Australia in the World

In a somewhat different episode of the podcast, Darren speaks with Tim Watts MP, a member of the parliament’s new Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence, about how Australia should think about AI at a moment when both the technology and the politics surrounding it are moving extraordinarily quickly.

The conversation (recorded on 11 Sep) begins with the remarkable run of AI news over the past fortnight: the investigation into OpenAI agents coordinating to hack Hugging Face, increasingly stark warnings from researchers inside frontier AI companies about loss-of-control risks, evidence of attempts to use advanced models for dangerous biological research, and extraordinary new claims about AI capabilities in mathematics. Darren and Tim discuss how non-specialists—and governments—should think about risks that are deeply contested, difficult to quantify and potentially very large.

They then turn to Australia. What does “sovereignty” actually mean in AI when Australia cannot realistically control the entire technology stack? Tim distinguishes between hosting compute in Australia, controlling infrastructure, and securing access to frontier models. He discusses the different value of frontier capability, cost and optionality; open-weight models; the distinction between training and inference; and why hosting significant training compute could give Australia a more consequential place in the emerging AI ecosystem.

The discussion also explores the limits of Australian leverage. A relationship with an AI company is not the same thing as leverage over the government that regulates it. Darren and Tim draw parallels with the management of Australia’s alliance relationships and Allan Gyngell’s argument that Australian statecraft should seek to expand the country’s options and room for manoeuvre.

They also consider what Australia should demand in return for hosting very large AI investments: access to compute, research partnerships, safety evaluation, domestic skills and capability, alongside the local questions of energy, water, infrastructure and social licence.

Finally, they look beyond Australian sovereignty to what Australia might contribute internationally—through AI safety research, cybersecurity, cooperation among middle powers and potentially the Australia Group’s work on biological and chemical weapons. Tim closes with advice for people who are not technologists but want to understand AI: use the tools, learn by doing, and read some science fiction.

Australia in the World is written, hosted and produced by Darren Lim, with research and audio editing by Hannah Nelson and theme music composed by Rory Stenning.

Relevant links

The parliamentary inquiry and Australian policy

Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence: https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Artificial_Intelligence  

Australian Government, National AI Plan: https://www.industry.gov.au/publications/national-ai-plan  

Australian Government, Expectations of data centres and AI infrastructure developers, including “Expectation 5” on research, innovation and local capability: https://www.industry.gov.au/publications/expectations-data-centres-and-ai-infrastructure-developers  

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, “AI in Australia’s interests”, 15 July 2026: https://www.pm.gov.au/media/ai-australias-interests-0  

Australian Government–Anthropic MOU on AI safety and research: https://www.anthropic.com/news/australia-MOU  

Australia–UK cooperation between their AI safety/security institutes: https://www.minister.industry.gov.au/t-ayres/media/australia-and-uk-partner-strengthen-ai-safety-and-security  

Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles on AI training, investment and sovereignty following meetings with US frontier labs: https://www.minister.defence.gov.au/transcripts/2026-09-02/doorstop-washington-dc  

Pax Silica Declaration: https://www.industry.gov.au/publications/pax-silica-declaration-countries-attending-pax-silica-summit-12-december-2025  

Penny Wong, Allan Gyngell Lecture, 14 August 2026—the source of the discussion about expanding Australia’s options and maximising its choices: https://www.foreignminister.gov.au/minister/penny-wong/speech/allan-gyngell-lecture

 Recent AI safety and capability developments

METR, independent investigation of the OpenAI/Hugging Face incident: https://metr.org/blog/2026-08-26-openai-hugging-face-incident-investigation/  

OpenAI’s account and post-mortem of the Hugging Face incident: https://openai.com/index/hugging-face-incident-and-the-road-ahead/  

Anthropic, Countering misuse of AI: September 2026, including biological and cyber misuse cases, September 2026: https://www.anthropic.com/threat-intelligence-report-september-2026  

Jacob Coxon on leaving Anthropic over AI safety concerns, 9 September: https://www.axios.com/2026/09/09/anthropic-researcher-ai-warning-interview  

