Australia politics live: Murray Watt calls Coalition’s proposal to split environment laws ‘maddest idea’ he’s seen in five years

New nature laws expected to be introduced this week but Labor’s hopes of passing them before Christmas appear slim. Follow the latest updates liveGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastRowland: No text and data mining exemptionThere’s a few big issues kicking around this morning, and one is the confirmation from the government that tech giants will not get a text and data mining exemption to train their AI models.There is a body of work to do around what the copyright environment looks like in the AI world, but we are making it very clear that we will not be entertaining a text and data mining exception.Currently, under the Copyright Act, there are avenues to be able to do that, but there is a lot of conjecture around whether or not the law is clear enough on that front… We will go forward as a government with an ambitious set of reforms, again, with the outcome of making sure that our copyright laws are fit for not only the digital environment as they have been to date, but also in the world of AI.We won’t be splitting the bill. The review by Graeme Samuel into these 90s era laws made clear you cannot have faster approvals without stronger environmental standards…It would mean more habitat destruction, more species threatened, no independent regulator and slower approval times. Continue reading...