Thank you, Melinda [Cilento]. I want to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we meet today and also paying my respects to elders past and present. I also want to acknowledge and thank the many leaders of business, government and community that are here today at the conference. I think the broad representation from across Australia at this conference speaks to the recognition of how important AI is to Australia's future.

Now, you have heard Lee [Hickin] speak about the new guidance for AI adoption that his team has issued today, and what I want to do is give you some context on why these are important and how this announcement fits into the Albanese Government's vision for AI.

Later this year the government will be releasing our plan for artificial intelligence in Australia and this is a plan that will put Australians first and it will position our citizens to benefit from this transformative technology.

Now, to achieve that goal we have to answer three big questions, and together the answer to those questions make up our approach to AI in Australia. The first question is an economic question: How do we capture the economic opportunity for Australia and make sure that our industries are not left behind. The second question is an equity question: How do we make sure that the benefits of AI accrue to all Australians and they feel those benefits tangibly in their lives. And the third question is a safety question: How do we minimise harms and protect Australians. And I'm going to take you through the context on some of each of those questions.

On the first question we know that we have to lean in to capture the economic opportunity of artificial intelligence for Australia. We will be a poorer nation if we do not do this. Today Australia is one of the wealthiest nations in the world by GDP per capita and wealth per capita, and we are fortunate to be in that position. But if we want to retain that position in the future we are going to need to grasp the opportunity that AI presents. AI will transform economies. It will change the way factors of production combine to produce national output and throw up the rankings of national prosperity. That's why it is so important that we seize this moment, because the nations around the world that are able to grab the AI opportunity, embed it into their economies, use it in their companies, instil those skills in their workers, those nations will rise up the rankings of prosperous countries. And those nations that do not embrace AI will fall down that ranking. According to the productivity commission, if we get this right AI has the potential to improve Australia's multi factor productivity by 2.3 per cent over the next decade. That translates to an additional $116 billion of GDP in Australia. This uplift is the engine to better wages, to greater competitiveness and to higher standards of living.

Australians should be optimistic about our ability to capture the economic benefits of artificial intelligence. We have highly skilled and talented people, thousands of developers and software engineers. Australians are keen adopters. We adopted the iPhone quickly, we adopted lots of new technologies faster than other countries, and today we rank number three globally in AI usage ahead of countries like the UK, Estonia, or even the United States on a per capita basis.

And we also have a track record of innovation. Australia has produced 35 unicorn companies since 2000. We have strong research institutions. Indeed, the CSIRO was the third organisation in the world to receive one of the leading GPUs from Nvidia used to power AI models.

As well as this, Australia is building world class digital infrastructure which will be the foundation on which we build our AI industries. We are already one of the top destinations for data centre investment globally, and this investment is only going to grow.

With the right settings, a strong ecosystem and good fundamental infrastructure investment, Australians have the ability to be both makers and takers of AI. “Making” AI means Australian firms developing and building AI, and “taking” AI means Australian firms adopting and using AI. And both of these are important parts of making sure that Australia grabs this opportunity and drives our productivity growth here at home.

So that's the first question; how do we grab the economic opportunity. But it's not the only question. We also have to make sure that all Australians benefit from this technology in their lives. Sometimes I think that for Australians sitting at home and watching this on the news, they are bombarded with stories about AI; great companies doing amazing things. But I want Australians to know this, and that is that the government is focused on making sure that people are the beneficiaries of AI.

And this leads me to the second big question we have to answer: How do we make sure that the benefits of artificial intelligence are spread widely across Australia. What we want to see is AI tools being deployed to deliver real and tangible benefits. And I hear about the beginnings of these benefits every day. Stories about teachers who can see how artificial intelligence can help them tailor lessons to each student, health workers who hope it will cut paperwork and freedom for patients, people in rural and regional areas who experience service gaps that AI can help fill to give them better healthcare, workforce planners who see it as one way to tackle looming labour shortages. These are positive progressive uses of artificial intelligence that can improve the lives of Australians.

But to make sure that we deliver that, we have to make sure that we break down barriers to adoption right across the economy, including for small business. We have to ensure that workers are participants in the change through skills, engagement and training, and we have to make sure that citizens feel the benefits of artificial intelligence in their healthcare, in their education and in their engagement with government. These are the critical elements to Australia's plan to deliver artificial intelligence that works for Australians.

The third and final question we have to answer is how do we manage the risks of artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence is going to create new and difficult threats that we will have to grapple with. Fortunately Australia already has strong consumer, privacy, online, safety and competition laws. And where new challenges arise we need to make sure that regulators and policymakers are positioned to address those challenges directly and with confidence.

The Albanese Government is already taking strong and targeted action against specific harms faced by Australians from artificial intelligence. We criminalise the non-consensual sharing of deep fakes and the Minister For Communications will be restricting so called nudify apps, and this is on top of the extensive work underway on areas like privacy, cybersecurity and digital competition.

So these are the three big questions that we are facing into as we build an AI plan that puts Australian people first. How do we capture the economic opportunity. How do we make sure that these benefits are spread across the Australian people. And how do we mitigate the risks.

But the government knows that we can't do this alone. AI is so pervasive and that's why we have to work with every Australian business, every non profit, every community and every citizen.

And that's why we are making announcement that we are today, to release the Australian Government's Guidance on AI Adoption.

This is a call to arms for every Australian business large and small.

If Australia is going to succeed we need you to lean into the opportunity of AI because it's going to change every business and every industry, and we need Australian businesses to take up the challenge. Whether you are involved in a start up, an SME or a big company, the purpose of this guidance is to help you put safe, responsible AI into practice. This is a resource designed to lift standards across the economy and to build the trust that we need to adopt AI with confidence across Australia.

The guidance sets out six essential practices to help organisations develop and deploy AI responsibly. It is practical and it is accessible, and it sets out a series of practices that are easy to follow. I want to congratulate Lee and his team for the work that they have done on these and thank the wide array of groups, businesses, academia, unions and civil society who have contributed to this work. This guidance is an important part of our approach to ensuring that Australians benefit from AI. In practical terms that will help us make sure that AI systems are tested and monitored well, that there is disclosure where AI is used, there is human control and oversight, there is regular communication with workers and unions about AI initiatives, and that the training needs that workers will need are considered in all change management.

This guidance forms part of how the Albanese Labor Government is approaching AI. And when we release our plan for AI later this year all parts of Australian society, not just government, all parts will have a role to play. Our plan will lay out a positive agenda for artificial intelligence to help us get the best of this technology. With services from healthcare to aged care, all these services will use AI to give people more personalised, more dignified support. And businesses that are at the forefront of developing and exporting AI powered services and products will benefit from this as well.

Excuse me, I just had a little technical fail. We're back. When we release our AI plan later this year the plan will be a positive agenda for all Australians. It will make sure that Australia puts people at the centre of our AI plan and this technology makes us more prosperous, more productive, and more resilient. I want to thank CEDA again for hosting this important conversation, and I look forward to hearing the outcomes from today and the thoughts of the impressive speakers that you will be hearing from.

I hope all of you are optimistic about the future that AI can deliver for Australia, the government's objective is to work for you, to work with you to make sure that AI delivers for all Australians. Thank you very much.