Zoe McKenzie MP
Shadow Assistant Minister for Education and Early Learning
Shadow Assistant Minister for Mental Health
Federal Member for Flinders
TRANSCRIPT
SKY NEWS NEWSDAY INTERVIEW KIERAN GILBERT AND ANDREW CHARLTON
Thursday, 7 August 2025
Topics: Artificial Intelligence (AI); Israel/Gaza
KIERAN GILBERT: Let’s return now to federal politics. Joining me now is the Cabinet Secretary and Assistant Minister for the Digital Economy, Andrew Charlton, and the Shadow Assistant Minister for Education, Zoe McKenzie. I’m really interested to talk to both of you. I know you’ve both been heavily involved in analysing, researching the impact of technology, particularly AI, in Australia. Zoe, to you, I was just reading a piece that you wrote nearly two years ago when you were in Europe about what was being done to regulate AI and to manage AI. Are we leaving this too late? What can be done to get the balance right, Zoe?
ZOE MCKENZIE: Well, to be fair, the EU, as you mentioned, did start moving a couple of years ago. They were having what you might call an early attempt to make sure there were some guardrails around the development of AI. That said, of course, it was appreciated at the time. In that market, it was having a depressive effect on ability to invest and experiment and develop the full potential of artificial intelligence. The US has taken… The opposite approach, which is to have no guardrails. And the question is what Australia, as a much smaller country, can effectively do. May I say, the Albanese government has been asleep at the wheel on AI until recently. It was really only Ed Husic, Andrew Leigh and, indeed, Dr Charlton with us today who knew anything about it. They’ve sort of discovered it in a big flash, which is exciting, but possibly a bit late. Although not as late, can I say, as the union movement, who are running around saying, you’ve got to have agreements in place with the workforce before AI is introduced, it’s already well and truly in our workplaces. Anyone who works at a desk with a computer would know AI is well and truly here and already replacing some Australian jobs.
KIERAN GILBERT: Andrew Charlton, as Assistant Minister for Science, Tech and the Digital Economy, and also I know before you entered Parliament, this has been a focus of yours, it brings a lot of potential, and I’m saying 0.7% of national and international growth, multiples of that according to other estimates. What’s your view on this? How much scope is there for productivity enhancements, but also how much risk?
ANDREW CHARLTON: Well, thanks, Kieran, and thanks, Zoe. I agree with much of what Zoe has said about the potential of AI, which is truly enormous. This is a technology that has the potential to improve Australia’s productivity, to grow our economy, to benefit our workers and benefit our communities if we get it right. Some estimates of the impact of AI have it being as significant as the invention of the steam engine or the introduction of electricity. This is an incredibly important technology, and it’s critical that Australia captures the economic benefits of this technology. It’s also critical that we share those benefits widely amongst our population. And we have to make sure we minimise the harms in doing so, which is why I think it’s so good that AI has been a focus of the lead-up to the economic reform roundtable. I was involved in a roundtable with a number of AI experts just yesterday talking about how we can work together as a country to make sure this technology benefits all Australians and that Australians are beneficiaries and not victims of AI. There’s a lot of work to do, but we have very clear proposals now in place in order to take it forward.
KIERAN GILBERT: And as to individuals who’ve looked at this space closer than most, Zoe, I want to ask you something that’s been playing on my mind on this one as well. I know that we’re talking about the data centres and the huge electricity demands that come with AI, but isn’t there also the scope, given what Andrew’s talking about there, this generational leap in capacity where this technology can also see us leap ahead in much greater pace and almost exponential pace on things like energy? We talk about 2050 net zero, but we could be seeing breakthroughs within a couple of years that people have never even contemplated on this.
ZOE MCKENZIE: The potential is truly remarkable of what artificial intelligence can do. And I admit two years ago when ChatGPT first appeared on the scene, I was nervous about what it meant for our education system, what it meant about the future of work, what it meant about good human critical thinking skills, the things that we think make up part of the human experience. But as we’ve now progressed now, and there are many, many large language models, and in fact, they are getting faster and better by the minute, and their ability to solve quandaries like policy problems, like energy problems, like economy problems is remarkable. I met with a researcher from the ANU the other day who was using LLMs on multiple different platforms to hold each one to account. One will investigate a certain problem, and the other one will criticise that investigation or the proposals that come from it to constantly keep improving the outcomes. So whatever our policy dilemma is, whether it be energy, education, world of work, AI will have an impact in making us better and pushing our thought further. The question is what remains for the humans to do it? Where do we make sure we manage to step in and insert human know-how and human gut instinct, frankly, on where the brakes need to be applied? Those are decisions for now. They are decisions for the future as well. And the good news is we’ve got some extraordinary Australian researchers and technologists looking at exactly these issues. But in terms of energy, one thing is certain. AI is going to need abundant energy. We know Google, Meta, Microsoft are all investing in their own nuclear and SMR technology in the United States. So we need to make sure they have the power they need to meet our demand in artificial intelligence.
