WEBVTT - ‘Super intelligence’: Trump’s AI slapdown for Albo

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<v Speaker 1>From The Australian, here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.

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<v Speaker 1>It's Thursday, September 24, 2026. Our Prime Minister's collecting an

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<v Speaker 1>award for being a global citizen in New York today,

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<v Speaker 1>even after an embarrassing slapdown from Donald Trump on what

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<v Speaker 1>was supposed to be a triumphant mission for artificial intelligence reform.

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<v Speaker 1>The Albanese government's going to call the bluff of artificial

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<v Speaker 1>intelligence companies who want us to trash copyright laws. That's

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<v Speaker 1>the vow from the government's AI evangelist, Andrew Charlton. But

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<v Speaker 1>even he is warning the coming data centre boom could

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<v Speaker 1>send all our domestic power bills soaring. Today, a huge

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<v Speaker 1>day in the AI revolution.

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<v Speaker 2>Artificial intelligence, here and after officially called super intelligence, changing

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<v Speaker 2>the name, the use of the word artificial makes intelligence fake.

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<v Speaker 2>It makes it sound fake, and it is not fake.

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<v Speaker 1>It's actually amazing, but we have to be careful. In

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<v Speaker 1>New York, Anthony Albanese got a giant slapdown from Donald

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<v Speaker 1>Trump on his bid to get global agreement on artificial

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<v Speaker 1>intelligence regulation.

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<v Speaker 2>The United States also totally rejects any attempt to construct

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<v Speaker 2>a globalist scheme to control for the artificial intelligence being

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<v Speaker 2>spoken of so much now.

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<v Speaker 1>And a sideswipe on Australia's attempts to curb social media

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<v Speaker 1>giants all consuming algorithms.

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<v Speaker 3>It's not about giving government control. It's about giving people

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<v Speaker 3>back control over what they receive on their devices.

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<v Speaker 1>In Sydney, Albo's deputy sheriff on superintelligence, let's go with it,

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<v Speaker 1>is Andrew Charlton. He used the Australian's annual forum, Energy Nation,

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<v Speaker 1>to make a big vow.

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<v Speaker 4>We are calling their bluff.

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<v Speaker 1>Charlton was talking about the government's negotiations with AI giants

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<v Speaker 1>like Anthropic. who say they won't even consider building giant

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<v Speaker 1>data centres in Australia if the government refuses to amend

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<v Speaker 1>copyright law. Anthropic, like its peers OpenAI and Google, wants

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<v Speaker 1>a special exemption from the rules that say if you

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<v Speaker 1>use someone's art or journalism or literature or music, you

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<v Speaker 1>have to pay. They say they'll build data centres here

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<v Speaker 1>in Australia, but only if they can train their bots

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<v Speaker 1>by scraping all creative works for free.

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<v Speaker 4>The Prime Minister outlined our principles on copyright and the

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<v Speaker 4>government is not budging one centimetre from those principles.

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<v Speaker 1>Charlton is an AI evangelist. He believes we're on the

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<v Speaker 1>cusp of an opportunity we'll never see again in our lifetimes.

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<v Speaker 1>An instant fix to all Australia's problems. Sluggish productivity, low

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<v Speaker 1>foreign investment.

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<v Speaker 4>At 2.3% of GDP, the data centre boom is three

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<v Speaker 4>times bigger than the fibre optic boom of the 1990s.

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<v Speaker 4>Twice as big as the national highway rollout in the

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<v Speaker 4>1950s and 60s. 50% bigger than the electrification investment boom

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<v Speaker 4>of the 1930s. You have to go back to the

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<v Speaker 4>1880s and 1890s to find an equivalently sized infrastructure boom.

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<v Speaker 4>The railway boom of that period that transformed our economies.

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<v Speaker 4>This is a massive change in our economy.

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<v Speaker 1>The copyright issue is one thing, and that's a battle

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<v Speaker 1>Charlton is having right now inside the government, with colleagues

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<v Speaker 1>like Attorney-General Michelle Rowland and the Prime Minister himself. They've

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<v Speaker 1>promised musicians and authors they won't sell out their copyrights.

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<v Speaker 1>It looks like the government's leaning towards the kind of

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<v Speaker 1>model Europe has adopted. That is, creators can opt out

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<v Speaker 1>of having their content scraped by AI. But would painters

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<v Speaker 1>and musicians really do that? Is it fair to put

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<v Speaker 1>the burden on them? Can we trust AI companies not

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<v Speaker 1>to just steal their creations anyway? So why do we

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<v Speaker 1>want data centres here? You hear a lot of talk

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<v Speaker 1>about sovereignty. Analyst Saul Kovonick summed it up like this

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<v Speaker 1>at Energy Nation.

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<v Speaker 5>It's ICU dispensation, dispensation of drugs in ICU and hospitals,

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<v Speaker 5>air traffic control, cyber security, defence. All of this is

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<v Speaker 5>run by data centres, right? And you cannot have that

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<v Speaker 5>data and that capability offshore. If we can't rely on

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<v Speaker 5>our closest ally to provide digital and AI services to

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<v Speaker 5>us in a crisis... It means we have to have

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<v Speaker 5>that sovereign capability at home.

