Jim Chalmers

I don't contest your conclusion that the costs of it have blown out really substantially.

They have very, very substantially from its original conception to now it's putting really extreme pressure on the budget.

Well, I think what's happened since then is that a lot of the assumptions about take-up in particular proved not to be right.

And there are many more people on the scheme than was anticipated when it was brought about.

Obviously, there's always an element of uncertainty.

But your central point, Alan...

that the NDIS is putting the pressure on the budget is not contested, not by me, not by the ministers.

We know that there's always more work that needs to be done to make sure that it's sustainable because we believe in the NDIS.

It's a good thing that we look after people who need our help.

We've got to make sure that we can continue to pay for that into the future and that's what our work's all about.

Oh, of course it is.

I mean, it's really one of the primary influences on our economy.

So a couple of important things about that.

I mean, you're right that we've said we're about capturing the opportunities of AI, spreading the benefits and keeping people safe.

They were the three principles that my colleagues Tim Ayres and Andrew Charlton built our national AI plan on.

And what that does is it recognises that AI can be a positive force in our economy so long as we manage the risks, and the risks primarily that people will feel or will be worried about, anxious about, are in the workforce.

You won't remember this, Alan, but in 2017, I wrote a book with Mike Quigley about exactly this, the anxiety that people feel about the nature of work changing.

as technological change accelerates.

And you wrote a cover endorsement for that book at the time, Alan, and you said that it was much under-discussed, this issue.

And that's changed.