\u201cLet me make this crystal clear: not everything produced in Australia is up for grabs,\u201d Albanese said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cAustralian writers, musicians, artists and journalists must retain ownership and control of their work. Our laws will spell that out, plain as day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\n Labor has long ruled out giving a text and data mining exemption<\/a> allowing AI firms to train their large language models on Australian content without compensation to creators, but there has been lobbying from big tech and an industry proposal for special copyright exemptions<\/a>.<\/p>\n Cabinet discussions on copyright reforms are continuing, with a diversity of views among senior ministers, but Albanese\u2019s speech was the strongest assurance yet that journalists, musicians, artists and writers would be protected in the age of AI.<\/p>\n \u201cNo company should use Australian books, music, art or news to build or train AI without the artist\u2019s control. That includes the artist\u2019s control of the price and value of their work,\u201d Albanese said.<\/p>\n \u201cAnything less is theft.\u201d<\/p>\n Annabelle Herd, CEO of Aria, was relieved to hear Albanese\u2019s guarantees. She said groups like hers were keen to sign licensing deals with AI companies to ensure artists were fairly compensated for the use of their work.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t know exactly what most of these AI companies want, they haven\u2019t made a public case about what the problem is, but there isn\u2019t one,\u201d she told Guardian Australia.<\/p>\n \u201c[Albanese\u2019s speech] should be a very strong message to the AI companies, they should pick up the phone and start licensing \u2026 we are very good and efficient at licensing at scale.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019d like get on with it, not be stuck in this ongoing no man\u2019s land.\u201d<\/p>\n Jeff Bleich, Anthropic\u2019s general counsel, said the company \u201crespect[s] the process articulated by the prime minister today for establishing Australia\u2019s AI framework and take seriously Anthropic\u2019s responsibility to meet the terms set out by the Australian government for AI developers\u201d.<\/p>\n Ahead of meetings with senior cabinet ministers earlier this year, Anthropic cited Australia\u2019s policy uncertainty as a major impediment to new investments in the country.<\/p>\n Microsoft Australia\u2019s president, Jane Livesey, said users would embrace the technology if \u201cpeople trust that AI is safe and well-governed\u201d.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a>Free newsletter | When needed<\/p>\n Sign up to Breaking News Australia<\/p>\n Get the most important news as it breaks<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Comparing AI to the rise of social media, Albanese said governments should have placed tougher rules on tech companies when online harms first became known. The government would legislate a set of binding standards for AI companies and datacentres, building on existing expectations around energy usage, he said.<\/p>\n That framework is intended to help fast-track decisions around major investments and construction, as well as set nationally consistent mandatory rules for how and where such centres can be built.<\/p>\n The Business Council of Australia\u2019s CEO, Bran Black, welcomed the speech but warned against regulation going \u201ctoo far\u201d or being \u201ctoo prescriptive\u201d in case it stifled business.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t want to see ourselves get out of step with international counterparts, and that as a consequence, we would lose investment,\u201d he said after the speech.<\/p>\n The changes will not be legislated until early next year. Some experts have criticised the government for not moving faster to regulate a rapidly growing sector \u2013 former industry minister Ed Husic, speaking on ABC radio before Albanese\u2019s speech, claimed the Australian government had delivered \u201ca faster response to dangerous strawberries<\/a> as opposed to the dangers of high-risk AI\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can\u2019t have two terms of parliament pass without having some concrete mandated guardrails.\u201d<\/p>\n A critical point of tension in government deliberations has been balancing the potential economic benefits of AI companies with rising voter concerns about suburban datacentres and a low level of community trust in the new technology. Labor MPs including Sam Rae, Dan Repacholi and Alice Jordan-Baird have conceded there are concerns in their electorates about local datacentre development<\/a>.<\/p>\n Albanese said the national standards would set rules for the location and energy use of datacentres, declaring: \u201cWe have more than enough room for new datacentres, without them competing with new housing.<\/p>\n \u201cWe will create a legal obligation for the next generation of large-scale datacentres to underwrite new power supply. To pay their full share of grid connection, so no costs are passed on to homes or businesses. And to put at least as much energy into our grid as they take out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n Datacentres would also be required to generate renewable energy , minimise water use and maximise energy efficiency.<\/p>\n Belinda Dennett, the CEO of Data Centres Australia, said she was pleased to hear Albanese back the economic benefits for more AI investment. She was also unfazed by the new standards, saying datacentres were already pursuing renewables and sustainability.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anthony Albanese has promised \u201cthe strongest possible protection\u201d for Australian creatives against misuse of their work by artificial…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":801756,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-801755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=801755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801755\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/801756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=801755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=801755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=801755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Anthony](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/563.jpg\")
Anthony Albanese says he wants to do AI ‘the Australian way’ \u2013 video<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/2998.jpg\")
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