Urgent Action Needed on AI Child Sex Abuse Material, Housing Reform and Gaza Humanitarian Crisis (28 July 2025)
Interviewer: The government says it's looking at this issue, including regulation of AI more broadly. What would you like to see done now?
Kate Chaney: Well, we absolutely do need to take a holistic approach to regulating AI, but we also need to be able to nimbly respond to risks as they emerge. And this is a clear gap in our criminal code that I think we need to be able to respond quickly on so we can make sure we're keeping kids safe.
Interviewer: Should the technology that creates these deep fakes be illegal or just the creation of the material itself? Have you landed on a specific way of tackling it?
Kate Chaney: Yeah, well, currently possession of these images is illegal, but it's not illegal to possess these particular types of AI tools that are designed for the sole purpose of creating child sexual abuse material. So it means that perpetrators can generate the material using images of real children, delete the images, and then recreate them whenever they want and avoid detection. It makes it harder for law enforcement to identify which are real victims and it normalises this behaviour. This bill is focused on making it illegal to download these tools that are designed to create this material.
Interviewer: The government has been looking at what the UK is doing, some other nations around the world in this space as well. Have you had conversations with the Attorney-General about when it is planning to act in this area?
Kate Chaney: I've met with the Attorney-General's office and there's some recognition that work needs to be done. The challenge that we have is that we're creating a lot of reports and consultations and the technology is moving so fast. So I think there's a need for urgent action on this. We need to be able to plug the gaps as we go while addressing the broad issues about how we're going to encourage take-up of AI for its productivity benefits, but creating appropriate guardrails so that people can have faith in it.
Interviewer: Now, everyone is coming up with ideas at the moment to make Australia more productive ahead of this economic summit that's coming up. We were in your electorate during the election campaign. A lot of people raised the issue of high house prices. Do you think that high and indeed rising house prices could be an obstacle to Australian productivity, particularly for younger skilled workers who might think, actually, I'm going to move elsewhere as opposed to be centred in our major cities?
Kate Chaney: Well, that's certainly one of the productivity risks from high house prices. Also, we have all this wealth in the country tied up in a non-productive asset when that money could be going into supporting businesses to innovate. So it's definitely a factor in the productivity debate and also just on intergenerational fairness. So I would love to see a whole range of changes on housing, including changes to our tax system around negative gearing and capital gains tax, which are seen as being politically unpalatable. But I think there's a much higher appetite for change in those areas in my community than government might expect.
Interviewer: Yeah, I just want to ask about capital gains tax. Is that the lowest hanging fruit here that could be changed? Because as you say, it could encourage investment income instead of being poured into the housing market to be poured into Australian companies who are researching new inventions, new technology.
Kate Chaney: I think that's right and really we should be treating housing as its primary purpose should be as homes, not as an investment class. It won't solve the whole problem, it might shift two to five percent of people from renting to owning, but it would also unlock some of those productivity benefits of reallocating that capital into more productive asset classes.
Interviewer: Just finally, the government says there are still some challenges—their words—to recognising a Palestinian state. Do you agree? And would you like to see Australia move in this area now? We've heard France is going to do this.
Kate Chaney: Look, I think the immediate priority is stopping children from starving and making sure they're not being shot when people are trying to access food. So my focus really is on how we get the humanitarian aid organisations in there doing what they do best and making sure that starvation is not being used as a tool of war. Recognition will happen in good time. I think it's appropriate for that to happen when it's clear who will run a state of Palestine and Hamas can have no role in that. So I think that needs to follow part of the peace process. Right now, let's focus on getting the food to the kids who need it.
Interviewer: The Australian government’s made a number of statements in this area now. It's joined with international partners in doing so. Does the international community need to take more action if Israel, the United States, other influential powers don't listen?
Kate Chaney: I think the time is now, and I think, given it looks very likely that Israel is breaching international law, it's really important that Australia plays its part in upholding international law, and the time may well be right for sanctions at this point.
