1h agoWed 6 Aug 2025 at 7:09am
That’s the end of our live blog
That’s the end of our live blog for today. Thank you for joining us!
We’ll be back again tomorrow to bring you all the developments in federal politics.
Meanwhile, you can look back on today’s developments below, or download the ABC News app and subscribe to our range of news alerts for the latest updates.
2h agoWed 6 Aug 2025 at 6:50am
McKenzie says being human should be protected from ‘huge risks’ of AI
Bridget McKenzie says artificial intelligence comes with “huge risks” and is testing what it means to be human.
Asked if there should be light regulations on AI, McKenzie has declared she’s a National and conservative, not a Liberal.
She says being human is “important and unique and something to be protected” from AI.
“It’s not just about the intellectual property piece, per se, but also the process of being a creative, writing a song, prose, that’s part of being human. I would hate to see that somehow be frittered away in a chase for economic nirvana,” McKenzie says.
2h agoWed 6 Aug 2025 at 6:45am
Nationals Senate Leader Bridget McKenzie joins Afternoon Briefing
Nationals Senate Leader Bridget McKenzie has joined Afternoon Briefing to discuss the treasurer’s upcoming productivity roundtable.
She says the treasurer’s idea started with “such promise”, but the agenda is now “limited” with the exclusion of industrial relations.
“The Australian people have legit given these guys a huge mandate and they should use what is often nowadays quite a unique proposition for a government,” McKenzie says.
“I like to see the ideas. There’s 900-odd submissions put forward. They seemed to be stuffed in the bottom drawer,” she says.
Asked about the Productivity Commission’s idea to lower the company tax rate for smaller businesses, McKenzie says there needs to be a holistic view of the tax regime.
“There are ways we can make it simpler and easier for companies, so they aren’t having to shed workers, can keep people employed and grow going forward in coming decades,” she says.
2h agoWed 6 Aug 2025 at 6:37am
McIntosh says Australia should be careful about ‘overregulating’ artificial intelligence
Melissa McIntosh has been asked about the Productivity Commission’s report on artificial intelligence (we brought you that a little earlier).
Opposition Leader Sussan Ley today called for guardrails on artificial intelligence to protect Australian intellectual property.
McIntosh been asked whether Australia should have a “light touch approach” to regulating AI.
McIntosh says she’s “patriotic” about protecting Australian content and protecting news media, but she says the government should be treading carefully with AI regulation and not “overregulating”.
“We already have enough difficulties in this country when it comes to the protection of intellectual property. There’s so much intellectual property theft that goes on, particularly from offshore actors stealing content, stealing business knowledge. I think we need to be treading carefully, not overregulating,” McIntosh says.
2h agoWed 6 Aug 2025 at 6:31am
Shadow Communications Minister Melissa McIntosh joins Afternoon Briefing
Shadow Communications Minister has Melissa McIntosh joined Afternoon Briefing to speak about the eSafety Commissioner’s report on social media released today.
The commissioner has accused the world’s biggest social media firms of still “turning a blind eye” to online child sex abuse material on their platforms, and said YouTube in particular had been unresponsive to its enquiries.
McIntosh says the report is a “warning bell” and the government needs to step in with greater action.
“There are evil things going on in the online world and you’ve been talking about AI, we need to be seriously looking at the future for our kids in that space too,” McIntosh says.
The shadow communications minister says she feels the eSafety Commissioner has too much power as an unelected official.
She says it should be up to parliamentarians and governments that should make serious decisions about social media platforms.
“We don’t want to overstep. If you overstep, it upsets people. It upsets Australians to think they’re being over-policed online. We need to keep the focus very much on the safety and the protection of our children,” she says.
2h agoWed 6 Aug 2025 at 6:24am
Australia should find ways of engaging Trump administration on Gaza, Husic says
Moving to Gaza now, and Ed Husic has been asked about reports Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is considering further action in Gaza.
He’s been asked about PM Anthony Albanese’s call with French President Emmanuel Macron.
