Andrew Fowler’s book Nuked: The submarine fiasco that sank Australia’s sovereignty critically examines the decision by the Australian government – under the leadership of Liberal prime minister Scott Morrison – to enter into the most expensive military acquisition agreement in Australia’s history.
On September 15, 2021, Australia signed a trilateral security agreement with the US and the United Kingdom, known as AUKUS.
The selling point was that Australia would acquire nuclear-powered submarines to replace its ageing Collins-class conventionally-powered fleet. The cost? $368 billion – and possibly, the sovereignty of the nation.
Amid a deep web of lies, deception and media spin, Fowler painstakingly unpacks the extensive efforts Morrison took to deceive the French government as he concocted a highly secretive plan to acquire nuclear submarines.
A mission that, Fowler suggests, has led not only to a massive financial commitment but has ultimately “sunk” Australian sovereignty.
Fowler is well-placed to offer such a deeply penetrating account into Australia’s decision to enter AUKUS. He is an award-winning investigative journalist having previously worked for the ABC’s Four Corners and Foreign Correspondent programs.
Through interviewing many of the main people involved and talking to sources in Paris, London, Washington, and Canberra, Fowler pieces together a devastating account of Australia’s latest military acquisition agreement.
Key themes
Throughout the book, Fowler addresses key themes from the Liberal Party’s long-term desire for closer ties to Washington, to the incremental loss of Australia’s sovereignty in the alliance, and the secrecy around the chain of events that led to the scuttling of the French submarine deal and negotiations for AUKUS.
Liberal Party and US alliance
Central to the story is the long-running narrative within the Liberal Party of Australia’s deep desire to become increasingly tied with the US, despite the lack of guaranteed reciprocity.
From the activation of ANZUS after 9/11, to Australia’s unquestioned following of the US into Iraq, to John Howard’s “captain’s call” on the F35 Joint Strike fighter, Fowler argues that successive Australian governments – particularly conservative Liberal governments – have often made questionable foreign policy decisions to bolster the relationship with the US.
To this end, he shows how even in the lead-up to signing the French submarine deal, there was a push among conservative elements of the Liberal Party to instead go for the inferior Japanese option because that would enable closer cooperation in US-led naval missions.
One of the other interesting issues pointed out was the degree to which the Labor Party felt hamstrung by the agreement. According to Fowler, this was largely due to Labor’s fear of being accused of being weak on matters of national security.
So, pushing back on the agreement was a political minefield ahead of the 2022 election.
Loss of sovereignty
Key to the book is an analysis of the impact of the AUKUS deal on Australia’s sovereignty.
Fowler begins by unpacking the somewhat lopsided history of the alliance as military cooperation grew closer – noting that the Australian government has not always been fully aware of the functions of major military installations like Pine Gap, whose operations, up until the 1970s, had been kept from the government.
Similarly, he touches on the use of other military infrastructure across Australia that is used to relay battlefield commands – and possibly in the future, a nuclear strike.
Fowler makes the case that while there are numerous instances in Australia’s history in which sovereignty has been challenged by alliance partners, AUKUS takes this problem to another level.
Citing a lack of expertise in nuclear-trained operatives, the lack of a domestic nuclear industry, and an acquisition contract in which Australia essentially ceded all negotiating rights, Fowler argues that Australia’s future defence will essentially be at the mercy of the US – a situation that Australia would not have found itself in under the French agreement.
Secrecy and issues in foreign policy
Perhaps one of the most significant issues has to do with the level of secrecy and lack of oversight that is evidently possible in making Australian foreign policy.
Fowler shows how Morrison went about sowing seeds of doubt in the agreement with the French, and used the media to create a sense of urgency by inflating the possibility of conflict with China so that the AUKUS announcement would be received with irreverence.
In doing so, it evaded public debate – and even debate within his own government by keeping the prospective deal secret even from Barnaby Joyce, then leader of the Nationals – on an issue that would ultimately come to undermine Australia’s sovereign capabilities for decades to come.
Conclusion
Nuked is essential reading for researchers and the broader public alike.
Fowler challenges the unquestioning faith in the US alliance held by many on the political right and advances a compelling narrative of Australia’s loss of sovereignty as it edges closer and closer to the US.
The book comes during a critical period in the Australia-US alliance. When written, Joe Biden was in the White House.
While many of the book’s criticisms speak to issues around the decimation of Australian sovereignty resulting from AUKUS, the re-election of President Donald Trump certainly amplifies the need for a critical re-evaluation of AUKUS as the US seems set on departing from its democratic ideals.
Significantly, Fowler raises important questions not just about the future viability of AUKUS, but of the processes of future military acquisition and the significant gaps in checks and balances when it comes to foreign policy decision-making.
The broader implications of AUKUS are immense. Given the political climate and the growing concerns around the viability of AUKUS, the importance of this book has grown.
Overall, Fowler provides the reader – whether an academic or lay person – with a well-written, comprehensively researched account of the events that resulted in the sinking of the French submarine deal through stealth-like manoeuvring to establish AUKUS.
The era of British nuclear testing in Australia was exrraordinary, and its secrets are still being uncovered. Because of ongoing British secrecy, we may not discover them all. In her talk Professor Tynan will examine the complex circumstances taht led the British first to Monte Bello Islands off the coast of Western Australia, then Emu Field and Maralinga in South Australia, to test their atomic weapons. The decision to do so followed the United States’ exclusion of Britain from nuclear weapons and energy R&D after World War II, ostensibly because of the detection of Manhattan Project spies. Australia acquiesced to the atomic tests without asking hard questions, and as a result considerable damage and suffering was inflicted, particularly on Indigenous people and service personnel.