New York Times, “A.I. Could Possibly End Humanity. How Are Humans Supposed to Process That?”, 10 September: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/10/science/ai-humanity-risk.html  

OpenAI’s claimed solution to the Navier–Stokes Millennium Prize Problem, 8 September: https://openai.com/index/navier-stokes-solution/   

Anthropic on the US government’s June 2026 directive suspending foreign access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5: https://www.anthropic.com/news/fable-mythos-access  

International cooperation and public-interest capability

The Australia Group—Australia-chaired cooperation on chemical and biological weapons export controls: https://www.dfat.gov.au/international-relations/security/non-proliferation-disarmament-arms-control/australia-group-and-proliferation-security-initiative  

Statement from the 2026 Australia Group Plenary, including discussion of emerging technologies: https://www.dfat.gov.au/publications/minisite/theaustraliagroupnet/site/en/2026-ag-plenary-statement.html  

US National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR), discussed as a model for providing researchers with public-interest access to compute and AI resources: https://www.nsf.gov/focus-areas/ai/nairr  

Reading and following recommendations

Andrew Leigh, What’s the Worst That Could Happen? Existential Risk and Extreme Politics: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262548519/whats-the-worst-that-could-happen/  

Isaac Asimov, I, Robot: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/5681/i-robot-by-isaac-asimov/paperback/  

William Gibson, Neuromancer: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/293994/neuromancer-by-william-gibson/  

Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash: https://www.penguin.com.au/books/snow-crash-9780241629833  

Chris Miller, Chip War: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Chip-War/Chris-Miller/9781982172008  

Jasmine Sun’s writing on technology and Silicon Valley: https://jasmi.news/  

Ethan Mollick, One Useful Thing: https://www.oneusefulthing.org/  

Molly Kinder, Kinder Futures: Dispatches on AI, Work & What Comes Next: https://substack.com/@mollykinder2  

For the film recs mentioned at the end: I, Robot (2004), Her (2013), and (the deeply serious foundational cybersecurity text) Hackers (1995).

In this episode, Darren speaks with Graham Fletcher, who recently retired after almost four decades in the Australian public service, much of it spent working on China. Fletcher served four postings in Beijing, culminating in his term as Australian Ambassador to China from 2019 to 2023 — covering COVID-19, the deepest downturn in bilateral relations for decades, China’s campaign of economic coercion, and the beginnings of stabilisation. 

The conversation builds from Fletcher’s new Lowy Institute Analysis, Australia and China: Embracing while sparring, which describes the current bilateral relationship as essentially “good enough”: functional and mutually beneficial, but bounded by enduring differences in strategic interests and values.

Darren asks what “good enough” means as a long-term objective, and what a functioning relationship actually enables Australia to achieve. They revisit the breakdown in relations after 2017, including what diplomacy looked like during the deep freeze, the much-discussed “14 grievances”, and whether the 2022 election was truly the circuit-breaker that allowed both sides to move on.

The discussion also explores how Australia should decide when to criticise China publicly; whether managing Beijing successfully enhances Australia’s credibility elsewhere in the region; why China so often interprets Australian policy through the prism of the United States; and how worsening US–China rivalry could eventually force Canberra to resist demands from either side.

Finally, Fletcher reflects on Kevin Rudd’s argument that ideology is upstream of Chinese policy, the importance of non-government links in giving the relationship substance and resilience, and what Australia needs to maintain deep China capability for the future.

Australia in the World is written, hosted and produced by Darren Lim, with research and audio editing by Hannah Nelson and theme music composed by Rory Stenning.

Relevant links

Graham Fletcher, Australia and China: Embracing while sparring, Lowy Institute, August 2026. Lowy Institute Analysis

Kevin Rudd, The Evolution of Chinese Economic Strategy Under Xi Jinping, 2026 China in the World Annual Lecture, ANU, August: https://mrkrudd.substack.com/p/the-evolution-of-chinese-economic

This episode Darren goes full academic, using Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s recent Allan Gyngell Lecture as the starting point for a broader discussion of Australian grand strategy. Wong takes up Allan’s conception of foreign policy as a means of expanding Australia’s international space, increasing its options and maximising its choices, and sets out her “Four Rs” framework of region, relationships, rules and resilience. Darren asks the next question: once Australia has created choices, how should it actually decide among them?

