Chamber and committees

One of my concerns is that large businesses are twice as likely as small ones are to adopt AI. I wonder whether we are missing a trick. If AI has the potential to almost turn economies of scale on their head, do we need to concentrate a lot more on ensuring that all small businesses seek to use and leverage AI in the way that start-ups almost naturally do? What are your thoughts on that? What can we do to help?

Good morning, and welcome to the 30th meeting in 2025 of the Economy and Fair Work Committee. We have received apologies from Lorna Slater. Before we start our brief inquiry into the use of artificial intelligence, I ask members whether they agree to take in private agenda item 3 and all future discussions on our AI inquiry. Do members agree to take those items in private?

Members indicated agreement.

I am pleased that, under agenda item 2, we have with us a panel of witnesses to help us to consider the economic potential of artificial intelligence. We are joined by Seth Finegan, the chief executive officer of Informed Solutions; Peter Proud, the chief executive officer of Forrit; and Sarah Ronald, the founder of Nile.

I ask the witnesses to keep their answers as concise as possible, although, given that this is an expansive topic, that might not be possible. You do not need to press the buttons on your microphones—staff will operate them for you.

I will begin by asking a couple of questions. I am struck that, when discussing AI, we seem to be stuck in a binary place—people think either that we are all doomed and all our jobs will be taken over by AI or that AI is a bit like the internet and Google and is just a bit of an upgrade. Given that you all work with AI in your day-to-day jobs, what do you think the impact will be? Where do you think the impact of AI will sit on the spectrum from total change to minor change?

Who would like to answer first? Peter Proud, you maintained eye contact for longer than anyone else, which is a dangerous thing to do.

Yes, it does. Sarah Ronald, do you agree that we might be getting a bit carried away? You said that there is exponential change.

I wonder whether Jeremy Balfour might agree with me in that, although I understand the contention that precise prognosis is very difficult and is a matter of judgment, the reverse is also true: we are asking medical practitioners to interpret what we mean by the terms, as they currently stand, of “terminal” and “progressive”. Without putting the definitions in the bill, we are leaving them open to interpretation either by practitioners or by the people whom we ask to draw up regulation and guidance. In a sense, we are not avoiding that decision; we are simply pushing it to different places and, potentially, leaving it more open.

I understand that “prognosis” is not precise, and I wonder whether the member agrees with me. I am concerned by some of the notions shared this morning that, without any attempt to define immediacy, assisted dying could be exercised by people who may have years to live. I understand that time may be an imperfect way of defining immediacy, but it is a way of defining it. We potentially run into real risks of exactly the expansion that Jeremy Balfour has just set out.

I understand the member’s point—you do not lodge an amendment that proposes a time boundary without thinking about such things. On the other hand, the principle is that we want the right to be exercised by people whose death is imminent. Jeremy Balfour put that in terms of weeks or months. How do we capture that correctly unless we insert a time boundary? Is there another way to capture it? We are not setting an absolute threshold; we are literally just capturing the sense that the right is to be exercised by people whose death is very likely to be in the coming weeks and months rather than years away.

I am very sympathetic to the member’s points about anorexia nervosa, and I think that we need to put safeguards in place in that respect. That said, I wonder whether there are technical problems with the reference to

“voluntarily stopping eating and drinking”,

given that there are a number of conditions, including digestive ones, that might result in people not being able to eat or drink and being required to use enteral feeding, have percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy tubes and so on. I wonder whether the way in which the member has captured that issue might have unintended consequences.

Will the member accept my point that, in principle, rather than necessarily establishing an accurate prognosis, setting a time limit is about trying to set a time boundary around the immediacy of the expectation of the end of life? Does he imagine that such time bands would at least have to feature in guidance so that we do not run the risk of expansion? In other words, how does one judge that immediacy if we do not put it in the bill or guidance?

Will the member give way?

At the outset, I state that I broadly agree with much of what Jeremy Balfour has set out. To my mind, the debate has been marked by two substantial features both for those who are advocating for the bill and for those who are speaking against it, in that we all want to provide dignity and empowerment for those who are in the final stages of their lives and who may well be suffering from conditions and diseases that leave them in an intolerable situation. On the other hand, we also want to ensure that we do not foster a culture in which people feel as though they are under pressure to end their life or that there is an expectation that they do so in certain circumstances, particularly when that involves things such as mental illness, disability and other such issues, as Jeremy Balfour has set out. That is why I think that the definition of terminal illness is so important.

I understand that definitions are always difficult and I understand the reasons why the definition in the bill was arrived at but, to my mind, the key point is that the bill’s provisions must be used only when a person’s death is imminent and expected. If I were to put it glibly, in a sense, we all have a terminal and progressive condition, but the immediateness of it is relative. That is why I think that it is important to include some sort of time boundary, not just for clarity but to prevent judicial expansion, which we have all been very concerned about, based on situations in other countries. I think that there is an inherent issue with the accuracy and effectiveness of time limits. The point is not necessarily about the accuracy of a prognosis; it is about clarity on the immediacy of the likelihood of a person’s death and whether that is a reasonable expectation. Including a time boundary could provide absolute clarity that the likelihood of a person’s death has some immediacy, so that the time period is counted not in years or decades but in weeks or months.

Jeremy Balfour’s amendment 143 sets out the time boundary as three months, which I think is probably too short. If we are leaving these decisions to be made only when death is very proximate, that could preclude people from making a decision as calmly and in as informed a way as possible, although I think that three months would be better than no time limit. If my amendment 4 is pre-empted, I will understand. Whether the committee decides on a timeframe of three months or six months, we need a time limitation in order to set out clearly that there should be the expectation of the likelihood of a person’s death being imminent.