Those hard questions only came decades later, and there are still many to be asked. The British conducted their testing with a greater emphasis on speed than safety. The recklessness of some of the tests carried out in Australia is stunning. Tynan will share specific stories of these dangerous tests and their deadly ramifications for Australians. She will also cover what happened after the British terminated the test series and deliberately misinformed the Australian government about the extent of contamination they left behind. All three test sites were abandoned without proper remediation. The aftermath led to a judicial enquiry, known in Australia as a Royal Commission, in the mid-1980s. This enquiry makred a major shift in Australian attitudes to the tests, and was an important mileestone in an era of uncovering and truth-telling that continues.
Professor Elizabeth Tynan is Head of the Professional Development Program at James Cook University’s Graduate Research School, where she teaches academic writing, editing, and critical thinking skills to postgraduate researchers. She is a former science journalist in both print and broadcast media. Her PhD from the Australian National University examined aspects of the British nuclear tests in Australia in the 1950s and 1960s.
The Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, gave Donald Trump a gift of a model nuclear submarine with golden plates and finishes, internal documents reveal, during his visit to the White House last year which sealed the president’s support for the Aukus pact.
The prime minister also presented the US first lady, Melania Trump, with a A$3,000 Paspaley pearl pendant.
The information, obtained by Guardian Australia from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet after a four-month freedom of information process, revealed more about the delicate diplomatic planning and charm offensive that went into Albanese’s long-awaited first face-to-face meeting with Trump.
“Gift form” documents from the department reveal Albanese came to the White House bearing a two-foot-long model Virginia-class submarine, mounted on a base with gold plates, and a pearl necklace from one of Australia’s most famous jewellers.
Albanese had previously stated he’d given the Trumps a model submarine and jewellery, but at the time neither Albanese’s office nor his department would reveal any further information about the gifts.
The decision by Adelaide University to withdraw a venue booking for an event featuring a leading United Nations human rights expert has ignited a fierce debate about academic freedom and censorship in South Australia.
The controversy surrounds a panel discussion titled “Settler Colonialism: What It Can Tell Us About the Conflict in Israel/Palestine,” which was scheduled to be held at the university’s Elder Hall. The event is part of the Constellations: Not Writers Week, a breakout festival created in response to the recent cancellation of the official Adelaide Writers’ Week.
The panel features Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, who was to appear via video link, alongside esteemed historian Henry Reynolds and UNSW academic Lana Tatour.
According to event moderator Chris Sidoti, Elder Hall had been booked a month in advance. However, on Tuesday, the university informed organisers that the booking was being revoked, citing “health and safety” concerns.
In a statement, an Adelaide University spokesperson defended the decision, stating they were only made aware of the external event the previous Friday. The university claimed it could not accept the booking because it:
“… did not go through the required review and approval process in accordance with the required policy and procedure.”
The spokesperson added that the university could not “ensure the safety, respect and comfort of those attending” and suggested an alternative venue – the National Wine Centre – at a significantly higher cost of $23,500, compared to the $750 fee for the university hall.
This explanation has done little to quell the criticism. Mr. Sidoti described the move as a “sad reflection on the state of Adelaide University today,” arguing that the institution’s core role is precisely “to provide forums for these kinds of discussions – and it’s failing in that.”
The cancellation has drawn sharp rebukes from political figures, who see it as part of a worrying trend of silencing dissenting voices.
Democracy education resources
Greens Senator for South Australia, Sarah Hanson-Young, demanded the university explain its actions, calling the reports “concerning.” She linked the decision to the earlier controversies surrounding Writers’ Week, suggesting a broader “culture of fear infecting our institutions.”
“You cannot cancel curiosity, you cannot cancel compassion, and you cannot silence a city that believes in the exchange of ideas and freedom of expression,” Senator Hanson-Young said. She accused the university of capitulating to external pressure, stating that “seeking to silence a distinguished international human rights expert undermines academic freedom, weakens intellectual integrity, and contradicts the very principles universities are meant to uphold.”
The event is part of the Constellations festival, which was formed after the official Adelaide Writers’ Week was cancelled this year. That decision followed the withdrawal of hundreds of authors protesting the treatment of Palestinian-Australian writer Randa Abdel-Fattah, who was controversially uninvited from the original lineup.
When questioned directly about whether concerns regarding Ms. Albanese’s appearance – particularly in light of past criticism and US sanctions – influenced the decision, the university spokesperson did not provide a direct answer. They reiterated that the institution prides itself on being a place for the free exchange of ideas.
Event to Proceed at New Venue
Despite the university’s withdrawal, the discussion will go ahead. Organisers have secured the Norwood Concert Hall in Adelaide’s eastern suburbs for Thursday evening, where a sold-out crowd is expected to attend.
Senator Hanson-Young highlighted the public response as a rebuke to the university’s decision:
“Thankfully the event will go ahead… showing that South Australian audiences aren’t as fearful as these institutions,” she said.
Through AUKUS, federal Labor are ‘normalising’ and legitimising High-Level nuclear waste.
The public has a right to full disclosure in an informed debate ahead of AUKUS nuclear decisions. Silence by political leaders paves a path for an AUKUS nuclear dump agenda.