Darren posits four questions for interrogating any proposed Australian strategy: (i) What do you believe to be true about the world, and how confident are you? (ii) What is the causal theory connecting your proposed policy to the outcome you want? (iii) Compared with what realistic alternative? (iv) And what are you actually trying to secure, including what you are prepared to pay, risk or give up to secure it?

Darren applies this framework to Australia’s changing relationship with the United States under Donald Trump, competing conceptions of sovereignty and the debate over AUKUS, assessments of the challenge posed by China, Michael Wesley’s argument that Southeast Asia should sit at the centre of Australian strategy, and Wong’s approach to finding overlapping areas of alignment with individual regional states.

The final substantive example is artificial intelligence and resilience. The abrupt loss of Australian access to Anthropic’s Fable and Mythos models demonstrated an American technological “off-switch”, while the subsequent Hugging Face security incident provided a striking counter-example in which a Chinese open-weight model became an emergency fallback. What would genuine Australian resilience therefore require: sovereign models, sovereign compute, deeper integration with the US technology ecosystem, selective use of Chinese technology, or some combination? And what happens when such strategies encounter domestic political constraints, including growing opposition to the data centres on which AI capability depends?

The episode concludes by returning to Allan, epistemic humility and the value of making our assumptions explicit. Doing the homework will not eliminate disagreement or guarantee good decisions. But it should allow Australians to understand what their strategic disagreements are actually about.

Australia in the World is written, hosted and produced by Darren Lim, with research and audio editing by Hannah Nelson and theme music composed by Rory Stenning. 

Relevant links

Penny Wong, “Allan Gyngell Lecture”, Lowy Institute, 14 August 2026: https://www.foreignminister.gov.au/minister/penny-wong/speech/allan-gyngell-lecture

Penny Wong, “Q&A Lowy Institute – Allan Gyngell lecture”, 14 August 2026, including Darren’s question on persuasion and regional alignment: https://www.foreignminister.gov.au/minister/penny-wong/transcript/qa-lowy-institute-allan-gyngell-lecture  

Darren Lim and Hannah Nelson, “From Three Strands to Four Rs: The Evolution of Australian Foreign Policy”, Australian Outlook, 21 November 2025: https://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/australianoutlook/from-three-strands-to-four-rs-the-evolution-of-australian-foreign-policy/  

Allan Gyngell, Fear of Abandonment: Australia in the World since 1942, updated edition, La Trobe University Press: https://www.blackincbooks.com.au/books/fear-abandonment  

Australia in the World, Ep. 101: Taiwan, 2 September 2022: https://australiaintheworld.podbean.com/e/ep-101-taiwan/  

Australia in the World, Ep. 102: A formal statement on China? Australia’s head of state, 18 September 2022 — Darren and Allan’s debate over whether an Australian leader should deliver a major speech on China: https://australiaintheworld.podbean.com/e/ep-102-a-formal-statement-on-china-australia-s-head-of-state  

Lowy Institute, 2026 Lowy Institute Poll, including the sharp decline in Australian trust in the United States and confidence in Donald Trump, alongside continuing majority support for the alliance: https://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/2026-lowy-institute-poll/executive-summary  

AUKUS Public Inquiry, including hearings and evidence from Malcolm Turnbull, Bob Carr and other witnesses: https://aukuspublicinquiry.com/  

Australia in the World, Ep. 111: AUKUS plans; India; red alerts, 19 March 2023 — including Darren and Allan’s original discussion of the AUKUS pathway and the Red Alert series: https://australiaintheworld.podbean.com/e/ep-111-aukus-plans-india-red-alerts  

