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Senate inquiry told Australia’s AI laws are ‘decades out of date’
By Jennifer Dudley-Nicholson
Australia urgently needs to restrict the use of AI technology to protect workers, an inquiry has heard, amid warnings it’s already being used to cut creative jobs.
On Tuesday, an actor told the Senate inquiry into adopting artificial intelligence his employment contract was cancelled and his voice cloned to complete a video production. It also heard Australian businesses should create their own AI models to address problems with the technology and ensure national guidelines were met.
Paul Davies, the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance’s campaigns director, said the union isn’t opposed to AI tools altogether, but wanted laws to ensure greater transparency, including about what data is used and when.
“Our position is that no human product ... should be used without recognition [or] should be used without compensation,” he said at the inquiry’s third public hearing today.
Voice actor Cooper Mortlock told the inquiry his work on an animated series was cut short in 2022 when producers cloned his voice without his knowledge or compensation.
“When we reached about episode 30 of the promised 52 episodes, our producer cancelled the contract, saying ‘we’ve decided to discontinue making the series’,” he said. “A year later, after the contract had finished, they released another episode of this series using what was obviously an AI copy of my voice and the other actors’ voices.”
Mortlock said the company initially denied using AI technology but later clarified that his employment contract allowed them to do so.
“This contract was written and agreed on before AI voices and AI voice replication was as sophisticated and as prevalent as it is so we had no way of knowing that this could have happened,” he said.
Digital Rights Watch founder Lizzie O’Shea said the example showed Australians needed greater protection for their personal information.
“It is clear that our laws are decades out of date,” she said.
AAP
Victoria Police investigating CFMEU allegations
By Lachlan Abbott
Victoria Police Commissioner Shane Patton says the force is investigating – for at least the second time in about a year – whether allegations of misconduct in Victoria’s CFMEU construction branch amount to criminal offences.
Speaking on ABC Radio Melbourne this morning, Patton said Premier Jacinta Allan wrote to him midway through last year “raising what I would call anecdotal concerns about whether criminality was occurring within the Major Transport Infrastructure Authority”.
Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Shane Patton alongside Premier Jacinta Allan.Credit: Simon Schluter
That authority is the body tasked with delivering Victoria’s $100 billion Big Build road and rail infrastructure program. On Saturday, this masthead’s investigation into the CFMEU revealed many bikies and criminals acting as union delegates were employed in these publicly funded projects.
On Tuesday, Patton said last year a “detailed assessment” of then-deputy premier Allan’s concerns was conducted, but no further action was taken “because there wasn’t deemed to be any threshold of criminality met”.
He said Allan wrote to him again on Sunday and referred this masthead’s investigation of the CFMEU to police.
“We are actively assessing that at the moment,” Patton said.
“There’s obviously some really inappropriate, thuggish behaviour. There’s potential threats. There’s potential influence in contracts. Whether that meets the criminal threshold, though, is a different matter.”
Patton said Victoria Police’s crime command could now spend a month or two investigating before determining whether any specific incidents raised in this masthead’s report reached a criminal threshold requiring action. He said the force would work with Victoria’s anti-corruption watchdog to figure out if they were better suited to dealing with the allegations.
“But it’s not being brushed under the carpet, I can assure you of that,” Patton said.
The chief commissioner said he thought police had enough resources within its crime command to tackle the issue, but was open to creating a dedicated taskforce.
“If it turns out that it meets a criminal threshold and we need to put a team of detectives at it, we’ll do that,” Patton said.
“But we’ll just wait and see.”
Allan won’t step down, says royal commission, return of ABCC up to federal government
By Broede Carmody
Here are some other key takeaways from the Victorian premier’s second press conference in as many days to deal with serious allegations about the CFMEU’s behaviour on taxpayer-funded worksites.
Will Jacinta Allan step down?
No. The premier said there was more work to be done at a state level and more discussions to be held with the federal government.
“Where there are more actions that need to be taken, I will take them,” Allan said.
Will there be a royal commission?
Allan said that was a matter for the federal government, but noted that state authorities like Victoria Police were better placed to take immediate action.
“They need to investigate further, independently and immediately.”
Does the premier support a return of the ABCC?
Allan said she would support whatever action federal Industrial Relations Minister Tony Burke decided to hand down.
However, she did point out that many of the allegations raised by this masthead, the AFR and 60 Minutes in recent days occurred while the former federal watchdog was in place.
Allan admits year-long delay in response to CFMEU allegations ‘didn’t meet expectations’
By Broede Carmody
Staying with the Victorian premier’s press conference, where Jacinta Allan declared she has a low tolerance for slow bureaucracy.
Victorian Premier Jacinta AllanCredit: Darrian Traynor
This masthead then asked why it took the now premier a year to respond to serious allegations raised by an Indigenous labour-hire firm if this is the case.
This was Allan’s response:
In terms of the particular piece of correspondence … I’ve had the opportunity to examine where the processes didn’t meet the expectations that I expect.
But when it was formally lodged with my office and the Major Transport Infrastructure Authority, it was acted upon.
These were matters … best addressed by the agency responsible for dealing with workplace matters.”
Premier Allan says push to purge CFMEU from Victorian Labor is under way
By Broede Carmody
The Labor Party has begun steps to purge the CFMEU’s construction division from its Victorian ranks amid a review into unacceptable behaviour, Premier Jacinta Allan has confirmed.
“I’m confident this push will succeed,” Allan said.
The premier also confirmed that donations from the construction union to Victorian Labor had now been paused and fresh laws to crack down on organised crime would be introduced to parliament next month.
