Banks and Business Groups Tell AI Inquiry Australia Must Keep More AI Value Onshore

Australia’s biggest banks and business lobbies used Friday’s hearing of the Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence to argue that the country should embrace the technology quickly while keeping more of its value at home, The Nightly reported. Executives from Westpac, NAB and ANZ appeared alongside the Australian Banking Association, the Business Council of Australia and small business groups.

Westpac chief AI officer Dan Jermyn said investing in “long-term sovereign AI capacity” should be “at the centre of Australia’s AI strategy”, the Australian Financial Review reported, as the banks warned that the gains from powerful models would otherwise flow overseas, largely to the United States. Their case rests on bringing the most capable models to train and run in Australian data centres.

Simon Birmingham, the former finance minister who now heads the Australian Banking Association, told the committee that AI is already at work in banking “every hour of every day”, checking payments in real time, answering customers at 2am and stopping money reaching criminals. He cited independent modelling that puts AI’s potential contribution at up to $116 billion in additional GDP by 2036. Business Council chief Bran Black, who represents more than 120 of the largest companies, called for “one set of national rules” for data centres, the power AI needs and the systems that matter most, adding that “Australian control is key”.

What it means in practice

The pitch frames AI as a productivity tool rather than a threat. William Harris of the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia called it a potential “Get Out of Jail Free card” after “the worst productivity growth decade in 60 years”, though he and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry said small firms’ use remains shallow without training and resources. That echoes Treasury’s warning about shallow AI uptake. The sovereignty argument also connects to Canberra’s systems-regulation plan for frontier labs and to the copyright debate over local model training; Minderoo told the inquiry earlier that AI training alone could deliver $7 billion if copyright is balanced well.

Unions see a different picture. Committee member Senator Tony Sheldon put union concerns about wearable tracking devices to the business witnesses, likening AI surveillance of workers to a “digital ankle monitor”. Black and other witnesses replied that AI is more likely to help people in their work than replace them, while Birmingham urged a public debate that would “lift hope” rather than run only on fear.

What to watch: the inquiry continues next week, and the committee is due to report on November 30. Options before it range from mandatory reporting of AI incidents to a levy on AI companies to pay creators, alongside the national AI standards the government has promised to legislate.