Hugh White, Hard New World: Our Post-American Future, Quarterly Essay 98, June 2025: https://www.quarterlyessay.com.au/essay/2025/06/hard-new-world  

Peter Hartcher and Matthew Knott, “Red Alert”, Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, March 2023: https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/red-alert-20230306-p5cpt8.html

ABC Media Watch, “War with China?”, 13 March 2023, reproducing and examining the Red Alert claim that Australia faced the prospect of war with China within three years: https://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/episodes/china/102090318

Michael Wesley, Blind Spot: Southeast Asia and Australia’s Future, Quarterly Essay 101, March 2026: https://www.quarterlyessay.com.au/essay/2026/03/blind-spot

The Joe Walker Podcast, “Australia’s Plan to Turn Compute Into Sovereign AI — Dr Andrew Charlton MP”, 16 August 2026: https://josephnoelwalker.com/andrew-charlton/  

Australia in the World, Ep. 112: Cold War 2?, 4 April 2023 — Allan’s final episode, including his reflections on Hedley Bull, Coral Bell, Robert O’Neill and the need for another period of fundamental strategic thinking: https://australiaintheworld.podbean.com/e/ep-112-cold-war-2/

Stephen Dziedzic of the ABC returns to catch up on a remarkable month in Australian foreign policy.

The conversation begins with China’s submarine-launched ballistic missile test into the South Pacific. Stephen and Darren ask who Beijing was really signalling, what the test says about China’s nuclear deterrent, and why Pacific governments responded much more strongly than they did to China’s 2024 launch.

They then turn to Australia’s rapidly expanding Pacific integration agenda: the Nakamal Agreement with Vanuatu, the new Vuvale Union and Ocean of Peace Alliance with Fiji, and the wider web of Australian agreements across the region. The discussion examines why Fiji and Vanuatu struck such different bargains; whether Australia coerced Vanuatu; the risks of strategic overstretch; and what happens when Canberra eventually has to enforce one of the new agreements’ red lines. Darren also offers an alliance-theory puzzle: these treaties appear designed less to deter a clear external threat than to institutionalise alignment and deny rival security access.

The episode also covers Taiwan’s decision to suspend spot purchases of PNG LNG after Port Moresby moved against Taiwan’s representative office; the fragile stabilisation of Australia–China relations and an Australian variation on Kevin Rudd’s “managed strategic competition”; and Narendra Modi’s visit, including whether India now truly qualifies as a top-tier Australian security partner.

Recommendations: Ezra Klein’s interviews with Kevin Rudd and Maggie Haberman, and Sam Dalrymple’s Shattered Lands.

Australia in the World is written, hosted and produced by Darren Lim, with research and audio editing by Hannah Nelson and theme music composed by Rory Stenning.

Relevant links

Stephen Dziedzic's relevant ABC reporting

Stephen Dziedzic and Lillyrose WelWel, “Vanuatu critical infrastructure to remain ‘free from militarisation’ under Nakamal pact,” ABC News, 29 June 2026, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-06-29/australia-vanuatu-sign-strategic-pact-nakamal-agreement/106852624

Stephen Dziedzic, “Vanuatu deal a sign of what’s to come in ‘permanent contest’ for Pacific influence with China,” ABC News, 1 July 2026, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-01/how-vanuatu-deal-shapes-pacific-influence-contest-with-china/106863266

Lice Movono and Stephen Dziedzic, “Solomon Islands PM says ‘growing consensus’ in support of regional security agreement,” ABC News, 3 July 2026, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-03/solomon-islands-pm-says-growing-consensus-for-security-deal/106874902

Stephen Dziedzic and Lice Movono, “Prime Minister Anthony Albanese signs Ocean of Peace Alliance with Fiji,” ABC News, 6 July 2026, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-06/albanese-signs-major-new-treaty-fiji/106882252

Stephen Dziedzic and Tom Lowrey, “‘Destabilising’ Chinese ballistic missile test in Pacific prompts government concerns,” ABC News, 6 July 2026, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-06/china-test-ballistic-missile-south-pacific/106885076 

