00:00Sure, my bill is called My Face, My Rights and really just legislates the fact that you
00:08own your face, you own your voice, you own your likeness and ensure that if someone deepfakes
00:15you that you have an avenue to actually get that taken down and potentially actually go
00:20through a process of recovering funds for damages.
00:25And currently nothing like that, no protections exist?
00:27No, we've seen the government I think asleep at the wheel when it comes to regulating against
00:32the misuse of artificial intelligence.
00:35Australians know how quickly it's improving and what the new models are doing, what you
00:40can generate in terms of photos and videos, and yet we've seen Parliament not keep up.
00:45And I just don't see why we would allow people not to be able to own their face, own their
00:52voice, own their likeness.
00:54This is part of being human and we live in a world now where it shouldn't depend on who
01:00has the best software or the worst ethics to allow deepfakes of people and the misuse of
01:05them.
01:06Does this legislation stop content from being made and getting online or is it more a response
01:12to the content that then is really just produced online?
01:18It's very hard to regulate against some of the software that is based overseas and Australians
01:25accessing it and deepfaking people.
01:27But this says that that is illegal.
01:29It is illegal to deepfake someone without their consent.
01:33And we desperately need safeguards in place against the misuse of AI.
01:39Sorry, Senator.
01:40How would this legislation be enforced?
01:44So it strengthens the Online Safety Act and the Privacy Act to actually ensure that you
01:49do own your face, you own your voice, you own your likeness.
01:53And then a very clear avenue to actually lodge a complaint, get things taken down and then
01:59potentially go through the civil process.
02:03Negotiations over this have been going on for, I believe, around two years now.
02:07It's the last sitting week for parliament for this year.
02:10Do you think there's appetite for it?
02:11Is it going to get across the line?
02:14The government has a policy of not supporting private senators' bills.
02:17I think that's not a great way to run things.
02:21I think you should be looking at ideas regardless of who they come from.
02:24I'm putting this forward in good faith.
02:27And it deals with, I think, a huge hole in our laws in the face of artificial intelligence.
02:33So it's something I'll certainly be talking to the government about, talking to my colleagues
02:36in the Senate about potentially sending it to an inquiry next year and really trying to
02:40build support behind this, I think, really sensible idea.
02:44Would you want to launch it all off the legislation that the federal government
02:47passed in 2024 that criminalised the transmission of artificially generated sexual material of
02:54an adult by way of a carriage service without consent?
02:59It's a slightly different approach here.
03:01You know, the bar to press criminal charges is quite high.
03:07This essentially provides everyday Australians with a way to quickly get images, videos, voice
03:14clones taken down quickly and then potentially proceed down the path of pressing civil charges.
03:21And I think we're living in an age where we're seeing more and more artificially generated content.
03:29And it's pretty easy now to deep fake someone.
03:32And we have to say that is not OK.
03:35Your face belongs to you.
03:36Well, we saw how easy you did it before the last election with the two leaders displaying
03:42it that way.
03:43We'll wait and watch with interest this week.
03:45But just while I've got you, Senator, on the environmental laws that are looking to dominate
03:49the last sitting week of parliament, Murray Watt has said it's now or never to pass these
03:55laws.
03:56And he's happy to deal further, indeed, with the coalition or the Greens.
03:59What does an acceptable deal look like to you?
04:02And what does a disaster look like?
04:04I mean, new environmental laws have to actually protect nature.
04:09On Friday, I wrote to both the prime minister and Murray Watt, the environmental minister, outlining
04:15the 15 things that I've heard from my consultations.
04:18I've held roundtables.
04:19I've engaged in the Senate committee process.
04:22I've spoken to environmental organisations, spoken to business.
04:26And I've said to them, these are the 15 things I think that need to change to actually have
04:30environmental laws that protect nature and provide certainty to business.
04:34I think we're a long way away from that.
04:36There was basically no one in the Senate committee process who said that these bills as drafted
04:41are good to go.
04:43So, you know, it's going to be a very interesting week in the Senate.
04:46I'm looking at your amendments here, your 15 points that you just outlined there.
04:50Are they in any particular order?
04:52Because I noticed that the first one is to remove the carve out that excludes the regional
04:56forest agreements from the laws.
04:58Are there any deal breakers for you?
05:00Because 15, that's a lot of points to compromise on.
05:04Well, it's 1500 pages of legislation.
05:06So there's a lot of detail to go through and things to get right.
05:10You know, things like the exemption from our environmental laws for native forest logging.
05:16That clearly has to change.
05:18There's exemptions for land clearing.
05:20Those things have to change.
05:22You actually have to have an independent EPA that is actually independent.
05:25It can't just be independent by name.
05:28You know, I think there's a range of things that if we if we are serious, you know, we
05:32we are the world leaders in extinction.
05:35We have ecosystems in this country that are on the brink of collapse.
05:39And so as a parliament, we have to get this right.
05:42The Senate inquiry actually goes till March.
05:45And I think with 1500 pages of legislation, it's probably right that we really are digging
05:49into the into the details and ensuring that they're actually going to deliver.
05:53And so given the compressed timeframe, you know, the government seems to be in an awful
05:58hurry to just get these done and get them out of the way.
06:00I think that's the wrong approach.
06:02But given that I've said to them, well, these are the things that I think need to change
06:05to actually have my support for this bill.
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