The Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance (MEAA) has welcomed elements of the federal government’s National AI Plan but cautioned that Australia’s ambitions for artificial intelligence must be matched by mandatory protections for workers and consumers.
The union said it supports the plan’s commitment to ongoing monitoring of AI developments, as well as efforts to address workplace and industrial impacts. MEAA Chief Executive Erin Madeley said creative and media workers are already being affected by unlicensed and unregulated uses of generative AI, and that stronger safeguards are required to protect human-created work and ensure a sustainable media landscape.
Madeley said the union supports the government’s intention to strengthen copyright and related regulation to ensure workers share in the benefits of AI developments, and welcomed the establishment of the AI Safety Institute as an oversight body for compliance.
However, MEAA expressed concern that the plan includes voluntary guidelines on transparency and watermarking of AI-generated content. The organisation said voluntary measures have historically been ineffective in protecting consumers or workers, and called for the guidelines to be made mandatory to guard against harms including the devaluation of human creative work and the spread of misinformation.
MEAA also warned that voluntary guidance could weaken existing copyright protections by increasing the risk of Australian creative workers being displaced by low-cost AI-generated outputs. The union said consumers should retain the right to choose human-made work over synthetic content.
Another area of concern is a lack of clarity on how government intends to require transparency from AI developers regarding the data used to train their systems. MEAA said transparency is essential to ensure copyright enforcement, prevent breaches of privacy and avoid embedding bias into new technologies.
The union said it expects further detail from government in the coming months and will continue advocating for stronger, enforceable protections as AI adoption grows across the media and creative sectors.