Stephen Dziedzic, “China warns Australia over military alliance with Fiji that promises to ‘act to meet the common danger’,” ABC News, 6 July 2026, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-06/china-warns-australia-over-alliance-with-fiji/106886394

Stephen Dziedzic and Tom Lowrey, “Pacific leaders criticise Chinese nuclear-capable missile test as ‘reckless’,” ABC News, 7 July 2026, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-07/china-missile-nuclear-pacific-nauru-tuvalu/106887324

Stephen Dziedzic and Doug Dingwall, “Anthony Albanese says India a ‘top-tier security partner’ for Australia as nations deepen defence ties,” ABC News, 9 July 2026, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-09/narendra-modi-arrives-in-melbourne/106894868

Tim Swanston and Stephen Dziedzic, “China demands Australia stop ‘exaggerating tensions’ over South China Sea,” ABC News, 22 July 2026, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-22/china-australia-south-china-sea-philippines-tension/106946822

Stephen Dziedzic, “Chinese diplomats leave Labor conference in Adelaide after requesting Taiwan representatives be ejected,” ABC News, 23 July 2026, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-23/chinese-diplomats-leave-labor-conference-in-adelaide/106951960

Stephen Dziedzic, “Australia supplants China as Pacific’s biggest lender,” ABC News, 28 July 2026, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-28/new-lowy-pacific-aid-map-australia-lending-investor/106967764

Stephen Dziedzic and Marian Faa, “Taiwan to stop buying PNG gas on spot market over ‘One China’ spat,” ABC News, 29 July 2026, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-29/taiwan-to-stop-buying-png-gas-on-spot-market/106972968

Other links

Siobhan McDonnell, “The Nakamal Agreement has been signed, but at what cost?”, Devpolicy Blog, 24 July 2026: https://devpolicy.org/the-nakamal-agreement-has-been-signed-but-at-what-cost/

Ezra Klein, “What Xi Jinping Wants (with Kevin Rudd)” The Ezra Klein Show, The New York Times, 14 July 2026, https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/14/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-kevin-rudd.html

Ezra Klein, “How Trump Has Changed, With Maggie Haberman,” The Ezra Klein Show, The New York Times, 31 July 2026, https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/31/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-maggie-haberman.html

Sam Dalrymple, Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia, HarperCollins, 19 June 2025, https://harpercollins.com.au/products/9780008466831

Darren is back at the mic after a month away and, again, back on the Iran/Hormuz story. The deal he spent an hour analysing in June is dead inside three weeks, the two sides are fighting again, American soldiers are dying, important infrastructure has been destroyed across the region, and a fresh ceasefire proposal is circulating even as Washington weighs a much larger campaign alongside Israel.

This episode is his effort to describe the machinery that keeps generating these crises, with his analysis intended to hold up whether there's a ceasefire or a major escalation by the time you listen. Darren starts with the collapse of the June memorandum and why the agreement that used the word "permanent" turned out to be the shortest-lived of the lot. He then works through what Tehran believes it saw in the three weeks after signing, a short theory of how wars stay limited and how those limits break, and the idea that sits at the centre of the episode: that this is no longer a war about what the two sides don't know, but about their inability to make any promise the other has reason to believe.

From there it's the oil clock — how close the market is running to empty, and why the cushions that saved us the first time may not be there again. Then he moves to the the risk that Iran's apparent victory is quietly turning into a trap, what a durable settlement over the Strait of Hormuz might actually look like, and why none of it touches the nuclear question that started the war. The episode closes well beyond Iran, with a more general thought about a world economy that has become cheap to disrupt, slow to reassure, and which no government can any longer credibly promise not to weaponise.

Australia in the World is written, hosted, and produced by Darren Lim, with research and editing by Hannah Nelson and theme music composed by Rory Stenning.

Relevant links

Note: Not everything below is named in the episode; some pieces sit behind the analysis rather than being quoted directly. Where Darren refers to a work explicitly, it's marked with an asterisk (*).

