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Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.

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Speaker 1: It's Friday, August fifteen, twenty twenty five. Anthony Albanezi believes

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Speaker 1: Australia can help broke a piece in Gaza under a

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Speaker 1: Saudi Arabian lead proposal that could see Arab nations send

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Speaker 1: in peacekeepers. Tributes a flowing for the beloved film critic

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Speaker 1: David Stratton, who's died at the age of eighty five.

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Speaker 1: He wrote reviews for The Australian for more than three decades,

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Speaker 1: and you can read all about his life and legacy

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Speaker 1: right now at The Australian dot com.

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Speaker 2: Dot you.

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Speaker 1: A four day workweek, caps on your superbalance, attacks on

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Speaker 1: electric vehicles. These are some of the ideas being floated

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Speaker 1: for discussion at a big shindick in Canberra next week,

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Speaker 1: an economic roundtable that the Treasurer says will help shape

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Speaker 1: his next three budgets. Today, Political editor Jeff Chambers joins

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Speaker 1: me to work out what's credible and what's crazy. Jeff

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Speaker 1: Chambers is The Australian's political editor and like most people

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Speaker 1: with big jobs, I think Jeff works about seven days

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Speaker 1: a week. Would that be right?

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Speaker 3: Jeff, I try not to, but I think for most

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Speaker 3: Australians they're not sitting there watching the clock. They're trying

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Speaker 3: to do the best at their job. And there's no

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Speaker 3: real right to disconnect, as some of the unions like

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Speaker 3: to suggest that there is.

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Speaker 1: Well, the latest idea from the union movement is a

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Speaker 1: four day working week, but the twister is you'd be

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Speaker 1: paid for five days. Jeff, why are they talking about

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Speaker 1: this now?

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Speaker 3: Look, the ACTU has predictably rolled out a shopping list

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Speaker 3: of completely unworkable ideas and they quite often know that

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Speaker 3: they are so radical that they will never actually get up.

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Speaker 3: And at the top of that list is this idea

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Speaker 3: of four day working week, but you get paid full

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Speaker 3: time for the full five days, So it's like, let's

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Speaker 3: all work less and take more holidays, which is another

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Speaker 3: one of their proposals that they're floated to increase productivity.

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Speaker 3: Not quite sure how that works. And this type of

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Speaker 3: spooky music radicalism from the ACTU really puts the fright

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Speaker 3: into the private sector business industry leaders who attend these forums.

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Speaker 3: So the unions have already won the right to disconnect,

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Speaker 3: which was a very symbolic thing that labor did for them.

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Speaker 3: But if you're a small business owner, you never really

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Speaker 3: can disconnect just to keep food on the table and

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Speaker 3: pay the bills. And for that fact, the very staffers

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Speaker 3: and journalists here in Parliament, but the staffers at work

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Speaker 3: for these labor ministers, they often chuckle to me that

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Speaker 3: there is no right to disconnect for them. So it's

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Speaker 3: all a bit of a show.

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Speaker 1: But that's not all, folks. Sally McManus, the boss of

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Speaker 1: the Australian Council of Try Unions the ACTU, is also

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Speaker 1: calling for twenty five billion dollars in new or higher taxes,

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Speaker 1: a limit of one property for negative gearing, changes to

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Speaker 1: capital gains tax and more. McMahon says this is about

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Speaker 1: making life fairer, particularly for young people who can't get

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Speaker 1: into the housing market.

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Speaker 2: Working people can't live where they work, they can't live

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Speaker 2: where they grew up. It is causing an enormous amount

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Speaker 2: of pressure for people. And a really disturbing thing is

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Speaker 2: is that of study in New South Wales said that

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Speaker 2: there will be no grandchildren in Sydney because people between

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Speaker 2: the ages of thirty and forty can't afford to live there.

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Speaker 1: So why are we suddenly hearing all these new ideas

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Speaker 1: because on Monday, Treasurer Jim Chalmers is kicking off something

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Speaker 1: called the Economic Reform round Table, a summit of business,

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Speaker 1: unions and decision makers aimed at working out how to

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Speaker 1: position Australia for the future. One of the hot issues

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Speaker 1: on the table is artificial intelligence. Obviously we're on the

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Speaker 1: cusp of a huge change technologically, a big leap forward.

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Speaker 1: They're talking about vices that the new Industrial Revolution where

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Speaker 1: suddenly all of us are going to have very eager

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Speaker 1: virtual assistants who are helping us do our jobs. Businesses

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Speaker 1: and the government and the Productivity Commission. Also they want

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Speaker 1: Australians to adopt generative AI to start using it. Do

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Speaker 1: you think that is how we're actually going to make

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Speaker 1: the economy more productive?

