Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce warns AI could replace | Australian Markets

Australia’s office ombudsman can be requested to assist the best to work from home, to stop it from being utilized by employers to discount away different rights, amid warnings AI could replace jobs that may be achieved remotely.

The Australian Services Union says it’s going to lodge a submission with the Fair Work Commission to assist working from home, the place it’s doable to take action.

“Working from home is now a permanent feature of the modern Australian workplace, and our submission will make it clear that the location of work does not diminish its value,” union secretary Emeline Gaske mentioned on Monday.

Workers have embraced the advantages however are involved about employers utilizing it as an excuse to cut pay and circumstances.

“Our submission will demonstrate the productivity benefits of a remote workforce and will argue that we have to provide the protections that those workers are entitled to,” Ms Gaske mentioned.

“Taking away the right to work from home would be a race to the bottom that will hurt hundreds of thousands of workers, the majority of whom are women across our country, and we will fight it every step of the way,” she mentioned.

The union’s submission is backed by a survey of 600 staff, more than two-thirds of them girls – 98 per cent of whom contemplate with the ability to work from home as “extremely” or “very important”.

But federal Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce mentioned staff needed to watch out as a result of jobs that may be achieved from home could be automated by artificial intelligence instruments.

“If your job is a keyboard, yourself and a computer, it’s not a myth, AI is coming,” he advised Seven’s Sunrise program.

“I’d be doing everything in your power to try and keep your jobs because if people can prove they don’t need to come to the office then the office can prove that they can be replaced by AI.”

Mr Joyce pointed to trades work, such and electricians and plumbers.

“AI won’t be able to turn itself into a plumber or itself into an electrician or a chippy, so trades are a place where you can sustain a good level of employment,” he added.

“It … replaces people but it doesn’t have hands and it doesn’t have feet – think about it.”

Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek mentioned repetitive jobs have been most below menace from AI.

“What we need to do is make sure that there are good jobs available for Australians in new and emerging industries as well,” she mentioned.

“We’ve received actual capability to develop some of these AI instruments proper right here.

The rise of working from home emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic and has remained half of the workforce.

The use and software of AI is prone to be a sizzling matter on the federal authorities’s productiveness roundtable starting in Canberra on Tuesday.