An Australian argument about dominance
On 23 September 2026, the post extracts supplied by Hayes record an invitation from his home in Amity to world leaders at UNGA81 to help establish GAJRA Earth. The next day, another post criticises the implications of the American objective of AI dominance. His 25 September responses welcome Albanese's non-domination language and ask about founding a Brisbane team, funding and a prominent location.35
Albanese's official UN statement described a world in which no country dominates or is dominated. Its surrounding argument concerned sovereignty, cooperation, emerging technology and the voices of smaller states. That wording also appears in earlier Australian diplomacy, including a UN statement in January 2026. Hayes's public invitations meet a wider policy conversation about the relationships countries want to create.25, 32, 35
The comparison with the United States is substantive. Executive Order 14179, signed in January 2025, declares a policy of sustaining and enhancing American global AI dominance. America's AI Action Plan develops a programme around innovation, infrastructure and international leadership, including the spread of American technology through the wider stack used by other countries.26, 27
Dominance is a word about relationships. It raises a question about the choices available to those outside the strongest position. An increasingly indispensable provider may shape what customers are able to change. A state whose institutions depend on another country's technology negotiates through that dependency. A community whose knowledge improves a model may have little say over the resulting capability or revenue.
The pathway from policy into technology deserves precision. An executive order directs government activity; its wording does not itself become every model's training objective. Funding, procurement, export arrangements, standards, deployment and ownership are among the routes through which the objective shapes actual systems. Technical objectives and evaluations have their own design. Following those connections makes the concern more useful.26, 43
China's AI Plus programme also reaches across an economy and society, with integration goals extending through 2027, 2030 and 2035. Its international initiative presents AI as enabling development and cooperation. The global contest consequently concerns much more than a model's score. It concerns the infrastructures, standards and economic relationships through which intelligence becomes part of daily life.28, 29
Countries have reasons to invest in security, and powerful systems need effective safeguards. A further question concerns whether everyone else's permanent dependence is a stable foundation for safety. If each major participant sees another's increased capability mainly as a threat, the incentive to concentrate power grows with the technology. Cooperation then has to offer something participants have reason to value.
The Australian idea of a fair go contributes a different question: what would it take for people and countries to participate, understand and benefit while retaining meaningful choices? That reaches into education, productive ownership and the ability to change providers. Friendship and alliance have room for partners developing their own capability. Shared institutions gain strength from participants who have something to contribute and the standing to question an arrangement.
This is where the missing middle becomes an international idea as well as a local one. Communities learning to operate useful intelligence gain a practical relationship with a technology otherwise experienced mainly through someone else's interface. Locally governed knowledge and portable tools give cooperation more substance. A network of capable participants has more ways to work together than a collection of customers waiting for the next product release.14, 24
Peace has infrastructure too
Hayes's submission to the Independent AUKUS Public Inquiry asks about opportunity cost in a long investment in security. Distributed civic computing, scientific capability, education and disaster resilience perform different functions from submarines. They also affect a country's ability to withstand disruption and choose its future. The inquiry asks how much attention those positive-sum forms of capability receive alongside the established defence programme.23
The public submission gives its proposed learning network a deliberate sequence. People identify appropriate sites and tasks, develop operators, install suitable systems, undertake useful experiments and teach another cohort. Equipment becomes part of an expanding capacity to understand and act. The people learning to maintain it also become part of the resilience.
The Pacific submissions give that argument another language. The Ocean of Peace discussion draws on talanoa, consensus, sovereignty and peaceful settlement. The Fiji-Australia Vuvale Union discussion brings family, people-to-people connection, dignity, health, education and a digital economy into the relationship. Hayes proposes practical work through which those purposes gain daily expression.21, 22
Food resilience, local health inquiry, language work and community science also create reasons for people in different places to know one another. A trusted relationship carries information and care before an emergency requires them. A technician who has helped train another team has a person to call. A cultural exchange leaves more than a communiqué behind.
This is a substantial account of peace infrastructure. It asks what makes conflict less attractive and cooperation more rewarding, alongside the means of protection. The benefits develop through lives, institutions and capabilities that people have reason to preserve. Small states and island communities bring their own understanding of vulnerability and resilience to that work.
Australia's possible role in mediating the US-China AI contest sits within these relationships. Convening begins with a shared question and people willing to address it together. Mediation adds an agreed role in helping work through a disagreement. Practical cooperation supplies something that survives beyond a successful meeting.
An evaluation exercise, a disaster simulation or a jointly examined public project could give participants useful material. Each party brings its own interests and authority. Differences about access, risk or interpretation become specific questions. The experience helps establish which agreements are dependable and what further work is worth undertaking.
Invitations into institutions
Milton Dick's election as the IPU's 32nd President on 9 October 2026 places an Australian parliamentary leader in an international forum concerned with democracy, peace and development. His Queensland and local-government background gives the setting a recognisable connection to the municipal questions in this collection. The institution's significance is the opportunity for parliaments to compare experience and examine shared problems.30
Kevin Rudd's current role as Asia Society's Global President and CEO brings another kind of institutional experience to the discussion, including his work on China and international relationships. The invitation asks whether that experience might help bring people together around GAJRA Earth, community capability and a cooperative approach to increasingly powerful intelligence.31, 38