Husic says he believes it was “really important” for the PM to speak to the French president.
He says it will be crucial to engage other international partners, including the Trump administration, on Gaza.
“It will require, in trying to end this violence that’s occurring and end the impact on innocent civilians, we do need international cooperation, it will be really important,” Husic says.
“We’ll need to find ways too, as startling as this may sound, of engaging the Trump administration on this, because they will have a lot of impact and sway on the Netanyahu government,” he says.
2h agoWed 6 Aug 2025 at 6:18am
Husic says option of a ‘kill switch’ should be incorporated in AI regulations
Labor MP Ed Husic says any regulation of artificial intelligence should place the onus on designers of the technology to ensure it is safe and the risks are mitigated.
“We don’t need ideology in this, we need what’s practical and will be effective to boost confidence in using technology that Australians currently are very reluctant to use and that’s been shown up in polling time and again,” Husic says.
“In some cases the technology resists being controlled as has been reported in times past … The notion of a kill switch is really important as well, when the technology does not meet what we wanted it to do,” he says.
He’s repeated that any individual approach to regulating problems in AI has the potential to take time.
2h agoWed 6 Aug 2025 at 6:12am
Unregulated AI has potential to push people to political extremes, Husic says
Ed Husic says he understands the Australian Council of Trade Union’s concerns about the Productivity Commission’s report on artificial intelligence.
He says artificial intelligence ultimately has the potential to “de-skill” some of the workforce and cause job losses.
Husic says replacing jobs with AI has the potential to cause political instability and cause workers to join the political extremes.
“Businesses that rush to just put the technology in without thinking of the consequences for their workforce, they create an element of political instability as well that gets pounced on by the extremes of politics, who claim that people are being ripped off and not being given a fair go,” Husic says.
2h agoWed 6 Aug 2025 at 6:08am
Labor MP Ed Husic joins Afternoon Briefing
Former Industry and Innovation Minister Ed Husic has joined Afternoon Briefing where he’s been asked about the Productivity Commission’s most recent report released this morning about artificial intelligence.
The Productivity Commission has opposed the introduction of tough laws to control artificial intelligence being considered by the government.
Husic has advocated for the implementation of legislation regulating artificial intelligence.
He says there needs to be a “solid regulatory framework” for artificial intelligence to ensure the technology is safe.
“If we don’t have an economy-wide [AI] Act, what we get left with is a Whac-A-Mole approach, where an AI problem comes up, we whack a new law and regulation on it,” Husic says.
“It’s horrendously slow, complicated and in many cases contradictory,” he says.
3h agoWed 6 Aug 2025 at 6:00am
Afternoon Briefing has started!
Afternoon Briefing with Patricia Karvelas has started on ABC News.
Join us as we live blog the program for the next hour.
3h agoWed 6 Aug 2025 at 5:07am
Analysis: Australia’s productivity roundtable should consider what actually makes life harder
Only a fortnight to go before the treasurer’s National Economic Reform Roundtable!
With submissions rolling in to the Canberra summit, the nation finds itself in the exciting middle stage of our triphasic national economic policy cycle: “Let A Thousand Flowers Bloom”.
That is to say, we’ve moved past Phase One (Grumbling About Why Politicians Don’t Do Bold Reform Anymore) and are enjoying the brief efflorescence of Big Ideas before we initiate Phase Three (Methodically Weed-Killing Every Single One Because They All Make Someone Sad).
Read the full analysis from Annabel Crabb in the link below.
4h agoWed 6 Aug 2025 at 4:16am
Greens say 350,000 jobseeker payments suspended in past three months
The Greens say that 350,000 jobseeker payments have been suspended in the past three months under the Targeted Compliance Framework, a system where jobseekers have to comply with certain activities like applying for a number of roles and attending interviews with employment services in order to receive payments.
A report by the Commonwealth Ombudsman released earlier today found that nearly 1,000 people had their payments cut off unlawfully, after the Department of Employment and Social Services failed to change the rules around automatic cancellations.