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<v Speaker 1>Charlton thinks we have to insist that AI companies build

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<v Speaker 1>their own energy generation so that they're not sucking power

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<v Speaker 1>out of our grid and that we have to move

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<v Speaker 1>incredibly fast, much faster, let's be honest, than Australia's ever

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<v Speaker 1>moved on anything. In the room at Energy Nation were

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<v Speaker 1>all the country's biggest names in gas, renewables and every

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<v Speaker 1>other form of energy. and you could almost hear them

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<v Speaker 1>raising their eyebrows. It takes years to get any kind

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<v Speaker 1>of energy project approved here. Communities are still blowing up

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<v Speaker 1>about transmission lines and wind farms. So even if the

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<v Speaker 1>Albanese government can somehow sweep past local councils and angry

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<v Speaker 1>communities and approved data centres across the country, can they

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<v Speaker 1>really bring with them the vast amount of power generation

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<v Speaker 1>they're going to need? Charlton is optimistic.

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<v Speaker 4>The investment is coming. We have a choice, whether we

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<v Speaker 4>allow that investment to strengthen the grid or to strain it,

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<v Speaker 4>whether it puts upward pressure on power bills or helps

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<v Speaker 4>us exert some downward pressure, whether it builds Australian capability

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<v Speaker 4>or merely consumes Australian power. The choice is not predetermined.

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<v Speaker 4>It will be made by the rules we write now

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<v Speaker 4>and we are determined to right them well.

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<v Speaker 1>But he also has a warning. If we don't get

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<v Speaker 1>this right, Australians' power bills will go through the roof,

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<v Speaker 1>as has happened in some American communities.

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<v Speaker 4>I think we have a lot to learn from the

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<v Speaker 4>American experience, as I said. I think there are places

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<v Speaker 4>in the United States where they've got it badly wrong,

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<v Speaker 4>and households have paid the price for that. Higher electricity bills,

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<v Speaker 4>restricted access to water, negative impacts on local communities. And

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<v Speaker 4>you can see the consequences of that. The consequences of

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<v Speaker 4>that is a huge loss of social licence from the

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<v Speaker 4>data centre industry.

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<v Speaker 1>Coming up, Queensland blazes its own trail on AI. In

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<v Speaker 1>the middle of a summer day in Queensland, the sun

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<v Speaker 1>is blazing and the state's rooftop solar panels are generating

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<v Speaker 1>vast quantities of energy, much more than is needed to

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<v Speaker 1>power home and office air conditioning. That's just part of

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<v Speaker 1>the reason why Queensland would be insane not to welcome

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<v Speaker 1>the advent of data centres that could be using that power.

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<v Speaker 1>Here's Premier David Crissifulli at Energy Nation.

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<v Speaker 3>Our energy story is real, and we put it down

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<v Speaker 3>to three words. Affordable, reliable, sustainable. And you can have

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<v Speaker 3>all three, and we've proven that.

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<v Speaker 1>The Premier's walking tall after staring down Federal Climate Change

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<v Speaker 1>and Energy Minister Chris Bowen. Bowen tried to insist all

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<v Speaker 1>AI data centres must be fuelled by renewables. Chris Foley

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<v Speaker 1>and Northern Territory Chief Minister Leah Fenocchiaro insisted coal and

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<v Speaker 1>gas had to be allowed, and the Prime Minister gave

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<v Speaker 1>them exactly what they wanted. It seems to be working.

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<v Speaker 1>Anthropic has already signed up to be part of a

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<v Speaker 1>$ 32 billion data centre project in Queensland's Western Downs, just

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<v Speaker 1>northwest of Toowoomba, to power its bot, Claude. Western Downs

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<v Speaker 1>will be powered by gas, coal, wind, solar and batteries.

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<v Speaker 3>We're not going to give people a free pass. Now,

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<v Speaker 3>we are very open for business government. We really are.

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<v Speaker 3>But I look at it this way. We've got a

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<v Speaker 3>young fleet of coal-fired power stations. We've invested very, very

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<v Speaker 3>heavily in them, and they're working well. On the back

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<v Speaker 3>of it, we've got a whole heap of energy in

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<v Speaker 3>the middle of the day that, quite frankly, isn't being used,

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<v Speaker 3>certainly to its capacity. We can use that as a

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<v Speaker 3>way of making sure that we can incentivise getting people

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<v Speaker 3>there and then build the extra capacity for the peaks

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<v Speaker 3>that you need. That takes away those waves. It makes

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<v Speaker 3>it a lot more seamless. And on the back of that,

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<v Speaker 3>we genuinely believe we can get the new energy generation

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<v Speaker 3>that is needed for an expanding population, and we can

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<v Speaker 3>get others to pay for it. And that means one thing,

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<v Speaker 3>and that is constantly putting downward pressure on people's power prices.

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<v Speaker 1>The Australian subscribers are the first to know about all

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