Key facts
- CPSU said the government must stop blocking "sensible claims" on worker protections in AI rollouts.
- Any agreement would lock in AI rules for three years for 196,000 federal public servants, the union said.
- Rebecca Fawcett told the inquiry AI is raised at every delegate meeting, up from occasional mention.
- Union delegate Ikini Frape said AI could erode critical thinking and cited an MIT study.
- Treasury's Jeremy Lawson said no formal net benefit calculation for AI infrastructure had been made.
- One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce said retiring bureaucrats should be replaced with AI tools.
The Community and Public Sector Union said the government must stop blocking "sensible claims" on worker protections as artificial intelligence is introduced across the federal public service, with the union deadlocked with the Public Service Commission in pay and conditions talks. Any agreement would set AI rules for three years for a workforce of 196,000 people, the union said.
CPSU national secretary Rebecca Fawcett told a parliamentary inquiry into AI on October 30 that the subject had moved from occasional mention at delegate meetings to every meeting. Union delegate Ikini Frape told the inquiry that removing administrative tasks could reduce the mental breaks needed for complex work, citing an MIT study, and raised data security, bias and use of First Nations knowledge without consent as concerns.
Frape said public trust was damaged by the robodebt scandal, an unlawful scheme that wrongly accused welfare recipients of debts using automated tax office data, and asked who would be accountable when automated decisions were wrong. Fawcett said 98 per cent of attendees at a 400-member town hall voted to pause automated decision-making in complex cases until the government sets a mandatory framework.
Separately at the inquiry, Treasury first assistant secretary Jeremy Lawson said no formal calculation had been made of the net national benefit of AI infrastructure investment because the technology is changing too fast, and called a single net figure too uncertain to base decisions on, while saying the long-term economic upside remained substantial. One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce said retiring bureaucrats should be replaced with AI tools.