Podcast interview with Corrie McLeod, InnovationAus Commercial Disco

CORRIE MCLEOD, HOST: Welcome to the Commercial Disco. I’m Corrie McLeod, publisher of InnovationAus.com. Join me as we talk to tech leaders on best practice from around the world and how to approach emerging technology. The Commercial Disco is your window on keeping pace with a rapidly changing innovation landscape. Welcome, Minister Andrew Giles, who’s the Minister for Skills and Training. Welcome to the Commercial Disco.

ANDREW GILES, MINISTER FOR SKILLS AND TRAINING: Great to be with you.

MCLEOD: It’s a big week in Canberra, it's a big week in AI, particularly that discussion. You are the member for Scullin, which cusps suburban Melbourne a little bit out, getting to regional areas. Is this something that, the discussions around AI, is this something that citizens in that electorate are alive to?

GILES: I think everywhere. I mean, in my electorate, there are data centre proposals, which obviously shape a very localised conversation. But I think everywhere, conversations about AI, particularly in terms of its impact on the world of work, and indeed the world of education, whether it's in the school setting or in the areas for which I'm responsible, it's definitely a kitchen table conversation. It's a barbecue stopper at every level. And I think there are those two really big questions. One, the social licence issues that are data centre proposals, and two, the direction of travel more broadly and the impact of AI, particularly generative AI, on people's jobs and education.

MCLEOD: So you mentioned data centre proposals. Are there any data centres at the moment actually been built or with approvals have gone through or is it still in the planning stage?

GILES: There are a couple that are still being worked through.

MCLEOD: All right. So you are the Minister for Skills and Training, and I think a huge amount of discussion about Australia's opportunity is about the ability for people to kind of rise to the challenge of adopting AI. So a couple of questions. Where are you seeing the skills coming from? And we're seeing sort of a bit of a dive of computer science. We're hearing about vibe coding. What are the things that you’re seeing in your portfolio around how we meet the moment for having those skilled workers?

GILES: I think this is where the architecture that the Albanese Government's put in place has really played a really critical role. The work that Jobs and Skills Australia have done looking at the impact of generative AI on jobs, the work that the Jobs and Skills Council, the industry-led body that's responsible for workforce planning and skills development, FSO, Future Skills Organisation, have done. They've indicated where the gaps are. And they've also done some fantastic work around developing the sort of training products that reflect, I guess, the key fact for me as a minister, that what we're talking about here is a ubiquitous technology, something that's reshaping pretty much every aspect of how many jobs are being done. So how do we enable Australians in their everyday lives to feel confident and safe in making use of this technology.

MCLEOD: So do you cover public service skills as well? Is that part of your portfolio? Because we see big differences in the way it's being approached.

GILES: Definitely. So I think, as I say, we're talking about something that's ubiquitous across the labour market, across society. So while often the debate is characterised as a debate about tech skills, almost all workers are engaging with AI, whether it's about the direct performance of their tasks, which is often the case for someone in the knowledge industry, or whether it relates to maybe how someone in building might be thinking about doing their estimating more efficiently. So, I think this is an area where almost every aspect of work is touched. So it's not simply a question of tech skills as they would be generally discussed or conceived.

MCLEOD: A few years ago, the Tech Council of Australia had the target of the 1.3 million tech skills, but that was something that the Government sort of supported at the time. It seemed like an important area to focus on for Australian productivity. That seems to have drifted away. I don't think those numbers are sort of being measured anymore. Do you think the conversation has changed in the way that we look at those targets and numbers? Be keen for your views on that.

GILES: I think as John Maynard Keynes is said to have said, when the facts change, our opinions change. And obviously, the world today looks very, very different from when the Tech Council was putting that case forward. I guess what I would say is there are two things that drive my thinking on this. The first one is the work that Jobs and Skills Australia did 18 or so months ago, which highlight something really important to me, that what we are seeing by and large in terms of the impact of AI on jobs to date in Australia is a change in the tasks that may be conceived as being bundled together to generate a job, rather than a change in jobs themselves per se. And that report characterises the impact of AI as largely augmenting rather than eliminating jobs. So that's sort of frame number one. Frame number two is to look more recently at the work that Jobs and Skills Council has done to identify where those gaps are, and to think about how we can target government policies to work with businesses so that we continue to have this tripartite and industry-led approach to making sure that on the one hand, we've got the skills to achieve our national goals, and on the other, to make sure that Australians aren't being left behind by this.

MCLEOD: It's a fine balance, isn't it? Because I think some of the work we did, say, 10 years ago, people were very worried about social media and e-commerce in traditional business, et cetera, what their jobs would look like. But the speed with which the conversation is happening now, I think sort of electorates and citizens are very alive to that. Do you think that the top-line narrative that we see through media, which is really, it seems to be quite binary, it's either there'll be mass job displacement, or creating new industries, new jobs, as you just outlined that isn’t just augmenting an existing role, it’s creating of a new role and a new blend of skills. So what would you say to people who are concerned about that kind of widespread job displacement?

GILES: I think the first point is to say that government should never be blithe in responding to citizens’ concerns. I mean, this is obviously a really significant transformation with very significant upside potential, as obviously my colleague in particular, Assistant Minister Charlton and of course Minister Ayres have highlighted in the AI Plan. But we also don't want to exaggerate the downside risks. I think what I want to do in my portfolio, which is one piece of a much broader government puzzle, is to make sure that we’re supporting Australians to feel confident that firstly there's a Government on their side in helping them manage a transition on terms that work for them. But secondly, to make sure that social licence around adoption is supported by ensuring Australians can see themselves realising the benefits to AI. There's obviously a really big debate about the potential productivity uplift of AI adoption across the economy. My view is that really rests on Australian workers being equipped and feeling equipped to go about their work with some confidence that they're not being displaced, that they're part of this transformation, they've got agency in it.

MCLEOD: You've got a key portfolio at a very important time in Australia. What will you be focusing on in the next couple of months? Where will your attention be?

GILES: This is obviously a huge part of it, having the opportunity to engage in the plan to think about how we can better enable Australians to access the skills they want to do jobs we need. We've seen enormous demand in IT-related courses and cyber-related courses that have been put on the Free TAFE list, for example. So that's been something that I've been really struck by, the demand and the interest there. The work that FSO has been doing too, really has been engaging businesses; educational institutions too, obviously thinking about how their day in, day out work as well as the training products and the educational products they're delivering are being reshaped. So making sure that I'm thinking about this and also I guess going back to that watchword earlier of remembering that what we're talking about is a ubiquitous technology, not something that's simply reshaping one aspect of the labour market or one aspect of the training system. It's something that's affecting the whole of the labour market.

MCLEOD: Thank you so much Minister Andrew Giles, Minister for Skills and Training. Thank you for joining us on the Commercial Disco.