Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will use a landmark speech in Canberra this week to set out his government’s vision for artificial intelligence, as Labor splits over whether to weaken Australia’s copyright laws to attract datacentre investment.
The Guardian reported that the address, expected on Wednesday, will read more as a vision statement than a detailed policy announcement, with ministers still divided on how far to go.
At the centre of the fight is a “text and data mining” exception, which would let AI developers train models on Australian books, music, film and journalism without permission or payment.
The Albanese government formally ruled that idea out in October last year. Yet the Guardian reports the industry push has returned, this time bundled with promises of major infrastructure spending.
The deal on the table
According to the Guardian, one proposal circulating in Canberra would pair at least $50bn in datacentre investment with a $350m annual fund for the creative sector, in exchange for softer training rules.
The renewed lobbying follows Tech Council of Australia chair and Atlassian co-founder Scott Farquhar, who argued last year that “fixing this one thing could unlock billions of dollars in foreign investment”, the Guardian reported.
Farquhar has pressed the case that local developers cannot build a sovereign AI industry if they must negotiate thousands of licences before training on domestic content. Writing for SmartCompany, critics countered that “AI innovation” was becoming a synonym for theft.
The lobbying also lands after Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei met Albanese in April and signed a memorandum of understanding on AI safety and research. Anthropic confirmed the non-binding pact flagged possible investment in Australian datacentres and energy, alongside $3m in research partnerships with institutions including the Australian National University and the Garvan Institute.
A cabinet pulled two ways
The Guardian describes a government divided along familiar lines.
Attorney-General Michelle Rowland and Arts Minister Tony Burke are cast as defenders of creators. Industry Minister Tim Ayres and Assistant Minister for the Digital Economy Andrew Charlton are described as more open to the investment argument.
Rowland killed the mining exemption in October, telling the sector the government had “no plans to weaken copyright protections when it comes to AI”, a position confirmed by legal analysts at Dundas Lawyers. In its place she convened a Copyright and AI Reference Group to examine licensing options, including collective and statutory schemes.
Charlton has argued Australia should neither “blindly accept or reject” tech investment, the Guardian reported. Former industry minister Ed Husic, now on the backbench, is among those uneasy about a carve-out.
The Productivity Commission had put the mining exception on the table in its 2025 interim report, offering three paths: keep the status quo, facilitate licensing, or amend the Copyright Act 1968. Australia has so far declined the exception, a stance documented by the National Law Review.
Artists and the crossbench dig in
Creators have mobilised. Author Anna Funder told a Parliament House event that technology companies had “hoovered up” her literary works for profit, the Guardian reported.
Independent senator David Pocock, tipped off about the industry push in late June, called the proposal “the ultimate dirty deal” in the Senate on 1 July and warned that to “sell out Australian creatives would be a reckless act”, according to the Guardian.
Greens communications spokesperson Sarah Hanson-Young warned that anything resembling a mining exception “would be betrayal”, the Guardian reported. Albanese, for his part, said only that “these are complex issues” the government was “working through with the sector”.
Public sentiment remains cautious. Polling cited by the Guardian found 36 per cent see AI as carrying more risk than opportunity, 41 per cent view the two as balanced, and 22 per cent see more opportunity than risk.
Why it matters for Australia
This is a direct trade-off between two Australian industries, and the government cannot fully satisfy both.
Datacentres promise construction jobs, energy demand and a foothold in sovereign AI, the argument Farquhar and the Tech Council have pushed hardest. Data Centres Australia chief executive Belinda Dennett has championed the sector’s growth potential.
Australia’s creative economy employs hundreds of thousands of people across publishing, screen, music and games. A mining exception would remove their ability to license or refuse the use of their work as AI training data, shifting value from creators to model builders offshore.
FluentSea analysis: The framing of a single “trade” is where the pressure lies. Nothing about attracting datacentre capital strictly requires weakening copyright, since firmed renewable energy, land, skills and regulatory certainty drive most siting decisions. Bundling the two lets investment be used as leverage on a separate question of creators’ rights.
A $350m annual fund also invites scrutiny against the scale of what is being asked. If a mining exception unlocks tens of billions in activity, as proponents claim, a fixed pool may look modest beside the recurring licensing income creators would forgo. Watch whether Albanese’s speech reaffirms October’s line or leaves the door ajar, and whether any “fund” is framed as compensation for a right already conceded.
The safer path for a government wary of a backlash is the one Rowland has already signalled: licensing frameworks that pay creators, rather than an exception that removes their consent. Wednesday’s speech will show how firmly Labor intends to hold that line.
Sources: The Guardian (via Bytes Europe), Dundas Lawyers, National Law Review, Anthropic, SmartCompany
