there are some signals that it's spreading a bit, these protests, and in some cases, violent protests, San Francisco and Washington.

And the fact that the President has sent in not just the National Guard now, but

U.S.

soldiers, Marines, to assist here is pretty concerning.

And you just don't know where this will go.

And I heard you and Jacob speaking about this yesterday, that

it seems to be something that the President is doing deliberately, that there's a lot of other things going on that he may not want people to look at.

I think that's correct.

But remember that the President has form in this space as well.

I was in the U.S.

reporting for the ABC

in 2020 when he used riot police to clear protesters from outside the White House.

It was right there.

I watched it happen before my eyes.

And

trying to work out at the time, what's this about?

Why is this happening?

And then to see the president come out.

and what it really was about was a photo opportunity.

So he doesn't mind clearing out protesters.

I think he thinks it works well for him politically to project strength and to show that he's in control and perhaps as a distraction as well.

But

the last time that the National Guard was sent to LA was in the 1992 riots that were sparked by

the court case around Rodney King.

And that was a very, very different situation.

I mean,

they were serious riots.

People were being shot, killed, dragged out of trucks and

beaten up in the street and almost killed.

It was absolutely horrific.

And the main thing that was different then is that the state of California wanted the National Guard here.

And that's what's different here, is that Gavin Newsome, the governor,

is clear that this is, in his mind, inflaming things.

And he's even trying to sue the president over this.

So it's quite extraordinary.

It is extraordinary and really fits into the language that Donald Trump has used about the enemy within.

This idea of your own citizens being leftist citizens being the problem that you need to fight and using your own military potentially against your own citizens is

really alarming.

You know,

we're recording this on a Tuesday in the middle of the day.

Things can flare up again.

But part of the reason I think it's still contained is there are a lot of really smart people.

I have heard smart people saying, Don't take the bait because they feel like that Donald Trump is setting up this confrontation.

But it seems to me the protesters have sort of got that message, that warning, that this is a provocation in some ways as well, right, David?

I think so, yeah.

It looks that way.

But you're right, it's a tinderbox, and at any point, things can blow up.

I think probably the other thing that's worth mentioning is this seems to be, in a political sense, beneficial for Donald Trump, certainly in his mind.

But don't forget Gavin Newsom as well.

I mean, he's in some ways the victim here, because Trump has imposed this National Guard on his state and his city.

But I think it probably works for his politics, too, to fight back at Donald Trump.

Remember that, you know, he was one of the names mentioned when it became apparent that Joe Biden wasn't the man to take the Democrats to the election last year.

And a lot of that was based on his ability to fight Donald Trump, you know, his kind of

his tenacity and

pugnacious kind of style in some ways.

So, you know,

he's leaning into this too, I think you'd have to say.

But clearly he's the guy who's saying, please don't inflame this by sending National Guard troops and other soldiers in.

Gavin Newsom, probably likely to run for president at the next election.

And also, he has a podcast, which I have mixed feelings about.

All right, just finally, there's going to be an election, it seems, in Tasmania.

I don't know what we can say other than it's extraordinary, right?

Like, clearly, no Tasmanian wants to vote.

They voted four times in the last couple of years.

They've also just had this federal election where I can, you know, Labor basically smashed it, like they just destroyed all of the other parties.

and

what like i don't even get it it's about the state's finances i did get saw leslake onto afternoon briefing to explain it and he actually does did say which i found really clarifying that the tasmanian budget is in a worse state than even the victorian budget which is considered to be a basket case right and and that kind of clarified things for me a little i didn't realize it was that bad uh this stadium's part of the issue are lots of other controversial decisions but like seems that the feds have avoided any attachment to any of this so far, though.

Yeah, so far.

It's really interesting that you say that about, because I felt the same this morning.

I thought,

what is this about?

Because, you know, the stadium's getting a lot of talk, but, you know,

as I understand it, you know, there's 240,000 members of this new football club.

There's huge interest in the Tasmania Devils team.

and you know weather conditions aren't great down in Hobart I thought people would largely be supportive of an indoor stadium when the wind is howling down from the snow-capped mountains and on the budget issues more broadly obviously the stadiums you know very expensive 375 million dollars I think it's going to add a lot more to debt you know over 10 years

the the net debt it was I think it's $10 billion and I thought that doesn't sound enormous I mean you'd rather not have it.

But it was explained to me by someone I was speaking to this morning that this is a really small tax base.

So roughly, and this is rough, you've got about a third of people working for government.

You've got about a third of people working in the private sector and about a third of people on welfare.

And there's only about 500,000 people in Tasmania.

So when you sort of narrow that down, $10 billion is a huge amount of money.

And this stadium is going to add a whopping amount more to it.

And then there are sort of questions swirling around about

who's going to be in charge of planning and all the rest on that.

There's the huge bungle as well with the ferries, you know, where they ordered these Trans-Bass Strait ferries, but they didn't.

Sorry, the ferries that are stuck.

Where are they stuck?

Somewhere in Europe, yeah?

They're stuck in Europe.

But

the real thing is, you know, they ordered these ferries before they upgraded the terminal in Tasmania.

So they can't,

they can berth, but they can only berth with a sort of fraction of the capacity that the ferries are kind of ready for.

So even when they do arrive, they're not even going to be able to fill them anywhere near to capacity.

So, you know, there's all sorts of problems that have led this no-confidence motion in the Premier Jeremy Rockliffe.

Yeah, yeah,

he's definitely in deep trouble.

It's going to be hard for him to survive, even if his government manages somehow to survive or after an electr, who knows.

Well, that's it for politics now for today.

I've had a very good debrief with you, though, David Libson.

Thank you.

Thank you.

It's been most enjoyable for me as well.

Let's keep our productivity up, my friend.

How can artificial intelligence supplant us?

That's terrifying.

Absolutely terrifying.

Let's try to ensure that doesn't happen just yet.

Let's put it off for a little while.

David Spears will be back with me tomorrow, then on Thursday.

Fran and I will answer your questions.

Send them to the partyroom at abc.net.au.

See you, David.

Thanks.