Ed Husic's stark warning to his Labor colleagues is a timely reminder of the party's commitment to protecting Australia's creative industries from exploitation by big tech firms. The senior MP's opposition to weakening copyright law for AI companies comes as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese prepares to deliver a major speech on artificial intelligence in Sydney, which has sparked concerns that long-awaited reforms may be watered down.
At the heart of Husic's argument is the principle that big tech firms such as OpenAI and Anthropic should not be allowed to self-regulate and instead must be subject to strong rules set by the federal government. This stance echoes his long-held view that AI policy requires a more interventionist approach, which would see stricter regulations imposed on companies that seek to use Australian content without proper compensation for creators.
While Labor has consistently ruled out giving a text and data mining exemption for AI firms to train their large language models on Australian content without payment, cabinet discussions on copyright reforms are ongoing. Treasury officials have warned that Anthropic would complain about 'impeding the development of datacentres' in Australia, ahead of a meeting with the company's chief executive, Dario Amodei.
Husic's strong opposition to making any copyright changes that would benefit AI firms is rooted in the party's ethos of fair remuneration for workers. He urged his colleagues to prioritise stricter rules on big tech firms or risk being 'doomed to failure' in their efforts to support Australia's creative industries.
The Media Entertainment & Arts Alliance – the union representing journalists, artists and creatives – has echoed Husic's call for tougher new copyright rules to prevent creative works from being taken by AI models without permission.