@dom-ma.bsky.social
Deputy Director & Chief Economist, John Curtin Research Centre. Auspol, China, Democracy/Authoritarianism, Climate, Covid (Australian)
I hate how much people in charge of our safety have no comprehension at all of cost benefit analysis
07.12.2025 06:49 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0Don’t worry, the US will pass that buck right on to Taiwan.
No one will touch it unless Taiwan does first. That’s definitely one of the lessons of Ukraine.
It’s as if some political hack told their campaign consultants, “use AI to replace your job” and the result was sabotage
06.12.2025 07:46 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0$50 says it’s not*
*not an actual offer
Victorian Govt under fire over shock VicHealth decision...
www.croakey.org/shock-and-al...
‘Balcony solar’ is something I don’t think we have in Australia but could be great for many renters trying to cut their power bills.
04.12.2025 05:39 — 👍 9 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0As for jobs, you can’t protect workers by holding back the tide, you have to ensure everyone can surf the wave
Labor & unions have the right approach
Aus’ AI regulation is right to be decentralised
You wouldn’t want an Internet Act, a Computer Act, or a Pen & Paper Act.
The point is to regulate behaviour, not tools.
If something is illegal to do in person, it should still be illegal to do with AI & vice versa
podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/p...
When Putin says Europe has no “peaceful agenda” he means no agenda to surrender.
When he says they’re on “the side of war”, he means the side of resistance.
Imperial warmongers would love everyone to lay down & surrender, but that’s not humanity & it’s not peace
www.smh.com.au/world/europe...
Curtin’s Cast #40, in which Alex Vynokur & I discuss with Nick & Kos why we can’t wait for peace to be declared before investing in Ukraine’s reconstruction & recovery.
This was recorded at APH straight after the launch of our report, Winning the Peace
podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/c...
It’s not the size that counts, it’s how you use it. And burying them in the ground is the worst way to use it.
Glad someone learned a lesson this time.
www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02...
Great to see the Tiger helicopters aren’t going to a hole in the ground this time
02.12.2025 20:01 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
Our report, Winning the Peace, looks at how Australia can start investing in Ukraine’s recovery right now
curtinrc.org/publications/
Great to see these helicopters heading to Ukraine.
There’s so much more we can be doing, even without the government.
Ukraine needs virtually everything, so every company or civil group can probably help in some way.
www.smh.com.au/politics/fed...
Is this what “involution” looks like?
02.12.2025 11:02 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Trump thinks the Americans are getting ripped off by pharma, and they are!
But instead of ripping us off, too, he should copy our model so Americans can pay less
www.smh.com.au/world/north-...
Good approach from the Australian government on AI
A standalone AI act would need to duplicate nearly every law in the country for cases where AI is involved, which would be almost always.
Ensuring existing laws continue to apply (& are enforced) is the way
www.digital.gov.au/policy/ai/au...
There’s 0% chance that hostile foreign governments decline to take advantage of this on a much larger scale.
Connected vehicles are a huge national security risk
www.smh.com.au/national/lik...
When they did twice as well as the 2nd place in a protein folding competition but the whole team was gutted, one says: "it doesn't help to have the tallest ladder if you're trying to get to the moon."
It was only when their software was useful to science that they celebrate.
Phenomenal people.
"He called us up & said we want to make this open. Not just that the code is open but we want to make it really easy for everybody to get access to the predictions."
"He released the structures of 200m proteins. These are gifts to humanity."
In 2024 he received the Nobel prize in Chemistry.
Of course that's what we should do.
Why are we thinking about 'making a service, and then people submit their protein'? We just fold everything and then give it to everyone on in the world."
Fantastic documentary.
Talking about protein folding:
"We could easily predict all known sequences in a month."
"Why don't we just do that? That's a great idea! We should just run every protein in existence & then release that. Why didn't someone suggest this before?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=d95J...
This is awesome.
A Stanford team are using AI to take over Xitter’s algorithm and make it less extremist
ground.news/article/stud...
Those are all things we can help with. And for the businesses that supply that help, it’s business.
Government’s role is to help make the connections, open the doors, and coordinate some of the risk management.
Our report is here.
It makes the case for not waiting for peace to be declared before we invest in Ukraine’s future.
Schools need fallout shelters.
Vets need prosthetic limbs.
Millions of people have hearing damage.
curtinrc.org/publications/
Cardinal Bychok spoke at the launch of our report on Ukraine’s recovery. His presence was pure provenance, but we were extremely grateful for his words & blessing.
More importantly, we need to translate it into action. There’s *so* much to do.
ugcc.ua/en/data/bish...
This is crazy framing.
The 2035 target is *supposed* to require more work to achieve. If it didn't, there wouldn't be any point.
www.abc.net.au/news/2025-11...
This is by far the most informative discussion I’ve heard about the environment laws that the Australian government is trying to pass this week
podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/w...
By “focus more”, I mean things like this. It’s one of the first articles I’ve seen about Asia that isn’t about China, the US, or us, in an Australian newspaper in ages.
www.abc.net.au/news/2025-11...
Russia being rated as more influential than Aus in Asia should be a wake up call.
We need to support Ukraine more, & we need to invest & focus more on our region.
www.smh.com.au/politics/fed...
