Television interview with Minister Butler, Sunrise – 17 October

NATALIE BARR, HOST: Australian Defence Chiefs are currently in talks with the US about sending Aussie troops to Gaza as part of an international mission to secure peace in the Middle East. The high-level talks focus on what Australia's involvement could look like if the government were to make the call to send the ADF to Gaza. Defence Minister Richard Marles has said no request has yet been made surrounding peacekeeping in the Middle East. Let's bring in Health Minister Mark Butler and Liberal Senator Jane Hume. Good morning to both of you. So Mark, we know this is just talks basically between defence personnel about what our involvement could look like. If the US asks, will we be there?
 
MARK BUTLER, MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGEING, MINISTER FOR DISABILITY AND THE NDIS: The point to make is no request has been made, and if a request is made, it will be considered in the usual way. But, of course, defence is doing its planning. That's such an important part of what defence does, what defence forces right across the world do. You don't want a situation where the Defence Minister calls for some advice and you have the ADF say: “we haven't really thought about that, we'll get back to you”. The ADF is doing their job of making sure that if a request is made, they're able to provide high-level advice, high-quality advice to the Government. If the government did agree to go with that request, they'd be able to deliver on that.
 
BARR: How hard would it be for our Government to say no if the US said we're going in, we're sending peacekeepers and we want you by our side, Mark?
 
BUTLER: That's really a matter of speculation, and I don't want to do that. We've got a very proud history of peacekeeping going back to the beginning of those operations in the 1940s. We've got peacekeepers in the region at Operation Paladin, which has been going since the end of the first 1948 war. We were there on the Sinai Peninsula for many years after the end of the Israel-Egypt conflict. This is a very proud part of our contribution to global peace and security. But of course, I don't want to speculate about what requests might or might not be made and what our process of consideration would be. It would be careful. It would be based on our national interest and our ability to make a contribution.
 
Obviously, this is a pretty live debate around the world, though, as everyone looks on with such hope that the Gaza peace plan that President Trump has delivered will be successful.
 
BARR: Jane, should we send troops if we're asked?
 
JANE HUME, LIBERALS SENATOR: I think Mark's right here. That peace process in the Middle East is still very fragile indeed. We wouldn't want to see Australians put in the middle of harm's way while it is still such a volatile situation. I'm very pleased that the ADF is concentrating on its preparedness. That's always important. But we would not support the ADF going into a place of great danger at this point in time. We'd like to see it progressed a little further.
 
BARR: Ok, moving on, Deloitte is at the centre of an AI fail at the highest level with taxpayer money wasted in the process. Now, the big consultancy group had delivered a report to the government and charged them about $400,000, but it was found to have been riddled with AI generated mistakes referencing fake sources, and when asked to republish the report without AI it came back with more AI referencing. Mark, this is taxpayer money. Everyone's paid for this. Deloitte has repaid, I think, some of it, about a quarter. Should they repay the whole amount? And is the government looking at other consultancy reports, because are they all just whacking it into AI and giving it to the government, charging them a lot of money?
 
BUTLER: Nat, I don't know about you, but I often feel like we're all playing catch-up with this technology. I know in health care we're thinking really carefully about opportunities and risks that are posed by AI in the delivery of health. But in this case, this would be funny if it wasn't so serious. These reports are an important contribution to government policy. That impacts Australian lives. And as you say, it's a lot of money. A lot of taxpayer money was handed over to this well-paid consultancy to deliver high-quality advice, and it appears someone just used an AI tool, at least for part of it.
 
We are in the process, in my department of putting in place much clearer expectations if we are outsourcing work about the way in which AI might be used for that outsourced work. I think the good thing about this awful story is it's alerted all of us. It’s not just a case of maybe a student cheating on a university essay. This is something that goes to the heart of government. I know private sector businesses would be thinking about this when they outsource work as well. But those consultancies, they’ve got to do better.
 
BARR: Yeah, but why have they only paid back $98,000 grand instead of the $440,000?
 
BUTLER: Well, look, I don't know. This isn't in my department. I don't really know the details of this report. But I think we've got to have much clearer expectations. These reports have to provide taxpayers with value for money. In this case, it didn't.
 
BARR: Yeah. Jane, what do you think should happen here?
 
HUME: Well, this is a good question. This is Deloitte cheating on its homework, isn't it? And, you know, it's not just this one report. In fact, when this was discovered eight weeks ago, since that time, the government has given Deloitte an additional 35 contracts worth $47.1 million. So it's not as if Deloitte are being punished here for this. In fact, one of those reports, Mark, is in your department, about $1.6 million. So I'd be looking for some errors there, maybe running that through the Google checker to see if there's some AI cheating going on in those reports. This is a very serious issue. We want to know how AI is going to make our government more productive, allow us to do things that we could never have dreamt of before, but at the same we don't want this to be a free-for-all for the taxpayer too.
 
BARR: Exactly, and if all they're doing is just sticking it into ChatGPT, a lot of us could make a lot of money out of this. You know, we could charge the government a million bucks too, maybe.
 
Just quickly before we go, are you going to the Nationals? Because Littleproud is just welcoming people in.
 
HUME: Well, look, I do look very fetching in an Akubra, Nat, I'll tell you that much. And I'd have to speak a lot slower and talk about the regions more often down in cocky’s corner. But, look, no. To be honest, I am too fond of good coffee and free markets to join the National Party.
 
BARR: And you get along with Sussan Ley really well, so you wouldn't want to do that. Thank you very much, Jane.