Greens social services spokesperson Penny Allman-Payne says while cancellations were the focus of the report, suspensions for failing to meet job-seeking conditions have continued.
“In the last quarter there have been 350,000 payment suspensions, which may also be unlawful. And it’s the suspensions that haven’t been paused,” Allman-Paynesays.
“The Greens are calling, along with other advocates, to have those payment suspensions stopped immediately.”
5h agoWed 6 Aug 2025 at 3:33am
Sivaraman says specific racism definitions could exclude some experiences
The race discrimination commissioner says working to combat racism with one community at the exclusion of another can create distrust between communities.
Asked if the government has pitted communities against each other amid the war in Gaza, Giridharan Sivaraman says if some communities feel like they’re not seen, it can cause distrust in government.
“Communities actually work quite well together and they want to work well together. But that’s not necessarily a story that people want to tell. And I don’t think it does get told if you just have specific projects,” Sivaraman says.
Sivaraman says he doesn’t think Australia should move to create specific definitions of types of racism, because it could exclude some people’s experience.
“We don’t want anyone feeling like they cannot come forward and speak about their experiences due to a definition that’s been created before we’ve even heard from them,” he says.
5h agoWed 6 Aug 2025 at 3:20am
Australia doesn’t have adequate data collection on racism, commissioner says
Giridharan Sivaraman says he doesn’t know how pervasive racism is in Australia because there’s no adequate data collection in place to quantify it.
Sivaraman says while racism is “very widespread” and “very bad” on social media, data collection on racism in Australia is poor.
“The fact that people can be anonymous and say whatever they want leads to some shocking, shocking racism online,” Sivaraman says.
He says improving data collection is one of the key recommendations of the national anti-racism framework.
“We’ve worked really hard with our providers and others in the fantastic team that I’ve got to come up with good ways of collecting the data because it’s a challenge. So I would say we don’t know how pervasive it is and secondly, I think it remains in our institutions and systems,” he says.
6h agoWed 6 Aug 2025 at 2:58am
Sivaraman calls for Racial Discrimination Act reforms to proactively prevent racism
Race Discrimination Commissioner Giridharan Sivaraman says this year marks 50 years since the Whitlam government passed the Racial Discrimination Act.
But he’s called for the legislation to be reformed, to act proactively and prevent racial discrimination before it happens.
Sivaraman says currently the legislation places the burden on targets of racism, and requires harm to be suffered before action can be taken.
“This needs to change. To truly create safer environments, we need to shift from reactive measures and, instead, work to stop racism before it happens,” Sivaraman says.
He says there can be no racial justice in Australia without justice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
“We cannot fix a problem without addressing its root cause. And every manifestation of racism in this country stems from the original violence against First Peoples,” he says.
“All of it stemmed from the same harmful ideas that some people are inherently superior and belong here more than others.”
6h agoWed 6 Aug 2025 at 2:50am
Race Discrimination Commissioner Giridharan Sivaraman speaks at National Press Club
Race Discrimination Commissioner Giridharan Sivaraman is speaking at the National Press Club where he’s discussing racism in Australia.
Sivaraman says structural racism in Australia goes beyond personal bias, and is about systems that harm people through a lack of racial literacy and cultural safety.
“To overcome disadvantage, we must do more than acknowledge it. We must change the structures that sustain it,” Sivaraman says.
“We must enact meaningful, systemic change for us all to truly thrive,” he says.
The commissioner says the war in Gaza has triggered a “terrifying surge” in antisemitism, anti-Palestinian racism and anti-Arab racism in Australia.
“Failing to recognise suffering, wherever it occurs, strips people of their humanity. And that dehumanisation is felt deeply by communities here,” he says.
He’s called on the Australian media to shine a light on injustice and examine how racism is seen or not seen in their reporting, institutions and cultures.
6h agoWed 6 Aug 2025 at 2:21am
Analysis: Productivity round table should consider what actually makes life harder
Only a fortnight to go before the Treasurer’s National Economic Reform Roundtable!