Federal Labor has broken its commitment to announce a process for AUKUS waste storage
Through AUKUS, federal Labor are ‘normalising’ and legitimising High-Level nuclear waste
Minister Marles wants to put a flag on US Navy High-Level nuclear wastes and ‘call it our own’
Aboriginal People have a Right to Free, Prior and Informed Consent over AUKUS wastes
SA Premier to let ‘national security interests’ decide the location for AUKUS nuclear waste
Scenario: AUKUS nuclear waste to ship into Whyalla Port to go north to the Woomera Area
The Australian public have a Right to Say No to undemocratic new federal Labor powers to impose AUKUS High-Level nuclear waste, effectively by decree, across SA, WA and the NT.
AUKUS Regulation 111 (02 Oct 2025) overrides protections in our existing State and Territory laws, and specifically names and prescribes SA and WA laws that prohibit High-Level nuclear waste storage. These draconian federal powers lack social licence and are an affront to civil society, they damage public trust in governance and are an ongoing threat to Aboriginal People’s rights and cultural responsibility to protect their country.
The Objects of the SA Nuclear Waste Storage (Prohibition) Act 2000 set out what is at stake: “To protect the health, safety and welfare of the people of South Australia, and the environment in which they live” by prohibiting certain nuclear waste storage facilities.
Community now face federal imposition of untenable and illegal AUKUS nuclear waste storage,
see “The lethal legacy of Aukus nuclear submarines will remain for millennia – and there’s no plan to deal with it” (The Guardian, 10 August 2025, Interview with Prof Ian Lowe).
Federal Labor has broken its commitment to announce a process for AUKUS waste storage: AUKUS Minister Richard Marles MP made a commitment to announce a process to identify a site to dispose of AUKUS nuclear wastes by early 2024. The failure by Defence to set out any process – other than to take up powers to impose nuclear wastes by decree – is unacceptable.
‘Transparency warrior’ Rex Patrick has brought to light: “A Brief on how to choose a location for AUKUS nuclear waste was provided to Defence Minister Richard Marles in Dec 2023”, see “Submarine boasts, yet nuclear waste dumps submersed in secrecy” (MWM, 16 Feb 2026).
The public has a Right to Know what regions across SA, WA and the NT are being targeted for storage of AUKUS nuclear wastes. The secretive ongoing Defence review “to identify potential nuclear waste disposal sites” (ABC News March 2023) and the Brief must be made public.
The Woomera Area was reported to be a ‘favoured location’ for storage and disposal of nuclear sub wastes back in August 2023, see “Woomera looms as national nuclear waste dump site including for AUKUS submarine high-level waste afr.com. WA, Qld and Vic political leaders rejected a High-Level nuclear waste disposal site in their States in 2023. WA has suggested the Woomera Prohibited Area in SA: “would be one obvious location within the Defence estate, however, we will await the outcomes of the federal review” (SMH 15 March 2023).
Through AUKUS, federal Labor are ‘normalising’ and legitimising High-Level nuclear waste. Aspiring International nuclear waste dumpers Tellus Holdings Ltd that operates the Sandy Ridge waste repository in WA has partnered with Amentum UK to expand the Chandler Project in the NT. Amentum provides services to Pine Gap and was involved in the “Waste Isolation Pilot Plant” – the only nuclear geological repository in the US. In a Jan 2026 submission to a federal Inquiry Tellus offered to first take AUKUS & International Low-Level waste at Chandler.
The public has a right to full disclosure in an informed debate ahead of AUKUS nuclear decisions. Silence by political leaders paves a path for an AUKUS nuclear dump agenda.
Min Marles wants to put a flag on US Navy High-Level nuclear wastes and ‘call it our own’: AUKUS Minister Marles aims Australia take on second-hand US Virginia Class nuclear powered subs in the early 2030’s loaded with US origin military High-Level nuclear fuel waste accrued in up to a dozen years of US Navy operations of US ‘High Enriched Uranium’ nuclear reactors.
Swapping an Australian flag onto this US military nuclear reactor waste places an untenable ‘for ever’ burden on future Australian generations to have to try to isolate these US nuclear wastes.
Aboriginal People have a Right to Free, Prior and Informed Consent over AUKUS wastes:
Q: Will our political leaders commit to respect and comply with Aboriginal People’s human rights, set out in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Article 29 (UNDRIP 2007), to “Free, Prior and Informed Consent” over storage of hazardous materials on their lands. AUKUS nuclear wastes absolutely are hazardous materials! Traditional Owners across SA, WA and the NT have repeatedly had to Say No to the imposition of nuclear wastes.
The SA Premier was called on to declare his position back in Dec and has so far not responded.
SA Premier to let ‘national security interests’ decide the location for AUKUS nuclear waste:
Premier Peter Malinauskas MP has said AUKUS nuclear waste should go to a ‘remote’ location in the “national security interest”, see “Site for high-level nuclear waste dump under AUKUS deal must be in national interest, SA premier says” (ABC News 15 March 2023).
The Premier’s “Office for AUKUS” (Letter, 07 Oct 2025) claims “safe and secure disposal” for High-Level nuclear waste, including spent fuel, produced when N-subs are decommissioned. The Office expresses no concerns over globally unprecedented High-Level nuclear waste disposal, declines to reveal what is underway and yet expects “community acceptance”:
“Determining suitable locations and methods for safe and secure disposal will take time, but Australia will do so in a manner that sets the highest standards … and which builds community acceptance for a disposal solution.”
