The Point Live: AI regulation wish list on the agenda, while industry dictates the gas reservation policy. As it happens.

Big thanks to The Point’s resident editorial cartoonist, Fiona Katauskas, for the literal lol this morning.

Anna Chang

Thank-you to the eagle-eyed reader who has pointed out that actually, one (1) parliamentarian did mention Anti-Poverty Week yesterday.

Some good points made by Greens for Queensland, Senator Penny Allman-Payne, in yesterday’s Senate debate on the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Technical Changes No. 2) Bill 2026:

This bill is more proof that Australia’s social security system is too complex and often inaccessible. Services Australia can’t seem to grasp social security law—and they’re the ones administering it. 

Every day, people who are sick, working, parenting, elderly, disabled or just trying to live their lives are punished for making minor mistakes.

This government has made the deliberate choice to keep all social security payments below the poverty line. 

It’s Anti-Poverty Week. The fact that we even have to have an anti-poverty week should be a source of shame. It’s the start of Anti-Poverty Week, and instead of ending government induced poverty the Minister for Social Services has announced meagre funding for emergency relief charities that amounts to less than $1 per welfare recipient, while people in this country are dying from poverty.

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s latest report on mortality outcomes showed that people accessing the JobSeeker payment are up to 10 times more likely to die than people not on any income support. Almost three in five people aged 22 to 64 who passed away between 2012 and 2022 were accessing income support. 

Social security is supposed to help people. It’s in the name—’security’. But governments, including this one, continue to impose strict conditions policing the ways people can get support and what people must do to get that support. 

It’s gatekeeping, and it’s killing people. Poverty is always a political choice.

Anna Chang

The Antipoverty Centre is hosting an online event at 3:30pm AEDT today featuring the Central Land Council and Single Mother Families Australia to highlight issues compounding poverty that do not get the attention they need or are not well understood. 

The event is open to both media and the public, with community sector workers in particular, encouraged to attend. 

More info, and rego to receive the zoom link here: https://events.humanitix.com/compounding-poverty

Dr Josie Douglas, Central Land Council General Manager said:
Raising the remote area allowance is one compassionate and practical thing politicians can do right now to relieve the extreme cost of living crisis faced by the poorest Australians out bush. The allowance clearly hasn’t kept up with the skyrocketing prices in remote communities for a long time, but people are now at breaking point. We implore anyone who believes in a fair go to support a meaningful increase.

Jay Coonan, Antipoverty Centre Co-coordinator said:
Privatised “job” agencies are designed to deprive people of their rights. People are told that if they do not comply, they will have their Centrelink payment stopped. A rights guide won’t fix the root issue, but it is tool people can use to defend themselves from these parasitic companies who manage the poor. Whether it’s pushing back against being forced into a useless AI course, or being told to travel an hour by train for a 10 minute interrogation – we created the rights guide to help people understand what is and isn’t compulsory and avoid unfair and unlawful penalties. 

Some key stats:

+ Currently, the main unemployment payment is $412 a week – 40% below the poverty line. 

+ More than 1 million people rely on unemployment payments, around 40% of whom are disabled. 

+ 20% of people on the JobSeeker payment is employed, subjected to an effective marginal tax rate of 75% for every dollar of gross income above $128 a week. 

+ People on the two main working age payments (JobSeeker and DSP) make up around a third of all suicide deaths among working age adults. People on JobSeeker represent 20% of all suicide deaths among those aged 15 to 66 years old. 

+ 167,000 people on income support aged between 22 to 64 years old died between 2012 and 2022 – 58.2% of all deaths for people in this age group. Those on JobSeeker aged 35 to 44 are 9.6 times more likely to die than their peers.

Environment minister Murray Watt is speaking to ABC News Breakfast, where he is being asked if the digital duty of care bill is friendless in the senate (the Coalition is just a no, the Greens want more protections and options).

Watt says:

Of course we want to see these laws passed and even this recent example of this execution and the possible streaming of it is an example that we need to strengthen Australia’s laws as it relates to the responsibilities of the tech platforms. You know, we remain open to passing this legislation, either with the Coalition or the Greens, and I know that Minister Wells is in discussions with both sides about that. It’s too important to have this blocked through sort of some sort of politics from either side. We will continue discussing with both the Coalition and the Greens. What their changes are, whether we’re prepared to make them, but we need to put the interests of Australians first on these sorts of things they are concerned about on social media.