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Speaker 2: Now?

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Speaker 3: I think that sort of blanket conversation about everyday workers

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Speaker 3: and businesses using generative AI is probably not that helpful.

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Speaker 3: I think talking about the more targeted applications of AI

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Speaker 3: and what that could practically do to allow all of

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Speaker 3: us to be more productive in our lives, our day

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Speaker 3: to day, both at home and at work, is a

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Speaker 3: more practical way forward. And what does that mean? Well,

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Speaker 3: you really have to actually educate people. And the big

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Speaker 3: boardrooms are the big companies. They've got a whole army

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Speaker 3: of people that are dedicated to understanding it and how

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Speaker 3: to apply it. But then as you get down to

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Speaker 3: those smaller businesses, of which we obviously know there's multimillion

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Speaker 3: small businesses, the art of this whole process is to

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Speaker 3: not leave them behind.

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Speaker 1: Here's another part of the puzzle. The companies creating great

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Speaker 1: AI tools include Google and Meta, whom the government is

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Speaker 1: presently warring with over social media bands for kids. So

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Speaker 1: how to police them without leaving Australia behind on the

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Speaker 1: AI revolution.

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Speaker 3: These companies are based in America predominantly, but they're in Europe,

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Speaker 3: they're in China. We really are watching what Europe and

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Speaker 3: a US are doing in that regulatory space and they

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Speaker 3: can't really land it. We really need some of our

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Speaker 3: big allies and friends in the West to put some

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Speaker 3: systems in place that we can follow. But then we also,

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Speaker 3: as little old Australia here, the island nation with a

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Speaker 3: much smaller population and smaller economy, we can't be left

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Speaker 3: behind in the AI revolution. So it's a really challenging space.

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Speaker 3: And what makes it even more challenging is the speed

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Speaker 3: of those technological advances.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I had an example of it this morning. There's a

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Speaker 1: book that I've got to read for work because it's

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Speaker 1: a project that we're working on, and it's a big book.

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Speaker 1: It's one hundred and fifty thousand words. I haven't managed

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Speaker 1: to get around to it yet. But one of the

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Speaker 1: AI tools that we're allowed to use here in NewsCorp

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Speaker 1: is called Notebook Large Language Model, and you can dump

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Speaker 1: something into it and then tell it to spit out

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Speaker 1: a podcast episode for you. You know, this is scary

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Speaker 1: for people like me who work in podcasts, but this

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Speaker 1: is not something we'd ever published. So this morning I

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Speaker 1: uploaded the book into the AI and I told it

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Speaker 1: to make a little podcast episode for me and tell

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Speaker 1: me what's happening in this book? What's it all about?

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Speaker 1: Welcome to the dip Dave today we're unpacking well and

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Speaker 1: it generated ten minutes of audio with two AI voices

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Speaker 1: talking about the book and telling me all the main

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Speaker 1: points and what I needed to know and why was

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Speaker 1: that significant?

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Speaker 2: Well?

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Speaker 1: They were cheaper, sure, but critically their visas were tied

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Speaker 1: to their contracts that made them rich. And I could

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Speaker 1: listen to that while I was driving into the office.

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Speaker 1: That's a productivity advance, isn't it. Like that's how we

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Speaker 1: actually harness this technology.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean in a really simple sense. Yeah, you

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Speaker 3: can digest a very complex long report or video or

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Speaker 3: audio recording, and the technology is actually getting a lot better,

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Speaker 3: even in the space of the last two years. So

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Speaker 3: as a journalist, if I'm interviewing someone and the old

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Speaker 3: fashioned way was to listen back to the tape and

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Speaker 3: tap out the words, the technology is actually really improving

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Speaker 3: that it's almost word perfect. But then you can also

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Speaker 3: get a summary, and the summaries are quite good. So

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Speaker 3: that will make you more productive in a really simple

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Speaker 3: way day to day. Now, when you think about students

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Speaker 3: at school, primary school, high school, university, and when you're

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Speaker 3: thinking about the different professions and how that applies, I

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Speaker 3: think that's the important part of the story. Okay, what

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Speaker 3: jobs become redundant through this process and how do we

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Speaker 3: adapt to that. Are we happy for a call center

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Speaker 3: to not be based overseas but to have a really

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Speaker 3: amazing AI set up call center that we feel confident

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Speaker 3: in And I think confidence in that service and delivery

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Speaker 3: is key to getting more and more Australians to adopt

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Speaker 3: these types of technologies.

