Senator LAMBIE (Tasmania) (16:13): I move: That the Senate— a. acknowledges the growing threat posed by artificial intelligence (AI), deepfakes, voice cloning and other emerging technologies, which are increasingly being exploited to impersonate individuals and organisations, spread disinformation, manipulate the public and facilitate sophisticated scams and fraud; b. expresses serious concern regarding the lack of protection from AI-generated political advertising which undermines electoral integrity, democratic accountability and public trust; and c. calls on the Government to urgently strengthen Australia's legislative and regulatory framework to address the misuse of AI, deepfakes and voice cloning and prevent their malicious use in scams, fraud and impersonation, including in political advertising. Before the last election, the ABC asked me to take part in an AI experiment. They asked if I could clone my voice using cheap AI tools. They wanted to see if people in Burnie, in my own backyard, would know my voice from an 'AI fake Jacqui', as they called it. Well, that was scary enough. But here we are two years later, and the deepfake technology is even scarier. A deepfake video of Angus Taylor and me having an argument on ABC TV's Insiders show has been doing the rounds on social media for months. My office has done all the right things. We got straight out on the socials, warning people, but it's still popping up. Just for the record, Australians, I don't endorse any companies, especially not insurance companies. I work for the people of Tasmania, full stop—no endorsing. In the last sitting, an AI deepfake video of me popped up, and it's doing the rounds again. It's an even nastier one. It's a video of a fake AI Jacqui telling One Nation supporters they are vile and disgusting. And who is sharing this nasty AI slop? Well, you wouldn't guess. After our investigation—a One Nation supporter, of course. We have also alerted the AFP. This is the sort of vile political advertising that just causes more division. I would like to ask every One Nation senator in this place if you support this sort of rubbish. Is this what you call free speech, is it? When we reported it to Facebook Meta, you wouldn't guess what they said. They told us that this video didn't breach their community standards. You know why they said that? Because, let's face it, when it comes to Meta and Facebook, they have no standards, full stop. I'm looking forward to seeing the government's duty of care bill. This kind of fake, hideous content causes hatred and division, so I get why One Nation likes it; hatred and division are all they've got up their sleeve. As I've said before, I don't care about me, but I do care about my staff who have to deal with the One Nation troll army almost every day—every day! And I care about Australians who are seeing this and might think that it's real. Australia has strong laws to protect consumers from false claims made in advertisements. Pharmaceutical companies can't claim to have a cure for cancer, food companies can't claim that sugary foods are good for our children, and lawyers cannot guarantee they will win every personal injury case. But it's still okay in this country and legal to lie in political ads. But we can change that. South Australia has had truth-in-political-advertising laws since the 1980s. In 2020, the ACT Legislative Assembly unanimously passed truth-in-political-advertising laws that came into effect in July 2021. Parties and candidates in Australia get a lot of taxpayer money with very few strings attached. What if some of that money gets turned into political ads that are misleading or deceptive? Truth-in-political-advertising laws are extremely popular. There's been a lot of polling on this, and nine out of 10 Australians want truth-in-political-advertising rules, full stop. Professor Terry Flew is the coordinator of the centre for artificial intelligence at Sydney university. The professor told the Joint Select Committee on AI that his one immediate recommendation is 'that the current political advertising laws be changed to prohibit the use of AI generated deepfakes in election campaigns'—in other words, truth-in-political-advertising laws. Professor Flew told the committee that political deepfakes go way beyond 'the legitimate bounds of public campaigning and prove to be genuinely threatening to the individuals and groups who are the targets of them'. AI is completely out of control. We know that because the big tech bros are the ones warning the world that there needs to be more regulation and guardrails. It's coming from them. Now, it would appear that our government has finally woken up—well, maybe. I'm hoping. In February this year, when I asked the minister why we weren't investing in our own Australian made AI, all the minister could say was that Australia was a great place to invest, and he pointed to the AI Safety Institute, which has no actual powers, Australians—just another little bunch of people up there getting paid some cash. By the way, this was just days after Labor got rid of the independent AI advisory group. Go figure. So the only place they were getting their information from was big tech. Last weekend's TheSaturday Paper had a very interesting story about the number of top-level staffers with close ties to the Labor Party who have left the Labor Party and are now working with big tech. The article spoke to insiders who pointed to big tech using the same tactics as big tobacco. Aren't you disgusting little people? That involves hiring multiple former Labor staff. And Ed Husic, the former industry minister who led the government's initial response to AI, said: What we're witnessing is nothing more than a shock and awe lobbying approach by US tech, designed to swamp government decision-making. An AI strategist who has worked inside and outside government made a similar point: The amount of power these people have is incomprehensible … This isn't just a product that's being sold. This is dual-use capability. This is the equivalent of a private company developing nuclear weapons. This government and the last Liberal government let social media get out of control. Well, you're on notice now. Australia is watching. We need controls on AI now, and we need to ban political deepfake ads. There is already a huge problem with trust in our politicians and this place up here. Having strong truth in political advertising laws and banning political deepfakes would go a long way to having a very good start. I have to ask: what are you waiting for? What I see as the form of policing out there is that you're actually putting the lives of all these parliamentarians and their staff in danger. You are doing that. Until you bring in some rules and regulations, this is going to continue to uplift. You are setting a very dangerous precedent for one of us to be hurt. God help us if someone goes at me and one of my staff gets hurt. It's gone too far! You have to do something about this, for God's sake, for at least the safety and welfare of our own staff in our offices who travel with us all the time. We are not the PM. We don't have security around us. It is getting that vicious out there. It might be okay for a backbencher who is not known out there, and that is no disrespect to you. But, for an Independent like myself who's been up here for over 10 years and whose face is out there everywhere, and everyone knows who I am, I am extremely worried about my staff being around me. That is a problem. I am really worried. So, please, before one of us or one of our staff actually gets hurt, before it is too late, I'm begging you to do something about this. Question agreed to.