INTERVIEW ON AFTERNOON BRIEFING WITH PATRICIA KARVELAS

INTERVIEW ON AFTERNOON BRIEFING WITH PATRICIA KARVELAS

18 August 2025

Subjects: Labor’s 5000 regulations, Roundtable, AI, Youtube ban, IR, Gaza

E&OE………

Patricia Karvelas

Now, the Shadow Productivity Minister, Liberal Senator Andrew Bragg, is set to give a speech at the Sydney Institute tonight, where he'll argue the Government is actually responsible for more red tape, and that its heavy-handedness is what is hampering productivity. I spoke to him a short time ago. Andrew Bragg, welcome to Afternoon Briefing.

Senator Bragg

Good afternoon.

Patricia Karvelas

What is the Coalition's strategy? You've got Ted O'Brien going to the Roundtable. Has he been empowered to make any calls, any conclusions, or is that to be determined later?

Senator Bragg

Well, Ted is going to the Roundtable in good faith. We are the alternative government, and we need to develop our own policies over the course of this term. This is an opportunity for us to have some input into our own process, but also look to find common ground where we can help the Australian people have a better economy.

Patricia Karvelas

Will there be calls made by Ted O'Brien at the end of those three days about the direction, in terms of your response?

Senator Bragg

Certainly. If there are proposals to cut regulation, if there are proposals to help people invest and grow businesses, then we are very open-minded to providing support.

Patricia Karvelas

Danielle Wood, who's the Productivity Chair, says economic growth hasn't been a priority for years. She says that's longer than just the last three years. Do the Liberals concede your responsibility here?

Senator Bragg

What's very interesting here is when you look at the last 10 years, there has been as ignificant change in the level of regulation, and regulation has been a productivity killer in Australia. Regulation has meant that businesses can invest less, and it's also helped the non-market side of the economy grow. Over the last few years, we've seen a significant increase in the level of regulation. What we've seen is an almost $5 billion increase in regulatory costs from the 400 bills passed in the last Parliament. Whereas if you go back to the former Coalition Government, there were years when you had, actually, a net reduction in regulatory costs.

Patricia Karvelas

Well, Jim Chalmers says if the Coalition had answers on productivity, you wouldn't have presided over the worst decade for productivity growth in the last 60 years. There was, actually, a decade of enormous problem that you actually presided over. You can't not take responsibility for that, right?

Senator Bragg

This guy has been the Treasurer for three years, he's now going into his fourth year. I mean, you think he's got to become a bit more of a serious character if he wants to betaken seriously, because ultimately, he has lumped $5 billion of new regulatory costs, 5,000 new regulations, 400 new laws onto the books. I mean, this guy has bunged up the economy with more red tape than you can poke a stick at.

Patricia Karvelas

Sure, but I asked about your tenure, the Liberal Party's tenure. We can't move on sensibly can we if we don't take responsibility for everyone's part in all of this?

Senator Bragg

Well, we're not the Government. We haven't been in the Government for a very long time.

Patricia Karvelas

Well, it hasn't been that long. I don't know if I'll contest the very long time. It was only four years ago you were the Government, and productivity was an enormous problem.

Senator Bragg

I was never aMinister in any of those governments, as you know. All I can say to you is that this guy has got to get serious about doing the job in front of him now. We've got dropping living standards, we've got higher regulation than we need, and the way to improve productivity is to find ways to cut regulation, improve incentives to invest, not looking backwards. I'm very happy to be magnanimous and to say that things could have been better in previous governments that I wasn't actually a member of the executive in, but ultimately, we want to have a better country going forward.

Patricia Karvelas

I think broadly, we need to talk about the future, so let's move to the future. Labor has signalled its plans to embark on what it's described as the sensible middle path on adopting AI. It wants to harness the economic growth benefits of the technology, but doesn't want to cause mass job losses. Is that broadly where you stand, too?

Senator Bragg

That's right. We want to make sure that we can avail ourselves of the benefits of this technology. We're not part of the great race between China and the United States in developing the actual applications, but we need to make sure that our businesses, particularly smaller ones, can use this technology because it's going to come for us. It's going to be very disruptive, but there will be benefits of this disruption as well, as long as we are prepared and we're not going to be over-regulatory in our endeavour.

Patricia Karvelas

I've spoken to people on your side of politics who are very concerned about AI and do think you need to be regulating heavily. They worry that you're moving too fast on this. There's clearly disagreement in the Coalition, isn't there, on the pace of AI adoption?

Senator Bragg

Well, I mean, clearly, there's some debate about how copyright laws should be calibrated to ensure that we can actually be competitive in this space. There's a debate to be had around data centres and how competitive we will be if we have more data capacity. Then there is the question of your overall regulatory burden, I mean, we're living in a country which wants to ban YouTube for under 16-year-olds. I think that's a pretty anti-tech, pretty anti-progress message. We wanted to have a more productive and open business environment because this revolution is going to impact our economy significantly. We need to be prepared for it so we can actually avail ourselves of its benefits and then be conscious that there will be some risks that need to be addressed. But we've got to be more positive than negative.