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Speaker 1: One of the things that the union movement said when

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Speaker 1: they asked for this four day week or put it

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Speaker 1: on their shopping list, was that they wanted to be

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Speaker 1: able to reap the benefits of productivity. So this is

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Speaker 1: how workers can enjoy an extra day off a week

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Speaker 1: while AI goes and does some of the tasks that

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Speaker 1: they don't need to do anymore. A really interesting political

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Speaker 1: issue for Jim Chalmers to manage now, isn't it. He

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Speaker 1: needs the unions to be on board with the adoption

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Speaker 1: of AI, presumably, but if their idea is great, we

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Speaker 1: can all take a day off. Is that useful for him?

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Speaker 3: We're in such an uncertain space in terms of understanding

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Speaker 3: what an economy wide effect AI has. I think if

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Speaker 3: you're a government or a treasurer and you want to

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Speaker 3: speed up your clean energy revolution to hit your climate

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Speaker 3: of renewables targets, if you want to unlock more housing quicker,

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Speaker 3: if you want to simplify environmental processes and laws, simplify bureaucracies,

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Speaker 3: I think that for him is a really big top priority.

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Speaker 3: Is Okay, we've got this ridiculously antiquated system where we

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Speaker 3: can't get approvals through quick enough. I think there are

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Speaker 3: some genuine divisions in the government in relation to a

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Speaker 3: regulatory environment, whether you let it rip, whether some of

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Speaker 3: those checks have to be in place. It's really challenging

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Speaker 3: to actually impose regulations, expect results from those regulations and

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Speaker 3: penalties without holding the country back. So it's a very

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Speaker 3: tricky situation for Jim Chalmers.

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Speaker 1: Coming up. What about taxes on electric vehicles. Back when

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Speaker 1: this idea was launched, Anthony Albanezi called it a Productivity

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Speaker 1: round Table. Then Jim Charmers changed it to the much

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Speaker 1: more lofty sounding Economic Reform round Table, and that's what's

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Speaker 1: prompted this flurry of ideas from the unions, the Productivity Commission, businesses.

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Speaker 1: Now the government's saying this will just be an ideas forum.

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Speaker 1: They're not committing to anything. One possible outcome is a

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Speaker 1: road user charge, basically a tax on electric vehicles. The

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Speaker 1: states and territories want this to replace the fuel excise

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Speaker 1: the drivers of petrol cars pay. That's a huge source

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Speaker 1: of revenue that's dwindling as evs become more popular.

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Speaker 3: Particularly if you're in the outer suburbs or in regional Australia.

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Speaker 3: We need roads and transport networks that are super efficient

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Speaker 3: so that people aren't sitting in redlock and can get

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Speaker 3: to work, get home and see their families all the

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Speaker 3: rest of it. But without a sustainable system we won't

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Speaker 3: be able to have that money to do that. So

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Speaker 3: there is a lot of momentum now and Jim Chalmers

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Speaker 3: and Anthony Abanezi have more or less said it's happening,

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Speaker 3: and I think in the first instance they might start

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Speaker 3: trialing it on say EV trucks, just to try and

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Speaker 3: get the technology right before a broader rollout.

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Speaker 1: Isn't there a risk though, Jeff that this off kill

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Speaker 1: to one of the government's other goals, which is to

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Speaker 1: increase the uptake of EV's, basically make the planet less polluted.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, So the EV Council and advocates for EVS say

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Speaker 3: that any contemplation of a road user charge shouldn't occur

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Speaker 3: until thirty percent of new car sales evs. The flip

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Speaker 3: side is that there are now settings in place that

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Speaker 3: are incentivizing automatically that pushed towards evs, you know, exemptions

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Speaker 3: on fringe benefit tax, exemptions on vehicle stamp duty, free regio.

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Speaker 3: There is another model you could do as well, which

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Speaker 3: would be have fuel excise still in place and have

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Speaker 3: a road user charge system. And if they design in

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Speaker 3: a way where the road user charge system is less

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Speaker 3: ultimately across the year than a fuel car, again that's

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Speaker 3: another incentive for people to buy evs or hybrids.

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Speaker 1: Jeff Chambers is the Australian Political Editor. We'll be all

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Speaker 1: over this roundtable and all the ideas.

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Speaker 2: That throws up.

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Speaker 1: You can follow it live and read all our analysis

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Speaker 1: at the Australian dot com dot au