On the bipartisan committee looking into AI regulations and the release of their wish list, Watt says:

Well, again, those recommendations have just been received and the Government will certainly give them consideration. It’s good to see some bipartisan work happening in this space and, just to go back to the Digital Duty of Care, we’d like to see that sort of bipartisanship on that as well. I think on the Digital Duty of Care t is a bit of a concern that the remarks we’ve got coming from the Coalition indicate that, yet again, they’re being led to a policy position by One Nation, trying to copy One Nation’s policy and it’s further evidence for what Josh Frydenberg has been out there saying, that the Liberal Party needs to get back to the centre. I mean, the fact that the Liberal Party is now having people outside the Parliament publicly audition for the leadership role shows how lacking in talent they have and, again, I think it’s an admission from Josh Frydenberg that there’s simply no way the Liberals can govern without One Nation. So the more bipartisanship that they can show on these matters, that concern Australians, like AI, it will show they are doing what Josh Frydenberg says, which is get back to the centre and think about the needs of Australians.

Given the amount of natural resources the AI industry requires, Watt should be at all these negotiations. But notice how he switched up to Frydenberg there? That’s how you know how much Labor is enjoying Frydenberg’s latest intervention (five years after he lost his seat and while also refusing to say if he’ll run again – because he can’t say. He will only run if he thinks he is guaranteed a win, so you won’t hear either way until much closer to the election)

So how are the Greens handling the gas reservation policy which the government is already walking back?
Sarah Hanson-Young:

This is an example, actually,week?of what we’ve just been talking about. Labor promised a 20% gas reserve. They’ve now walked that back and watered that down. It feels like every time Labor promises something, they go weak before they’re even in the ring. We need to make sure that, actually, we have policies in this country that deliver for people. We haven’t seen the detail of the legislation yet. We’ll have to look at that.

But let me say – I think Labor’s barking up the wrong tree here. We need a much bigger and much more – and a much simpler plan to tackle the gas industry and to deliver for Australians. And that would be a 25% tax on gas exports. It’s hugely popular, the community wants it. They’re sick of companies making massive profits and not contributing to the national budget. Let’s be bigger and let’s be simpler and let’s put in place a tax instead.

Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young was a guest on ABC TV 7.30 overnight, where she was asked whether the Greens had been too soft in their negotiations with the government. Hanson-Young is the leader of those negotiations in the senate, and the context was whether David Shoebridge, who beat her for the leadership (comprehensively) within the party room was criticising how some of those negotiations had gone.

Hanson-Young:

Look, I don’t believe we’ve been too soft, but I do understand that Australians – particularly those from, um, progressive voters – are frustrated that this government, that the Albanese government, continues to water down their ambition. We want Labor to deliver on what they promised Australians, and we want to make sure that the parliament can deliver for the community. We will hold Labor to account. We will stop the radical right from gaining a further foothold in this country. And we will be there fighting in the corner for regular people. Across the country, no-one can deny that the community is frustrated. They’re looking at politics and thinking, “Hang on. This isn’t working for us.”

Hello and welcome to another day of parliament – and The Point Live. It is party room Tuesday, which means there is going to be a mixed bag of a morning and then a big rush in the middle with parliament sitting from midday.

It’s mostly about AI regulation today. The parliamentary inquiry into AI wants independent safety checks, local computing power for local use and Australia’s security agencies to have early access to new models before they are released. There is also a call for a review of copyright protections, which in Australia are pretty messed up. So yeah – they want oversight, but despite the massive alarms ringing around this issue, there is no ‘we are moving too fast’ or ‘we shouldn’t do this’. As a reminder, a local ‘frontier model’ doesn’t mean Australia owns anything. So yeah, at the moment we are doing exactly what we did with gas and other fossil fuels. Good times.

Oh and we are still talking about whether or not we should ban any footage of any livestreamed execution the Trump administration wants to do – like we could. So that’s fun too.

We’ll cover that and everything else that pops up today, including how many more times Josh Frydenberg can make the Liberal party about him (the limit does not exist).

I am still looking for coffee. Pray for me. Ready? Let’s do this.