Ahead of the SA Election the Premier has been called on to answer the Q: Will you accept or reject federal imposed storage of AUKUS nuclear waste in SA? so far there is no response.
REPORTER: Is a high-level nuclear waste dump the price that South Australia will have to pay for the jobs that go to the state? (Minister Marles Press Conference 14 March 2023)
MARLES: Well, as I indicated there will be a process that we will determine within the next 12 months for how the site will be identified. You’ve made a leap there, which we’re not going to make for some time. It will be a while before a site is ultimately identified.
SA is left in the dark, without a say, as an ongoing target for an AUKUS nuclear waste dump
Scenario: AUKUS nuclear waste to ship into Whyalla Port to go north to the Woomera Area
The Woomera Area is expected to be a target on a federal regional short list for an AUKUS nuclear dump site and Whyalla Port to be on a likely AUKUS nuclear waste transport route.
Rex Patrick has set out an array of potential locations and types of AUKUS nuclear waste facilities across Australia, see “AUKUS waste in perpetuity” (MWM, 22 July 2025). For further information: see Friends of the Earth https://nuclear.foe.org.au/nuclear-subs/
Or, Why Australia chooses to live in the lies of an American world
Burning Archive, Substack, Mar 07, 2026
Australia feinted on the global stage this week when Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney went to Canberra. Offered dignity as a middle power, the Australian Government acted the pawn in another USA-run war.
Disappointing, but what I have come to expect, and we have to deal with the world as it is, right? Or, so the realist fictions say. But let me tell you a stranger history of the plural Australian experience, and how this decolonised nation came to be that way.
Contemporary Australia’s muddled national sovereignty is the product of three botched decolonisation projects:
Federation as White Dominion, 1890-1920;
USA Agent in a British Commonwealth, 1930-50;
Deputy Sheriff and Starlet in the USA’s Liberal Empire, 1968-1999.
You may not have heard these labels; I devised them for this essay. But don’t worry: I explain the history and evidence behind them at the end of this post on Australia’s experience of decolonisation.
Mark Carney’s Wake-Up Call to Independence
In each of the three botched decolonisation projects, Australians – both élites and masses – chose belonging to an empire, which claimed global supremacy, over modest, gregarious co-existence as a middle power of one earth.
Now, in 2026, another historic opportunity for decolonisation has arisen. It was announced to the Australian Parliament by the Prime Minister of another decolonised dominion, Mark Carney of Canada.
“Yes, the world will always be driven by great powers, but it can also be shaped by middle powers that trust each other and act with speed and purpose.
Mark Carney, Address to Parliament, Hansard, 5 March 2026
Will Australia seize the moment? Will we act with speed and purpose? Will Australia ride, or get dumped by, a fourth wave of US American decolonisation, by the unravelling of the USA Empire?
My hunch is: we will get dumped, and then sucked out with the rip into the most dangerous waters. Like a bad cocky swimmer in rough surf, we have not been paying attention to the world “as it is” around us, and not even swimming between the flags.
At least, the mainstream élites in politics, business and culture in Australia have not been paying attention. The omens of this opportunity for a new decolonisation have been noticed in the Great Southern Land, for a decade or more, by a few dissident, reviled voices. Like antipodean Havels, we have tried to live in the truth, and point out the lies and slogans our leaders ask us to hang in our shop windows, like the indispensable American Alliance, our great and powerful democratic friend, and the ‘liberal rules-based international order,’ exposed as a sham by Mr Carney at Davos. But Australian leaders have suppressed all readings of the omens. They have blocked their ears and masked their eyes. They refuse to see Australia as anything but the Deputy Sheriff of the USA’s Empire or some B-grade celebrity starlet aspiring to be enriched by Rupert Murdoch’s global media empire.
The Closing of the Australian Mind
The Australian mind is closed and colonised, like few around the world. It may be because Mr Murdoch has so successfully counter-colonised the political and cultural networks of imperial masters, Britain and the USA. It may be because we botched our past three attempts at decolonisation, and the gulfs have washed us down. It may be that we have been unlucky in our leaders. But I suspect, most deeply, it is because, in each attempt at independence, we neglected one crucial truth: colonisation begins and ends in the mind.
It’s only Day Five of the war, but surely the epic stupidity of Australia so cravenly backing the US-Israeli invasion of Iran is evident by now. Michael West reports.
We are led by fools and sycophants. The illegal, unprovoked invasion of Iran is not just garden-variety stupidity. This is stupidity on a grandiose, stratospheric scale.
The Israeli propaganda narrative that Iranians would sprinkle rose petals at the feet of their invaders has not come to pass. It has already been demolished in fact.
Instead of bringing freedom and democracy – ‘regime change’ – we have brought chaos, possibly a world war, and definitely the destruction of the Middle East. The world economy is being hit hard as we write; oil prices spiralling, energy prices about to soar, and the inexorable spectre of inflation and recession.
“And it didn’t have to happen.“
This was a war of choice. Even without the “Epstein Coalition” – as the Iranian media so aptly dubs their invaders – murdering 168 Iranian school girls on day one, ‘peace through strength’ was never going to happen.
Quite the contrary. The illegal and unprovoked invasion of Iran has hardened the resolve of Iranians, who are massing in their hundreds of thousands across the country to mourn their dead and chant Death to America, to back their regime.
Where was the advice?
