Since 2024, Australian Unions have been calling for appropriate regulatory protections to keep working Aussies safe from the risks and harms of AI. Unions have been clear that such protections need to be legislated and backed by an empowered regulator.
The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) this week strongly welcomed the Prime Minister’s announcement that the Albanese Government’s world-leading AI Standards legislation will include mandatory AI safety and security protections and a dedicated AI regulator to enforce them noting that this further consolidates the Albanese Government’s global leadership on digital safety regulation.
Workers and unions say that AI needs to be developed, deployed and trained in the interests of working people and on our terms. The union movement has strongly argued that such regulatory protections must be a precondition of AI frontier training in Australia and must be backed by a strong regulator that can enforce significant penalties on these companies for non-compliance. The recent Medicare breach is ample evidence that we can’t trust these companies to regulate themselves.
It is vital that workers’ rights are fit for purpose from not just the development of this technology, but also the harmful deployment of AI by some big companies who are using it to cut jobs, intensify work, and degrade job quality. Indeed, just yesterday Qantas announced 850 jobs will be cut and outsourced as the company accelerates its use of AI. This comes off the back of redundancies at NAB, ANZ, Woolworths and Canva.
The AI regulator announced by the government will be able to enforce significant penalties for AI companies that fail to comply with mandatory obligations that will help keep Australia safe. Companies will be required by the regulator to:
- Maintain security controls across all stages of development and deployment
- Identify and manage serious risks associated with their models
- Allow independent evaluation of their models
- Provide mandatory notification of incidents to the Australian Government rapidly
- Maintain and publish safety and security frameworks to ensure good governance, risk management and transparency
- Respond to updated standards and rules as technologies change.
These protections are aligned with interim report recommendations from the Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence and will help provide earlier warning of emerging risks from rogue AI agents and enable faster, coordinated action when serious AI incidents occur.
ACTU Assistant Secretary, Joseph Mitchell said, “The Albanese Government is a world-leader in digital protections, and that has been further demonstrated by today’s announcement of AI safety regulation and an AI safety regulator. Unions have campaigned for greater regulatory protections since 2024 to keep working Aussies safe. We congratulate the PM on his decisive action.
“The Medicare breach shows we can’t trust these large AI companies to do the right thing. The tech bros want us to believe that we, as a country, are powerless. But we are not; we absolutely can take the action to protect our rights and the fair go, and we congratulate Prime Minister Albanese for his strong action in this direction.
“Australians don’t trust AI because of the lack of clear benefit for working people. We have had big promises, but so far, no guarantee that any benefits will be shared with workers. All workers have experienced is risks to our security and to our rights at work.
“But the job is not yet done. While these regulations will keep us safe from the risks posed by the development of these large AI models, workers are still exposed to significant risk from the big companies that want to use this technology to undermine our jobs.
“We need to make sure workers’ rights are fit for purpose, and workers have genuine protections against job displacement and against bosses using AI for intrusive monitoring and surveillance to undermine the quality of work to make a quick buck, and for decisions that shape our working lives.”
Read more: Unions strongly welcome PM’s AI safety regulator and regulation - Australian Council of Trade Unions