Patricia Karvelas

Well, let me take you to what you just said. We live in a country that wants to ban YouTube forunder-16s. You don't support that?

Senator Bragg

I just don't see how this is a serious contribution. As I said, we've got a massive regulatory burden. 5,000 new regulations, 400 new laws, billions and billions of compliance costs. And then what you see is a failure to enforce laws across the board. I mean, for example, you can walk across the Harbour Bridge, yell out incitement about Jews and not suffer any consequences. You can steal people's work and not face any consequences. You can steal people's money and send it to the Cayman Islands in a managed investment scheme and face no consequences. So the law enforcement is actually a very important part of a debate on regulation. I would say to you that we have porous law enforcement here. So, we have so many laws, many of them are not actually enforced. Who's going to enforce a ban on YouTube for under-16-year-olds?

Patricia Karvelas

Well, I just need to nail this down because your party has been leading in the last Parliament, the debate on trying to actually close down social media for under-16s. Is it just YouTube that you have this view on? Do you think broadly, the way we're approaching it is wrong?

Senator Bragg

Well, YouTube is not a social media, and I…

Patricia Karvelas

…That's contested. The E-Safety Commissioner has put out a report and a recommendation to government, as you know, making it crystal clear that she believes that the evidence shows that YouTube is a problem, and that's why they've adopted it. Why should they ignore her recommendation?

Senator Bragg

I am not convinced that the way ahead is to try and regulate the internet, like we’re some sort of a authoritarian state. If people want to use YouTube, I think they should be able to use it. If parents are going to do their jobs and be engaged in their children's lives, then they have an important role here. I just worry about a never-growing book of laws and rules which come with a requirement to enforce those laws. But often, those enforcement measures don't actually exist. So I just think we've got to be more mature than that.

Patricia Karvelas

So, do you have any questions broadly on the under-16s ban on social media as well and how that might work?

Senator Bragg

Look, I think in general, the enforcement of these big-state laws are very much in question, whether you can actually do it. As I say, we have a massive problem of law enforcement across the economy. This is just one area in which I see a problem with the ever-growing statute book and the problem of porous law enforcement.

Patricia Karvelas

I want to talk about industrial relations. The Coalition has been critical that it's not on the agenda at the Economic Roundtable. Are you prepared to say what you want in terms of raising industrial relations? Because at the last election, you didn't put forward any industrial relations changes.

Senator Bragg

Well, I think Tim Wilson has been quite clear that we've had concerns about the pattern bargaining, about union rights of entry, around some of these things which are really increasing costs onto businesses. We have concerns about the CFMEU in the housing space. I mean, the Government don't seem to be too worried about the cost that the CFMEU is imposing on people who want to build a new apartment. Those are the sort of things that you can imagine will be part of our policy as we fashion it over this term.

Patricia Karvelas

Just on another issue, not on the Economic Roundtable, but the Albanese Government has banned a far-right Israeli politician who is a member of Benjamin Netanyahu's governing coalition from travelling to Australia for three years. It's Israeli MP Simcha Rothman, who, he has made inflammatory statements, including describing Gazan children as enemies. He opposes a two-state solution. He was scheduled to come to Australia for a speaking tour. It's clearly now been cancelled; he's not allowed to come. Do you support this decision?

Senator Bragg

I'm not across the details of this particular case. I haven't been briefed on it, but I am aware that there are cases where there are members of that government that have said extreme and unreasonable things. But what I would say is that we had a situation just a couple of weeks ago where people walked over the Harbour Bridge holding up signs of the Ayatollah saying, "From the River to the Sea," "Death, Death to the IDF," and a whole lot of other things that were outrageous and there's been no law enforcement, so I think we have a significant problem here at home, given we now seem to be living in a country where we have imported a lot of foreign diseases, frankly, in terms of the debates that we're wanting to have in this country.

Patricia Karvelas

Are we? I understand some of those statements are absolutely extreme, but is it a foreign disease for lots of Australians to go out on the Bridge or wherever else they might protest against what they see unfold in Gaza? Isn't that what is a very human response? Of course, people do have the right to protest in this country.

Senator Bragg

I think the idea that you are going to celebrate the Ayatollah, I think the idea that you are going to be promoting the death to members of a military which is an ally of Australia, I think the idea that you can propose the erasure of Israel, and that be seen as something that no one even takes as a serious affront, shows that we are in a very bad spot on some of these debates…

Patricia Karvelas

…But do you accept that lots of those people who went across the Harbour Bridge were not saying yes to the Ayatollah or yes to that?

Senator Bragg

…I do…

Patricia Karvelas

…yeah, I mean there were so many people there. They weren't all saying that.

Senator Bragg

Of course, I accept that. But the reality is that some of the ring leaders were doing that, and so, I regret very much that we have imported some of these foreign conflicts. We have imported some of these debates. I think that is making our country a less safe place, and I very much regret that.

Patricia Karvelas

We're out of time, but thank you for joining me this afternoon.

Senator Bragg

Thank you very much.

[Ends]

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