Comment

He has been out of politics for 60 years, and dead for almost half a century, but Robert Gordon Menzies continues to bob up with surprising frequency in the day-to-day political battles of Australia.

To understand Australia’s approach to artificial intelligence, you have to understand the colonial mindset that enfeebles Australian politicians.

I don’t trust history. I don’t believe it. I don’t believe it is a source of truth. History has nothing to do with justice or healing.

The impetus for the statement was a somewhat belated acceptance that artificial intelligence was spreading through the economy more quickly and more broadly than past technologies. AI, the statement says, could be ‘larger than the Industrial Revolution, but unfolding over a vastly shorter time frame’.

Last year, Minister for the Arts Tony Burke said, ‘We have no plans, no intention, no appetite to be weakening those copyright laws.’ … Australian journalists, musicians, artists, authors and other creatives took the government at their word. That’s why it’s so alarming that the government was actively considering a proposal that would sell out the work of Australian storytellers for multinational tech companies to train their AI models.

Government intervention to address the significant economic and social impacts of gambling addiction, particularly on our children, is both justified and essential. The consequences of addiction are now well understood: the debt, the shame, the broken families, the suicides. In terms of money, Australian gamblers lose some $31.5 billion each year – the highest per capita in the world.

Panic in the Prime Minister’s Office ahead of Anthony Albanese’s departure for Fiji and Solomon Islands led to a terse but unequivocal apology for off-colour remarks he made about Australian pop idol Kylie Minogue. The worry on Monday was that the growing controversy over the comments in a podcast interview could swamp the signing of what is only Australia’s fourth defence treaty in Suva later that day.

One year ago I became the first independent member for Bradfield. For three decades before that, I worked in energy, climate and finance, and in that time I’ve watched governments of all persuasions make the same mistake: leaning on fossil fuels to solve the problems created by fossil fuels.

A recent audit found it takes 23 minutes for a social media account mimicking a 16- to 18-year-old boy to be fed misogynistic content. These posts reframe everyday frustrations – rejection, loneliness, personal setbacks – as evidence of a system stacked against boys and men.

Dear readers, the last thing I would ask you to do is spend any more time reading commentary about a former host of a breakfast television program. Very few Australians watch the show, and the host – like all television ‘personalities’ – is an irrelevance. Speaking from experience, no one misses us when we go – and rightly so.