The Epstein Coalition killed the Ayatollah, who was actually against nuclear power; he was a moderate. Did Albo and Penny Wong not seek advice from Foreign Affairs that attacking Iran was folly, that the anti-regime protestors were a minority, that the pre-invasion protests were a Mossad and CIA psyop, that Iran might attack US proxy states in the region, that invasion would be a Brobigdadgian mistake?
Or did they ignore the advice in favour of a Washington regime compromised by the Epstein pedophile scandal?
And now, we see the feeble, hypocritical whining by Israel and its supporters about Iran attacking the Gulf states. Is that our only moral defence? Decades of supporting these regimes: Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates – US proxy states all – regimes now unravelling, the oil price is soaring, inflation and recession are beckoning globally.
Images are emerging from Bahrain of locals cheering on the Iranian missiles. Were DFAT and our politicians unaware of popular angst in the Gulf states against American imperialism?
And what did they expect Iran to do in the face of this existential threat? Not blow up American bases and infrastructure while the US attacked them; after the US betrayed them at the very negotiating table when they were offering significant concessions on nuclear enrichment, all to avoid war? This war.
Australia, the US flunkies
Yet here was Australia, Saturday night, first out of the blocks worldwide to throw its support behind Donald Trump and his preposterous “Operation Epic Fury”, a probable pedophile being blackmailed and led around by the genocidal Benjamin Netanyahu like a pony at the fairground show.
“Operation Epstein Fury”, it was fast labelled. The soaring, craven stupidity is hard to grasp. Both major parties backing it. Albo first, then Angus Taylor rushing to tow the Donald’s line. Then, Pauline Hanson, too, who even congratulated and praised Netanyahu. We are led by fools and sycophants.
The flawed defence of atrocity
To address the empty rhetoric of the pro-war lobby, criticism of this war does not equate to support for the regime in Iran. Defenders of the US-Israel atrocity are busy with their swarms of social media bots peddling the argument that “you are an Islamist terror supporter” if you criticise the invasion.
This is the 2026 version of “You are a Hamas supporter” if you argue against genocide in Gaza.
The cold facts of this debacle are that regime change does not work, that Iran did not want this war, that Iran appears to be exceptionally well prepared – even winning the war – that the Epstein Coalition, which Australia supports, is daily backing war crimes: blowing up hospitals, schools and civilian infrastructure.
“This is a war which has already been lost.“
The obvious reality is that regime change wars are a demonstrable failure. Vietnam. Iraq. Afghanistan. Iraq – a million dead, irretrievable regional stability. In Afghanistan, 20 years, trillions of dollars spent, four US presidents, six Australian PMs – all to replace the Taliban with the Taliban.
And here we are, the world’s busybodies, doing it again.
Who would ever negotiate with the US in good faith again, or Israel for that matter? Iran did not want this war. Iran has not attacked another country in 300 years.
The US lured them to the negotiating table, then, without warning, murdered their leadership. This echoes last year’s 12-day war, where Israel and the US lured them in on the premise of good faith talks, then murdered them and now play the victim.
What did they expect Iran to do in the face of this existential threat?
The record speaks for itself. The US is the biggest invader of other countries in history. Israel has, last year alone, attacked Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, Jordan, Palestine, Qatar, Tunisia, Malta, and Greece.
Six illegal attacks of sovereign nations, as well as three illegal attacks in international waters equals 9 all up. In one year. And now they are invading Lebanon again, seizing more territory as their puppets, America, fight their campaign against Iran.
Albo, what are you doing?
We know who the war mongers are. We are the war mongers. Yet, in his bizarre statement of support, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was the fastest out of the blocks of all the allies on the weekend, issuing a false statement.
The claim, echoed by the usual warmongers of the Lib-Lab establishment, is that Iran is guilty of attacks on Australian soil, referencing alleged attacks on a deli in Bondi.
We know who the war mongers are. We are the war mongers. Yet, in his bizarre statement of support, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was the fastest out of the blocks of all the allies on the weekend, issuing a false statement.
The claim, echoed by the usual warmongers of the Lib-Lab establishment, is that Iran is guilty of attacks on Australian soil, referencing alleged attacks on a deli in Bondi.
Then there is the age-old claim that Iran is about to produce nuclear weapons. The US and Israel’s nuclear risk claims have been so roundly discredited it’s a joke.
Benjamin Netanyahu has been trying to instigate a war against Iran for 30 years – claiming Iran is days away, weeks away, months away from nuclear missiles.
And they were at the negotiating table again when the Epstein forces murdered them.
The propaganda
We are now seeing mainstream media decry the ‘illegal attacks’ on Israel and the Gulf states. Yet the ‘victim card’ is tapped out. Around the world, outside the legacy media propaganda, there is little sympathy for Israel having razed Gaza and slaughtered between 72,000 and 700,000 Palestinians while stealing more land in the West Bank daily.
It will continue. The media and political classes have failed so majestically that they can only try to salvage their authority with more propaganda.
The deplorable coverage of the murdered schoolgirls in Iran is a case in point. The “40 beheaded babies” and the “mass rapes” of Hamas filled the headlines in the West on October 8, 2023. Yet real murders – 170 murdered schoolgirls – have hardly rated a mention. Yes, a mention perhaps, but a side story, buried, no headlines of outrage.
Can’t handle the truth?
Is the truth too hard to handle? Is it not evident to everybody except the most brainwashed advocate of the Epstein lobby that Israel – the government, the state – is the problem here?