With submissions rolling in to the Canberra summit, the nation finds itself in the exciting middle stage of our triphasic national economic policy cycle: “Let A Thousand Flowers Bloom.”
That is to say, we’ve moved past Phase One (Grumbling About Why Politicians Don’t Do Bold Reform Anymore) and are enjoying the brief efflorescence of Big Ideas before we initiate Phase Three (Methodically Weed-Killing Every Single One Because They All Make Someone Sad).
See also: Kevin Rudd’s 2020 Summit, Tony Abbott’s 2013 Budget, Malcolm Turnbull’s Ideas Boom, and whatever it was that Scott Morrison was going to do before the world caught the spicy cough.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers has valiantly called for participants to bring budget-neutral ideas that are not motivated by sectoral self-interest. But these are hard habits to kick, and in the Big Ideas so far submitted, the customary palimpsest of tax reform is already evident; big business has some compelling ideas for how they could pay less tax, the unions for how they could pay more, and so on.
Read Annabel Crabb’s analysis at the link below.
6h agoWed 6 Aug 2025 at 2:07amLey says government ‘wishy-washy’ about AI protections
The opposition leader says there needs to be strong guardrails in place to protect Australian artists, musicians and news media from artificial intelligence.
The Productivity Commission has opposed tough laws being considered by the government to control AI, warning its plan for “mandatory guardrails” should be paused until gaps in the law are properly identified.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers said this morning he was confident the government could chart a “middle path” to regulating AI.
Sussan Ley says while AI has a role to play in improving productivity in Australia, the government has to get the balance right to protect Australian content creators.
“It is not appropriate for big tech to steal the work of Australian artists, musicians, creators, news media, journalism and use it for their own ends without paying for it,” Ley says.
“AI is important. We should embrace the technology with respect to AI, but we have to get the balance right so we can power the economy. And we have to protect people and content creators.
“There’s very wishy-washy language coming from this government this morning about protecting the real intellectual property and the creative work of so many incredible Australians,” she says.
7h agoWed 6 Aug 2025 at 1:54am
Ley says treasurer’s productivity round table is about raising taxes
Opposition Leader Sussan Ley has stepped up to speak at Moorabbin Airport in regional Victoria.
With her is Shadow Small Business Minister Tim Wilson.
Ley has used the opportunity to take aim at the treasurer’s upcoming productivity round table , which she says is about raising taxes.
“This is not about productivity. This is all about raising taxes. Every message you hear is about raising taxes, and the Australian economy doesn’t need more taxes. Hardworking businesses don’t need local taxes. Productivity is not about raising taxes,” Ley says.
“When Labor talks, you pay. When they run out of money, they come after yours,” she says.
She says the government needs to focus on improving productivity by lowering taxes and creating simpler, fairer taxes.
7h agoWed 6 Aug 2025 at 1:20am
Advocates say mutual obligations system should be scrapped
The chief executive of the Australian Council of Social Service has called for the mutual obligations system to be scrapped in light of findings from the Commonwealth Ombudsman that almost a thousand jobseekers had their payments unlawfully terminated over two years.
The cancellations occurred automatically under the Targeted Compliance Framework, which was set up to monitor the conditions people have to meet to continue receiving payments, like job hunting and attending interviews.
New laws require agencies to consider the jobseeker’s circumstances before cutting off a payment, but that did not occur in 964 cancellations between April 2022 and July 2024.
“This set of circumstances is off the back of the lessons we should have learned from Robodebt. Hundreds of thousands of people were brutally affected by the automation of a system, data matching, the use of big technology by smart guys in suits,” Cassandra Goldie told reporters in Parliament House.
“Well, I want to be very clear what we’re talking about is hell on Earth that has been unleashed on people.”
Kristin O’Connell, a spokesperson for advocacy group the Antipoverty Centre, echoed those calls, describing the obligation on welfare recipients as “cruel and infantilising”.
“Welfare recipients have been documenting the extreme harm caused by compulsory activities for years,” she said.