News and politics: Albanese announces AI Office and national standards, says Australia must ‘set the terms’

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A woman has been refused bail for a second time over allegations she trained for weeks with Islamic State and married two fighters linked to the terror organisation.

Janai Samarra Safar was arrested in May after touching down in Australia with a group of women and children who were all returning from a Syrian refugee camp.

The 32-year-old is charged with being a member of a terrorist organisation between 2015 and 2019 and remaining in a declared conflict zone in Syria for two years.

She has been behind bars for two months after being denied bail due to the seriousness of the charges.

Her barrister made a second release bid on Wednesday, citing the psychological impact of the woman’s segregation in detention.

Safar suffered significant psychological injury after spending years in a refugee camp in appalling conditions, which included limited food and pressure to tow the IS line, Michael Ainsworth said.

Read more.

All Australian motorists could soon end up paying a road user charge regardless of what they drive as the rapid surge in electric vehicle sales during a prolonged Iran war causes a collapse in fuel excise revenue.

The Parliamentary Budget Office is expecting petrol and diesel tax revenue to fall during the coming decade as electric and hybrid cars made up a quarter of all cars on the road.

But the war in Iran was already supercharging demand for electric vehicles, with EVs last month making up one in four new vehicle sales even before the Memorandum of Understanding between the US and Iran collapsed, jeopardising the flow of crude oil out of the Strait of Hormuz.

Professor Robert Breunig, the director of the Australian National University’s Tax and Transfer Policy Institute, said a Federal Government road user charge, covering congestion and pollution, could be introduced in the 2020s for all kinds of vehicles to compensate for the fall in petrol and diesel excise revenue.

“More people take up EVs, the excise for petrol is just going to drop and drop and they’re going to have to do something about that,” he told The Nightly.

Read the full story.

Anthony Albanese’s attempt to push back against the combined might of Wall Street, Silicon Valley and the US government looks a Sisyphean task.

In Greek mythology, King Sisyphus spent his days pushing rocks up hills only for them to roll back down again. The Prime Minister’s plan to legislate around AI may prove similarly punishing.

As part of the plan Mr Albanese vowed to get tough on mega-cap US tech businesses. He also set out plans for an AI Office to oversee new laws to protect copyright, the environment, jobs, safety, and national security. Basically all of society.

The intentions are sound. The real problem is no Western government has yet found an effective way to contain the out-of-control power of big tech companies.

Facebook-owner Meta, Google-parent Alphabet, Amazon, Uber and Microsoft are the real drivers of the AI spending boom.

This monopoly group already owns nearly all of the internet’s digital economy. It will also be the ultimate owners of and financial beneficiaries from AI technology.

Read more.

The Vice Chancellor of Sydney University Mark Scott says New South Wales police raised no security concerns about extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir taking part in anti-Israel protests on campus in 2024.

Appearing at the anti-Semitism Royal Commission, Professor Scott has been grilled about members from the now-banned hate group joining a long-running encampment on the university’s grounds.

Counsel Assisting Zelie Heger on Wednesday questioned the university boss about a meeting he had with senior NSW Police representatives on June 17.

“I got the distinct impression in my meeting that the police were aware of some of the people who had been in around campus, possibly speaking,” Professor Scott told the inquiry.

“They were quite well known to the police. They were well known as participants of Palestinian protest events that had taken place, and they were telling me that there was nothing flashing on their radar as far as the university was concerned.”

Angus Taylor declared war on One Nation last week, or so the headlines said after his Sydney Institute speech. But you’d have to be Blind Freddie to believe it.

The Liberal Party and One Nation are not circling each other warily from opposite corners, waiting to see who blinks first.

They are already dance partners and have been for three Federal elections, with the Coalition directing its voters to put One Nation ahead of Labor.

Taylor’s public position is that One Nation is “incoherent” and “not fit to govern”. He told the Sydney Institute that Pauline Hanson’s party was a column of smoke, long on rhetoric and short on substance.

But no speech, however combative, changes the arithmetic behind it.

Read the full opinion piece.

Anthony Albanese says that his AI agenda will seek to protect artists, journalists and other creatives from AI models scrapping their content without permission.

The Prime Minister sought to clarify his position on Wednesday at a landmark speech in Sydney.

“Setting the terms means that we can put in place the strongest possible protection for Australian artists and Australian media,” the PM said.

“Let me make this crystal clear: not everything produced in Australia is up for grabs, not at all.

“Australian writers, musicians, artists, and journalists must retain ownership and control of their work.

“Our laws will spell that out plain as day. Artist’s creative endeavor is their work and their property.

“A company

use Australian books, music, art, or news to build or train AI without the artist’s control, and that includes the artist’s control of the price and value of their work.

“Anything less is theft. No country has got this right yet.

“Nowhere do artists or rights holders have sufficient control of their work when it comes to AI training, and that is why the best way to secure the strongest copyright protections for Australian artists is for Australia to be active and involved, build the best possible solution for ourselves, and to preserve the creativity that is fundamental to who we are, to our national identity, and the journalism that is essential to our democratic society.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says Australia is ideally placed to be an AI leader on the global stage.

The PM said Australia geographically had an advantage on other nations for AI development, with sunlight for solar power and critical minerals.

But he also talked up a skilled workforce and stable political landscape as attractive for AI companies, in a landmark speech in Sydney on Wednesday.

“Consider what international investors look for, and then think about what we have,” he said.

“World-class universities producing skilled graduates and high-quality research, the traditional resources, critical minerals, and rare earths that are essential, space to build, sunlight to power affordable, reliable, renewable energy.

“Strong bonds with the fastest-growing region of the world in human history, just to our north.

“A legal and financial system at the top of the global ladder for integrity, the security of transactions, timeliness of payments, and smart use of technology, and underpinning it all, stable democracy.”

The Prime Minister has admitted that Australia can’t get across every risk but has vowed to try and implement more guard rails to protect Aussies from the anticipated disruptions.

“It is not our goal to try and legislate for every possible eventuality or risk,” he said.

“That only creates the risk of Australia missing out on investment altogether.

“This is about having the flexibility to keep pace with change and get out in front of it, so Australia can draw on and learn from what other countries are doing and deal with issues in real time without the bureaucracy having to contemplate every modification.

“This is about building Australians’ confidence and trust in AI and our nation’s capacity to manage it, ensuring that our national interests and our national security are protected, and providing the certainty for growth, for jobs, and for investment.”

Anthony Albanese says he will present his new AI approach to premiers and chief ministers at the national cabinet meeting next month.

The Prime Minister said he will consult with several industries and State and Territories on the standards before bringing forward the legislation to Parliament in early 2027.

He said it would ensure that Australia can “seize and shape and share” the “generational opportunity that AI represents”

“In March this year, we announced a set of expectations for large AI data centers.

“This will bring them into one regulatory framework, clear, consistent, mandatory.

“I will seek agreement on this approach from premiers and chief ministers at the national cabinet meeting I’m convening next month.

“We will aim to bring the legislation to Parliament and carry it early next year.

“We will consult closely with industry and our trading partners to design a framework for faster decision making, better supporting infrastructure, and genuine community engagement.”