KIERAN GILBERT: Andrew, can I get your reflections on that as well? Because there is the demand but also the opportunity.
ANDREW CHARLTON: Yeah, I think there’s opportunities right across the economy. I agree with Zoe. There are enormous opportunities for AI to support our education system, to provide personalised, bespoke support for students in Australian schools. There’s enormous opportunities, as Zoe said, for AI to improve our healthcare system, to do pieces of work in our healthcare system that make our healthcare system more efficient, make us all healthier. I’m even attracted to Zoe’s idea of having AI help us with policy problems. Although, to be honest, Kieran, I’m not sure what ChatGPT would make of the Coalition’s energy policy. That one might break the internet. But I think we do have scope to have an enormous number of positive changes in our lives from AI. Those changes aren’t given. We need to work very hard to mitigate some of the risks and to make sure the benefits are spread broadly. But first and foremost, this is an opportunity… How do you deal with the copyright question? …that we want Australians to capture and to have? Well, we’re lucky in Australia in that we have an existing copyright system. And under that system, AI companies can access copyrighted material under licence. We have no plans to change that set of rules, but at the moment, the system is working well and there are already licences that are being arranged around the world for AI to access that material.
KIERAN GILBERT: Alright, and let’s conclude then, if we can, on this issue that we’ve discussed many times. It’s a sombre one because it remains such a tragic situation, the ongoing conflict, the hostages still being held in the tunnels under Gaza, and there’s a real divide within Israel as well among former security chiefs, former Prime Minister that have written to Donald Trump urging him to influence Benjamin Netanyahu, Zoe. First to you on that.
ZOE MCKENZIE: This is such a difficult issue, Kieran, and I think the revelation of photos last weekend of the condition of some of the hostages… There are 50 hostages that are still held in those tunnels in Gaza, reminded us all that the trauma of October 7, 2023 in the minds of Israeli citizens is ongoing. What happened that day is continuing in the tunnels of Gaza now. That was a good and appropriate reminder for all of us to know that to be talking about Palestinian statehood for so many Israeli people is vastly premature. They want their family members home. They want to feel safe in their homeland of Israel. We’re all focused on what’s happening, in terms of the Palestinian people in Gaza and the desperate need to ensure aid is properly getting to civilians. And, obviously, we are collectively expressing that view. I expressed that view privately myself to the Israeli ambassador last week. So we must keep doing that, but not in a way, frankly, that fails to recognise that, for the Israeli people, the trauma of October 7 continues to this day because hostages are still being held.
KIERAN GILBERT: Yeah. Well, that is the reality, Andrew Charlton. And, at the same time, while Israel is winning the and has won, according to many analysts, including Israeli analysts, have won the war on the ground, they’re not winning the information war, Andrew.
ANDREW CHARLTON: Well, from the government’s perspective, you know, we have been laser-focused on one thing. That is not stunts, that is not politics, that is not announcements, that is not pictures. The one thing that the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister have been entirely focused on is doing whatever Australia can do to deliver lasting peace, to end the conflict and provide a solution in the Middle East that delivers peace and prosperity to the people who live there. And it is a bipartisan position in Australian politics that that solution is the two-state solution. That’s what the Foreign Minister is working on. That’s what the Prime Minister is working on. Every word that they say, every action that they take, is seeking to take us further and use every bit of Australia’s power to take us closer to that goal. And that is, I think, a principled and appropriate approach for Australia to take, and I pay tribute to the Foreign Minister and the Prime Minister for being so focused on that outcome.
KIERAN GILBERT: Zoe, is it a bipartisan position?
ZOE MCKENZIE: A two-state solution in the Middle East is a bipartisan solution. The question is whether we think it’s wise that this government is openly canvassing a recognition of the Palestinian state, at a time when we can’t see that that’s going to add to the prospects of peace, quite frankly. And you could reasonably deduce that it’s rewarding Hamas for what they did on October 7 and, frankly, what they continue to do by holding 50 Israeli hostages.
KIERAN GILBERT: Andrew, Zoe has made that point, but it’s been made by others today, and sometimes in more forceful language, including from Bridget McKenzie, who, again, says it’s premature, and rewards the terrorists.
ANDREW CHARLTON: Well, the government has been clear that Hamas is a terrorist organisation and should play no role in the future governance of Gaza. We’ve also been clear that we are serious about this bipartisan approach to a two-state solution. We’re serious about moving towards that two-state solution as the only way to deliver lasting long-term peace in the region. That’s why the government is doing what it can, using every element of Australian influence to get there, and I think that’s what both sides of politics should be focused on.
KIERAN GILBERT: Andrew, Zoe, I’ll see you both next week. Thanks.
ENDS.
