Last week, attacking Anthony Albanese’s speech about AI – and specifically his proposal to create an “office of AI” – Angus Taylor had a good, if not entirely accurate, line. Albanese merely wanted to create “an office inside his own office”, said Taylor. (It is actually in the prime minister’s department.)
Taylor’s description of the speech was not entirely misplaced, either: “It’s motherhood statements at this point.” Mostly, it was. The speech had some announcements about the operation of data centres. These are not unimportant. As data centres are necessary for AI, it would be more accurate to describe this portion of the speech as an infrastructure announcement. We heard various principles that may or may not end up driving government policy on the technology and its implications.
Which is – at this stage – reasonable enough. These are complex matters that need public discussion. It would have been premature to announce anything more specific. Albanese has properly started that conversation in the Australian political sphere.
How you choose to read the prime minister’s speech at this point probably comes down to your overall sense of his beliefs and style. If you see him as a laissez-faire neoliberal, largely willing to do what business wants so as to avoid political conflict – and there is some evidence for this view, including the government’s slow and weak approach to gambling – then the speech is easily dismissed as a collection of platitudes that could go nowhere.
If, on the other hand, you see Albanese as determinedly working towards a more equal society, a leader who times his significant interventions carefully, then the stronger statements in the speech – about protecting copyright for artists and “Australian standards” for AI – could be read as clear indications of intent, to be matched by policy down the track.
This week, Labor will hold its national conference in Adelaide. Among the many competing plotlines that always feature at these events will be the question of how exactly conference delegates see the prime minister. Are they more of the former view or the latter? On AI, but more broadly, too.
Not that you’ll be able to tell from the surface of proceedings. The prime minister’s speech will be met with cheers. Labor will present as a largely united group of individuals, brought together by common purpose, strongly supportive of the government.
Would this have been the case had the government not acted in its recent budget on housing investment taxation? Certainly, those policies will have helped bring more delegates towards the latter camp. At the least, delegates will be more likely to give Albanese the benefit of the doubt. The fact Labor went further than just housing, to tackle broader inequalities around asset ownership, will help, too.
There are four related reasons. The first is the significance of the actions themselves: beginning to fix an important problem.
The second is their boldness. They are not, in themselves, comprehensive enough to answer those who doubt this government’s ambitions. But by taking on a challenge many believed was too difficult, the Albanese government has signalled it is capable of bravery and may be willing to act in other difficult areas. This will be a relief to many delegates.
The third is the way the changes position this government in Labor’s history. Many of these delegates will have campaigned – doorknocking, handing out, advocating – for similar changes when they were put forward by Bill Shorten at the 2016 and 2019 elections. Paul Keating, by backing the changes and connecting them to his own tax reforms, has helped build this sense that Albanese and Jim Chalmers are taking their place in a line of reforming Labor leaders.
The fourth is the most important. It is instructive to imagine what Anthony Albanese would have said to inspire those at the conference if he had not made those changes. Presumably, it would have been the same laundry list he has often used in speeches. The achievements he lists vary in significance. But in the past they didn’t really cohere into anything.
The budget has changed that. Emerging from a combination of the beliefs of its senior figures and changing circumstances – notably the rise of One Nation – Labor has set itself a task: fixing an economic system it now openly admits is broken. This begins to give this Labor government a shape, where before it was harder to discern one.
But here we come to an important caveat. Much like the principles outlined in the prime minister’s AI speech, early indications are at this stage only that – and no more. Whether the recent budget actually signals a significant shift in the character of the government remains an open question. Is it a sign of things to come – or only a way of answering doubters before lapsing back into caution?
The difficulty for delegates is they cannot know – and yet they bear significant responsibility. Labor’s caucus is historically quiet, leaving delegates a greater burden. And there will not be another conference for three years. If those at this year’s conference don’t apply pressure to the government to take stronger stands, who will?
Not Angus Taylor, it seems. Taylor’s line about an office in an office sounded good, but it was poorly chosen, on both politics and policy. At a moment of increasing concern about AI, Australians will expect their politicians to be active – and for those actions to be managed, sequenced and balanced by an attentive government.
Taylor, meanwhile, seems to be calling for a hands-off approach in areas outside national security, leaving him largely absent on the topics most people are concerned about. The prime minister is dominating Australian politics calmly and easily. This week is likely to cement that impression.
Sean Kelly is an author and a regular columnist. He’s a former adviser to Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd.
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Sean Kelly is author of The Game: A Portrait of Scott Morrison, a regular columnist and a former adviser to Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd.Connect via X.From our partners
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