Netanyahu has won his ambition to drag America into a war against Iran, and if you follow the money, while world stock markets teeter, the stock market in Tel Aviv is surging, replete with weapons companies as it is.
Meanwhile, the ASX is tanking, ergo our savings. Oil prices are surging, ergo higher energy prices and inflation. The Houthis, Iran’s allies, are shooting again in the Red Sea while, on the other side of the Arabian peninsula, Iran has blocked the Straits of Hormuz, choking off a large chunk of the world’s oil supply.
Higher prices in India and China will mean higher prices for imports and inflation around the world.
The lessons of history have not been learnt; in fact, they have been discarded in spectacular fashion.
Greens Senator David Shoebridge nails it: “The Albanese Government needs to be clear about what support it is offering the US in its war on Iran. Labor’s claim that we are not offering support is plainly not true.”
COMMENT – Christina Macpherson – As a former Labor party member, I am totally disenchanted with the current Labor leadership. Anthony Albanese has faded away from a strong principled Labor leader to a pale grey accessory to the USA. And Penny Wong ! If she had any integrity she’s resign – it must be uncomfortable for her, forever sitting on the fence about everything
The Albanese government gives us the mushroom treatment. Keeps us all in the dark and feeds us BS.
This week, our small target federal government gave a bravura homage to John Cage. While a US-Israeli war of no legality engulfs the Middle East, while Australia’s top-secret spy facility hums away in the desert night providing targeting data for strikes that have already killed hundreds of civilians, while US surveillance aircraft slip into RAAF Base Pearce from Diego Garcia without so much as a public flight plan, Anthony Albanese and Penny Wong polish their performance art, the blank face, the rehearsed non-answer, a version of Cage’s 4′ 33″ -and the inane repetition of lines that insult the intelligence of every Australian watching.
Asked about Pine Gap’s role? We got “we don’t comment on that facility.”
The litany of lies becomes a bad parody of accountability. Asked, “is the US-Israel attack on Iran legal under international law? We got: “that is a matter for Israel and the United States.” So the rules-based order they are in love with turns out to be Rafferty’s Rules, after all. And Wong is becoming a human bot before our eyes.
Asked whether we were briefed in advance. We got “this was a unilateral action by the United States.”
It is a performance not of statesmanship but of studied evasion. And it has been noticed. It’s top shelf-fobbing off. Wong and Albanese could fob-off and rebuff for Australia, when it becomes an Olympic event.
On international law being broken, the government’s hypocrisy is gob-smacking
Albanese and Wong have invoked “international law” and the “rules-based order” more than a hundred times since returning to government. They have called out Russia over Ukraine. They have criticised China. As recently as last year, Wong’s department was demanding China comply with international law, and the year before that, complaining that Chinese domestic legislation allowed Beijing to ignore it.
But when Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, a guest on Australian soil, stated plainly that the US-Israeli strikes on Iran appear “prima facie inconsistent with international law,” Wong’s response was to handball the question back to Washington and Tel Aviv.
“The legal basis of these strikes is ultimately a matter for the United States and Israel,” she repeated, for perhaps the twentieth time, to a press circus that grew visibly more frustrated with each non-answer.
This is not a position. It is a void in a vacuum in a vortex of entropy dressed up as a position.
The “rules-based order” mantra that Australia endlessly chants, a type of incantation to ward off witches, warlocks and bad faith actors, turns out to be a franchise. The rules apply to adversaries. Allies get a different menu. When Russia bombs civilian infrastructure it is an outrage; when the US does it, the legal basis is “a matter for those two countries.” When China ignores international law, Canberra clucks as volubly as any hen-house. When Israel and the Trump administration launch pre-emptive strikes without UN authorisation, without consulting allies, without even informing Albanese in advance, the government goes mute.
It’s not just hypocritical. It’s a double standard with added craven sycophancy, toadying and fawning over the US latest brain-fart that does lasting damage to Australia’s credibility as an honest broker in the region.
Surreal? Pine Gap, which is where the mushroom treatment gets especially dangerous.
Pine Gap is not some quiet public library in the red centre. It is the eyes and ears of the American eagle. Or as Peter Cronau documents, the listening post for a swarm of US satellites that provide the intelligence feed for major US and Israeli military operations in the Middle East and now the Indian Ocean. It geolocates targets. It intercepts military communications. It detects missile launches and supports targeting. It cannot, as Cronau noted before the first strikes last year, not have been already involved.
When a US submarine sinks an Iranian ship in the Indian Ocean, an area directly within Pine Gap’s signals collection coverage, Australians have a right to know whether their facility, on their soil, provided the intelligence that killed those sailors. Wong’s answer: “We don’t comment on that facility.”
Wong assures us there is “a high degree of transparency in relation to the United States presence in Australia.”
You just can’t see it.
Or credit it. Or forgive her duplicity, The lie here is mind-boggling.
Yet now we learn that two US P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol and reconnaissance aircraft flew directly from Diego Garcia, the staging base for US operations across the Indian Ocean, to RAAF Base Pearce in Western Australia without prior public announcement, with flight plans lodged only once they were airborne. These are not joy rides. P-8A aircraft have been integral to Washington’s operations at the Strait of Hormuz. Their visit to Australian soil in the days following the bombing of Iran is not a coincidence. It is a data point.
Defence Minister Doughboy Richard Marles a US War Department dogsbody, doggedly declines to comment.