Allan insisted she had always acted against allegations of bad behaviour and criminality and said she had written to authorities when she heard anecdotal reports of unacceptable behaviour on Victorian worksites.
“Today, I will be releasing that correspondence,” she said.
“Then, as now … I have zero tolerance for any sort of illegal behaviour.”
The development comes after days of reporting by this masthead, the AFR and 60 Minutes on allegations of threats, bullying and standover tactics by CFEMU members at Victorian Big Build sights.
Earlier today, this masthead revealed Allan and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese were separately sent detailed evidence in 2022 that CFMEU officials were threatening extreme violence and unlawfully black-banning non-union-preferred firms from state and federally-funded projects.
Government documents reveal that Allan, who was infrastructure minister at the time, took a year to respond and, even then, insisted industrial relations were a federal issue and suggested a call to state bureaucrats if there were any other concerns.
Watch: Victorian premier addresses the media as CFMEU fallout continues
Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan held a press conference after reporting by this masthead revealed a construction company battling CFMEU standover tactics wrote to top Labor politicians, including Allan, detailing their trouble and offering proof.
Allan was joined by Victorian Attorney-General Jaclyn Symes.
Watch the press conference back here:
Greens leader reacts to CFMEU revelations
By Lachlan Abbott
Greens leader Adam Bandt says the CFMEU investigation into its own alleged misconduct should be given a chance despite questions over its independence, but has urged that any wrongdoing be reported to other law enforcement agencies for prosecution if warranted.
Speaking on Melbourne radio station 3AW this morning, the MP for Melbourne was asked what he thought should be done after this masthead’s investigation into the union revealed infiltration by bikies and organised criminals, intimidation and allegations of corruption.
In response, Bandt said:
I have a fairly straightforward view about this. If someone’s done something wrong and someone is alleged to have broken the law, then you have the law enforcement authorities come in and investigate. And if they’ve done something wrong, you take them to court.
I feel like that should apply to everyone – it should apply to corporations, it should apply to unions, it applies across the board. No one gets a free pass.”
“Sure, but there’s a variety of ways to do it,” host Tom Elliott said in response.
“There’s a parliamentary inquiry. There’s [IBAC]. There’s the federal union saying it’ll investigate itself, which I don’t think is very satisfactory. Or there’s a royal commission. Which would you back?”
Bandt replied he would “wait and see” what comes of the CFMEU’s internal investigation.
“That should be given a chance to see,” he said.
“But of course … if these claims and things have been done, they should be referred to those law enforcement authorities, including the ones that you’ve mentioned. As you say, I think you’ve just got to apply the law equally to everyone.”
Online shopping increases despite cost-of-living crisis
Online retail therapy is still booming despite the cost-of-living crisis putting pressure on Australian wallets.
Even with inflation leading to more expensive groceries, interest rates remaining high and wages staying relatively stagnant, Australians are choosing to pop items into their online shopping baskets.
Australia Post’s latest report revealed online spending grew by 2 per cent in the past year as posties rushed to deliver the high number of parcels bought online.
Online spending increased despite the cost-of-living crisis.Credit: iStock
In the last quarter, there was a 4.4 per cent jump in online purchases compared to the same period last year.
The recent splurge is attributed to events like the end-of-financial-year sales luring consumers with bargains. Fashion, apparel, health, beauty and recreational goods were the main things people bought.
More than 5.7 million Australian households made an online purchase every month in the last quarter. Tasmanians, Northern Territorians and Queenslanders spent the most time shopping online during this period.
Despite Australians shopping online frequently, they are buying less. The data revealed the number of items in the online basket has decreased by 2.6 per cent year-on-year.
The latest Australian Bureau of Statistics data showed people were tightening their budgets, with overall household spending only rising by 0.1 per cent in the past year.
AAP
Linda Reynolds’ lawyers pore over Brittany Higgins’ phone records
Lawyers for Liberal senator Linda Reynolds are poring over tens of thousands of pages of potential evidence taken from Brittany Higgins’ phone.
The former defence minister, who plans to retire from politics at the next election, is suing her former political staffer over a series of social media posts she says damaged her reputation.
Mediation has failed to resolve the case, which returned to the WA Supreme Court on Monday for a directions hearing ahead of an August trial.
Reynolds’ lawyer, Martin Bennett, said his team was working through documents Network Ten supplied on subpoena, including a report on Higgins’ mobile phone.
The documents are from former Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann’s failed defamation case against the media outlet and journalist Lisa Wilkinson.
“The Australian Federal Police download of Ms Higgins’ telephone ... is 56,287 pages,” Bennett told reporters outside court.
“So we’re working through that and marrying that up against discovery.”
Some of the pages could become evidence in the high-profile defamation battle, scheduled to start on August 2.
AAP
50,000 vapes seized in Sydney
Two men were charges after NSW Police seized $2 million worth of vapes and $870,000 in cash in Sydney overnight.
The State Crime Command’s drug and firearms squad stopped a Toyota van travelling along Arthur Street in Homebush West in Sydney’s west about 4pm.
The driver and passenger were arrested after large amounts of cash were discovered in the vehicle. The pair will appear in Burwood Local Court today.
Disposable vapes were banned from January 1.Credit: Joe Armao
Further inquiries led police to execute a search warrant on a unit on the same street last night, where they uncovered 50,000 vapes and 350,000 illegal cigarettes.
The combined street value of all items seized was over $2.3 million.
Both men were charged with knowingly dealing with proceeds of crime and were refused bail.
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2024-07-16 02:23:02Z
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