On the collapse of the deal and the view from Tehran

* Vali Nasr, "Why Iran is returning to war," Financial Times, 17 July 2026: https://www.ft.com/content/22fdb2d5-b454-4a65-9aa9-e56371533ccf

* Ali Vaez, "This Is a Forever War in the Making," The New York Times, 15 July 2026: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/15/opinion/us-iran-forever-war-strait-of-hormuz.html  

* International Crisis Group, "From Deal to Ordeal: The U.S. and Iran" (panel featuring Vali Nasr; moderated by Ali Vaez), 16 July 2026: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ka_G_Oi2Ez8

* Rob Malley, remarks on the drafting of paragraph 5 (via X / Crisis Group), July 2026: https://x.com/Rob_Malley/status/2076796118604632398

* Ali Hashem, “'The word belongs to the battlefield': Why Iran, US are drifting back to conflict”, Al-Monitor, 14 July 2026: https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2026/07/word-belongs-battlefield-why-iran-us-are-drifting-back-conflict

On Trump, strategy and the limits of American power

* Trita Parsi, “Yesterday's US-Iran escalation is a mere prelude to what is likely to come”, Substack 19 July 2026: https://tritaparsi.substack.com/p/yesterdays-us-iran-escalation-is

Peter Baker, "In Iran, Trump Has Found an Opponent He Cannot Easily Dominate," The New York Times, 14 July 2026: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/14/us/politics/iran-trump-war.html

Robin Wright, "Donald Trump's Ad-Lib Strategy on Iran," The New Yorker, 17 July 2026: https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/donald-trumps-ad-lib-strategy-on-iran

Greg Jaffe and Eric Schmitt, "Trump Faces the Limits of U.S. Firepower and the Lessons of Past Wars," The New York Times, 17 July 2026: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/17/us/politics/trump-iran-war-afghanistan-iraq.html

"The Iran war is America's least popular since polls began," The Economist, 19 July 2026: https://www.economist.com/united-states/2026/07/19/the-iran-war-is-americas-least-popular-since-polls-began

On Hormuz, oil markets and the equilibrium

* Javier Blas, "Iran Risks Overplaying Its Hand on Hormuz," Bloomberg Opinion, 16 July 2026: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2026-07-16/strait-of-hormuz-iran-risks-overplaying-its-hand-on-oil-chokepoint

"Donald Trump has no good options for reopening the Strait of Hormuz," The Economist, July 2026: https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2026/07/14/donald-trump-has-no-good-options-for-reopening-the-strait-of-hormuz

"Oil traders warn market is close to running on empty as Hormuz shuts again," Financial Times, 15 July 2026: https://www.ft.com/content/6c314457-ce9a-4689-b3e1-ff637de0d6bf?syn-25a6b1a6=1

Lewis Jackson and Sam Li, “China's oil imports have plunged during the Iran war. How much will they recover?”, Reuters, 17 July 2026: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/chinas-oil-imports-have-plunged-during-iran-war-how-much-will-they-recover-2026-07-17/

Amos Hochstein, thread on depleted energy buffers, 17 July 2026: https://x.com/amoshochstein/status/2077812227890131406

On the nuclear file

* James Acton in conversation with Jon Bateman, World Unpacked (Carnegie), 12 July 2026: https://carnegieendowment.org/podcasts/the-world-unpacked/a-physicist-explains-how-iran-can-still-go-nuclear

The theory

* Thomas Schelling, Arms and Influence (1966): https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Arms_and_Influence.html?id=P-_RDwAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y

* Herman Kahn, On Escalation: Metaphors and Scenarios (1965): https://books.google.com.au/books?id=0No5uIPpD8AC&printsec=frontcover&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

* Robert Jervis, Perception and Misperception in International Politics (1976): https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvc77bx3

* James Fearon, "Rationalist Explanations for War," International Organization (1995): https://www.jstor.org/stable/2706903

* Robert Powell, "War as a Commitment Problem," International Organization (2006): https://www.jstor.org/stable/3877871