Greens Senator David Shoebridge nails it: “The Albanese Government needs to be clear about what support it is offering the US in its war on Iran. Labor’s claim that we are not offering support is plainly not true.”
The government does not want us to think about their epic credibility fail. That is the whole point.
The contempt is not limited to matters of war and peace. It runs through the entire fabric of how this government deals with Australians who have the temerity to ask questions. And to expect answers.
Albanese entered office in 2022 declaring that “the Australian people deserve accountability and transparency, not secrecy.” He criticised the Morrison government’s “cult of secrecy” and its “culture of cover-up.” Like a specialist performing a colonoscopy, he was going to shine a bright light into dark entrails. Instead he handed the patient a blindfold.
Not even under “Morrison Un-hosed” has freedom of information been so much of a running gag in a government which not only runs on the most expensive misinformation money can buy from its stable of top-end corporate consultancies but one which is very reluctant to share anything with anyone. Especially anything that might reveal its inner workings or help voters to hold it to account.
The Centre for Public Integrity finds that under Albanese, Freedom of Information requests granted in full have collapsed from 59 percent in 2011-12 to just 25 percent today. Outright refusals have nearly doubled to 23 percent. Almost half of initial decisions are found to be flawed on internal review. The Albanese government complies with Senate orders to produce documents only one-third of the time, a record worse than the Morrison government. The Centre’s Research Director, Catherine Williams, calls it a “deliberate effort to avoid scrutiny.” The government’s own record gives her no grounds to be contradicted.
This is not administrative slippage. This is policy.
What emerges from all of this is a government that has made a fundamental calculation: that Australian citizens do not need to know what is done in their name, with their money, on their soil, or at their risk.
They do not need to know whether their intelligence facilities are helping to kill sailors in the Indian Ocean.
They do not need to know whether US surveillance craft are operating out of Australian bases as part of a widening Middle Eastern war.
They do not need to know whether the strikes their government endorses are legal under the international law their government claims to champion.
They do not need to know what is in government documents that the Senate orders to be produced.
They do not need to ask. They just need to trust.
But trust, like international law, turns out to be something the Albanese government only demands of others.
There is a word for a government that maintains one set of rules for its allies and another for its adversaries, that invokes transparency as a slogan while systematically dismantling it in practice, that keeps citizens uninformed about activities on their own soil that may be drawing them into someone else’s war.
The word is untrustworthy.
Not dishonest in the flamboyant, self-destructive way of some politicians. This government is too careful for that. It is dishonest by omission, by evasion, by the rehearsed non-answer, by the careful deployment of “we don’t comment on that facility” as a substitute for democratic accountability.
Mark Carney, standing on Australian soil, said what Albanese and Wong won’t: the strikes appear inconsistent with international law, hegemons are acting without constraint, and the old world order is fraying. It took a visiting foreign leader to say plainly what our own government refuses to acknowledge.
That tells you something about how far we’ve travelled since Albanese promised us sunlight.
The US and Israeli strikes on Iran on the weekend present Australia with a difficult but necessary question: what does it mean to defend an “international rules-based order” if that defence is applied selectively?
Moments like this test whether our commitment to international law is principled or contingent.
Australia’s Foreign Minister moved swiftly to express support for the strikes. Yet their illegality was immediately apparent to leading legal experts worldwide, including clarion calls from Australia’s own Professor Ben Sauland Donald Rothwell. The unanimous verdict of the legal community is that the strikes were again, as was the case in June 2025, manifestly illegal under the UN Charter.
The prohibition on the use of force is a cornerstone of international law. Kick at it repeatedly, dislodge it enough, and the foundations begin to give way. Don’t for a moment let the flurry of legal opinions suggest that this is a rhetorical disagreement; it is a serious legal dispute about the limits of military power.
When powerful states stretch those limits, the consequences ripple outward. International law depends not only on formal enforcement, but on perception, consistency and restraint. If some states vest in themselves the authority to determine when force is justified, others will inevitably take note.
For a middle power like Australia, which relies on stable legal frameworks rather than strategic dominance, that erosion carries real cost. If Australia is serious about international law, it must apply the rules consistently to everyone, everywhere, at all times, including to its closest partners.
Then there is the deeper nuclear dimension.
Both the United States and Israel are nuclear-armed states. When nuclear-armed governments conduct strikes framed as counter-proliferation measures, it reinforces perceptions of hierarchy and hypocrisy in the global non-proliferation regime, centred on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
The NPT rests on a two-part bargain dating back to 1968: non-nuclear-weapon states agreed to forgo nuclear weapons while the five permanent members of the Security Council, who are nuclear-armed, promised that they would pursue disarmament “in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race…and a treaty on general and complete disarmament“. Progress by the nuclear-armed states on that second pillar stalled, while reliance on nuclear deterrence has become more deeply embedded in strategic doctrine, and four additional states have developed their own nuclear weapons.
This credibility gap is precisely why the citizen-led coalition, International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), created in Melbourne in 2007, worked with humanitarians worldwide, in particular the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement, to develop a treaty that makes nuclear weapons illegal and sets the stage for their elimination.
This treaty-led approach to banning inhumane weapons has already been achieved for all other weapons of mass destruction. ICAN is now led from Geneva by former ALP Federal Member for Fremantle, Melissa Parke, and has over 700 partner organisations who continue to advocate for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, the only legally binding global instrument that comprehensively prohibits nuclear weapons and establishes a pathway toward their elimination. Ninety-nine countries have joined this treaty.
