It’s a great pleasure to be back in New Delhi, and I thank our hosts for their efforts in organising this summit. 

The contribution I want to make today is about the important role of workers in capturing the global AI opportunity.

For much of our modern history, Australia has had a powerful wool industry. At its peak Australia supplied more than half of all globally traded fine wool. Our wool exports were such a large share of our export earnings in the mid 20th century that our economy was often described as “riding on the sheep’s back.” 

Many Australians were employed in the shearing of sheep - a physical task done by teams of shearers wielding hand-held blades with great skill and camaraderie. 

But all this began to change in the 1880s when Australia invented the first mechanical shearing machines. The new machines, powered by belts and driveshafts running through the sheds, dramatically increased productivity. They were one of the great Australian technological advances of their time.

But the arrival of this technology was not greeted with universal excitement.

Many shearers feared the machines would destroy their livelihoods, lower wages and strip away hard-earned skills. Many pastoralists deployed the new machines to cut shearing costs. 

There were disputes across the industry as workers grappled with what this new technology meant for their future.

What followed was one of the defining moments in Australia’s social and political history. Shearers organised, unions strengthened, and workers demanded a voice in how the gains from new technology would be shared. The great shearers’ strikes of the 1890s were not just industrial disputes; they were debates about dignity, fairness and who benefits from innovation.

And that process mattered enormously. It helped animate the formation of the Australian Labor Party, the party I now represent, built on the idea that technological progress must go hand in hand with social progress.

Over time, the new machines powered the Australian wool industry to new heights, improved safety and drove wages higher. The wool industry became a part of Australia’s distinctive economic model of egalitarian prosperity and shared opportunity … what we at home call “the fair go”. 

The lesson from this Australian story is clear. Technology alone did not improve conditions for workers. The machines created new productivity, but fair outcomes were achieved because workers organised, institutions adapted, and governments helped build a framework where progress could be shared.

Artificial intelligence will reshape productivity, business models and public services across every economy. But whether it drives broadly shared prosperity or deepens inequality will depend on a critical factor: the extent to which workers have a meaningful voice in how AI is designed, deployed and governed.

Technology can’t just be solely about growth, productivity, or profits - it has to be about people.

And history shows the nexus between technological progress and social progress is not always direct, is rarely self-executing and is never guaranteed.

In Australia, waves of economic reform and technological change delivered strong growth, but the distribution of gains was shaped by institutions that elevated the voice of workers, and engagement between unions, employers and government. These institutions did not prevent innovation; they legitimised it. They created pathways to negotiate training, redeployment and safety standards as industries modernised.

This must be a central feature of the global discussion.

AI presents a similar inflection point. Decisions about data use, algorithmic management, surveillance, safety and reskilling are too consequential to be left solely to executives or engineers.

These form part of a democratic social compact, one where growing economic productivity and growth are delivered in a way that benefits all.

Elevating worker voice is not a constraint on progress; it is a precondition for sustainable adoption. When workers share in governance and in gains, through wages, equity, skills and security, AI becomes a tool for inclusive growth rather than division.

And inclusive growth is what we must all strive to achieve. 

Thank you