Australia is not one of them.
Given our historical good standing on arms control, I’m often asked why this is, including by state and federal parliamentarians. The straight answer is that our government is fearful to confront our powerful ally, even on this topic on which the safety of life on earth rests, in fact, particularly on this topic.
Australia occupies an unusual position in the nuclear debate. We are not a nuclear-armed state. We do not host our own nuclear weapons. Yet we are deepening defence integration with nuclear-armed AUKUS allies, expanding force posture initiatives, hosting joint facilities, and embedding ourselves more tightly within extended deterrence arrangements. Alliance cooperation, we are told, brings clear benefits. It also brings exposure.
Retaliatory strikes on US facilities across the Gulf illustrate a basic reality: infrastructure associated with military operations become targets. As Australia expands access and interoperability, it is prudent, not disloyal, to assess how that affects our own vulnerability in a crisis. This is not an argument for abandoning alliances. It is an argument for clarity about trade-offs.
If Australia is prepared to criticise breaches of international law by adversaries, it must also be prepared to express principled concern when allies test those same rules. Selective application weakens the normative architecture we claim to uphold.
Military strikes can delay technical capabilities, but they don’t resolve the political drivers of proliferation. Durable non-proliferation outcomes have historically depended on negotiated constraints, verification and reciprocal commitments, not cycles of force and retaliation.
Security built on nuclear brinkmanship is brittle security.
The Australian government is not living up to the image of our nation as a principled, multilateral middle power that Prime Minister Albanese painted at the UN General Assembly last year when he said:
“If we give people reason to doubt the value of co-operation, then the risk of conflict becoming the default option grows. If we allow any nation to imagine itself outside the rules, or above them, then the sovereignty of every nation is eroded.”
Australia should walk the talk and swiftly reposition itself to buttress confidence in international law. The government should begin by publicly and repeatedly reaffirming that international law consistently, to allies and adversaries alike.
Next, it has a responsibility to clarify for itself and inform the public whether any joint facilities based in Australia played a role in supporting the strikes and take measures to ensure that Australian territory is not used to facilitate unlawful military action. Not to satisfy a journalist’s curiosity, but because it’s an obligation under international law.
Lastly, the government should demonstrate its commitment to diplomacy and, without further delay, join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons as part of a credible strategy to reduce nuclear risk. Numerous cities, councils and state and territory parliamentarians have signed a pledge in support of taking this action. So have a majority of federal Parliamentarians.
Australians want a world in which law constrains power. Our government must be prepared to defend that principle confidently and consistently, even and especially among allies.
At present, Australia risks being too quick to support force, and too slow to grow peace.
About the author
Tara Gutman is a lawyer and strategist specialised in international law at Lexbridge Lawyers. Tara is also Co-Chair of ICAN Australia.
Hidden review slams senior Liberals’ lack of reflection after devastating election loss,ABC 3 Mar 26
“…On nuclear energy, Mr Dutton said making the power plants government owned neutralised community concerns around safety, but provided Labor an attack line on cost.
“Labor didn’t lay a glove on the policy as such, but they were effective in their campaigning saying ‘he’s going to cut health, education and NDIS to pay for this’,” he said.
…The review deemed the almost six-month delay between the Coalition unveiling its plan to fund nuclear power stations and releasing the costings for it as “fatal”.
It was found that the gap allowed Labor to fill the vacuum with a “scare campaign”.
The federal secretariat had presented “considerable research” to Mr Dutton’s office outlining the significant effort required to win over voters sceptical of nuclear.
Under secretly-concluded arrangements with our allies, Australia is now on track to have US nuclear weapons on Australian soil for lengthy periods, starting very soon.
A new report released today details this dangerous development and exposes how the Australian community is being kept in the dark about it.
The report by civil society group Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR) examines efforts by the Albanese government to facilitate the increasing presence of nuclear weapons capable aircraft and submarines.
“Many Australians are completely unaware that under current agreements with the US Australian airfields and port facilities will be hosting US aircraft and subs that could be carrying nuclear weapons. And those visits will increase dramatically, possibly in breach of the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty,” said AWPR spokesperson Peter Murphy.
“A massive 1.6 billion dollars is currently being spent to upgrade the Tindal RAAF base in the Northern Territory and media reports describe six B-52, long-range, nuclear-capable bombers being “housed” there. But so far there’s been no proper public debate about Australia’s increasing involvement in the US nuclear weapons system.”
The Albanese government currently has a “we don’t ask” policy when it comes to whether US aircraft and ships are carrying nuclear weapons while in Australia. At the same time the US has a “neither confirm nor deny” policy on nuclear weapons. These policies are unwarranted and unacceptable.
“It’s time to end the secrecy on nuclear weapons and let the public have an informed debate. Do we really want these weapons of mass destruction in Australia? Shouldn’t the parliament discuss and vote on these matters?”
Australians have consistently rejected any role for nuclear weapons in our defence policies. A national poll last year revealed that two-thirds of Australians want the government to sign and ratify the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).
“In this new report we are also urging the government to initiate a full independent inquiry into the AUKUS pact, as repeatedly called for by civil society and former prime ministers and foreign ministers. It should include a comprehensive review of Australia’s policies on nuclear weapons,” Peter Murphy said.
The full report “Australia and US Nuclear Weapons: Time to End the Secrecy” is available here
Antinuclear 