Antinuclear

Pat Conroy,Australia’s Minister for Defence Industry in denial about U.S. military bases (?targets) in Australia

Colin Mitchell, 31 July 26

On the 7.30 Report (Wed night) Pat Conroy would only talk about the current 5 year agreement for Rotational Force West due to end in 2032.  Presumably the agreement could be renewed or another agreement made in 2032 for another 5 years or longer.  He would not explicitly say that US subs would not come to HMAS Stirling after 2032 when asked directly by Sarah Ferguson on that.  Instead he simply repeated that the current agreement ends in 2032. 

“There are no foreign military bases in Australia” he said.  What a whopper! (Pine Gap and NWCape are “joint” US – Australian bases).

He insisted that US Subs will not be “based” here, simply rotated through, because they will not be at Stirling for more than a year!

He wouldn’t give any shorter time limit than a year.

As for the Treaty of Rarotonga that Treaty does not prevent nuclear weapons entering Australia as he implied.  It merely says that they can’t be “stationed” here.  What length of time “stationing” would be is not defined in the Treaty.  That leaves a gaping loophole in the Treaty.  The shortest time Pat Conroy would specify for Stirling is one year!  The Treaty of Rarotonga is no barrier to nuclear weapons transiting or “rotating” through Australia, with the length of time constituting  a “transit” or “rotation” not specified.  Pat Conroy’s idea would be anything less than a year.

A sub could go to sea and then come back again for another year!   Likewise a plane could fly out on an exercise and come back again.

Yes the US will respect the Treaty of Rarotonga because the Treaty does not prevent nuclear weapons from being in Australia for extended periods of time.

August 2, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | weapons and war | Leave a comment

AUKUS Inquiry exposes nuclear weapon-sized crater

by Rex Patrick | Jul 25, 2026, https://michaelwest.com.au/aukus-inquiry-exposes-nuclear-weapon-sized-crater/

The AUKUS Public Inquiry has reminded Australians of a nuclear weapon proliferation problem that the Government is yet to solve and one that could change the program from full-steam-ahead to a dead stop. 

AUKUS Public Inquiry 

It’s the inquiry the Labor government and Coalition opposition didn’t want. It’s the “AUKUS Inquiry unauthorised!”

The inquiry will likely have little direct effect on Prime Minister Albanese and his Cabinet National Security Committee.

They’re completely blinded by the gold epaulets on the shoulders of the admirals that are briefing them (the same admirals who spent $3B not buying French submarines, buying the most expensive frigates known to man and procuring patrol boats that were found not fit for purpose).

But the Inquiry will inform the public.

Nuclear weapon material

One very useful submission to the Inquiry was from Tilman Ruff, a Nobel laureate. He laid out some facts about the nuclear fuel inside a Virginia Class submarine’s reactor.

At the start of their life every Virginia class submarine has about 650 kg of highly enriched uranium that will power the vessel’s reactor. That’s a 93% enrichment – 610 kg of fissionable uranium-235. At the end of each submarine’s life the fuel elements in the reactor still be 83% enriched – 375 kg of uranium 235. The Hiroshima bomb was 80% U-235.

Waste responsibility

Australia must deal with the waste from our AUKUS submarines. By binding treaty agreement with the United States and the United Kingdom, AUKUS provides that “Australia shall be responsible for the management, disposition, storage, and disposal of any spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste resulting from the operation of Naval Nuclear Propulsion Plants …”

The Australian Government is doing everything it can to not talk about how it will deal with nuclear waste. It recently lodged an appeal in the Federal Court to try to overturn a Freedom of Information win on the topi

Whatever they ultimately do on the waste front, it’s going to be expensive.

Tilman told the AUKUS Public Inquiry that AUKUS nuclear waste needs a really high level of security because “in 10,000 years, someone could still go and dig that stuff up and build nuclear weapons with it”.

Non-proliferation risk

And therein lies one of the problems with AUKUS that the Government has been unable to solve.

Australia is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, a treaty to limit the spread of nuclear weapons and associated materials and technology.

Under the Treaty, non-nuclear-weapon states (including Australia) are obligated to not manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons.

Correspondingly, nuclear-weapon states (including the US and the UK) are obligated not to transfer nuclear weapons to any recipient, and not in any way to assist, encourage or induce any non-nuclear-weapon state to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons.

IAEA decision the key

Associated with the Treaty are legally binding Comprehensive Safeguard Agreements between a signatory country and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to allow the IAEA to verify that a country’s nuclear material is being used only for peaceful purposes and not diverted to nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.

Article 14 of the treaty allows Australia to pursue naval nuclear propulsion, but it requires that we renegotiate our Comprehensive Safeguard Agreement, originally agreed in 1974 with no contemplation of operating weapon grade naval reactors.

If we do not reach agreement with the IAEA, the US and UK will not transfer submarines to Australia

Follow the money

Australia commenced negotiations on a new Comprehensive Safeguard Agreement in May 2023. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has taken the lead on the negotiations.

There has been considerable secrecy from the Government in relation to progress on the Agreement, which is opposed by several countries including Indonesia, Malaysia and China. Opposing countries argue that

“AUKUS could weaken the non-proliferation regime.“

Information on progress has been limited. So MWM has followed the money.

In the 2023-24 Budget, DFAT was allocated $35M for financial year 23/24 and $40M for 24/25 to provide legal, policy and diplomatic support for AUKUS non-proliferation related negotiations. No money was allocated for financial years 25/26 or 26/27.

In the 2024-25 budget optimism was still alive with $40M remaining allocated for that financial year and, again, nothing allocated in 25/26 or 26/27.

In the 2025-26 budget optimism had faded and another $39M was thrown in to the pot to cover ongoing negotiations. Nothing was allocated for the following years.

This year’s Budget papers are telling. It allocated $43M for this financial year and includes $44M for 27/28.

“The negotiations have gone from a two year $75M task to a four year $200M task (at least).“

Like happens so often with Defence projects, the whole thing has been a complete under-estimation.

Nuclear explosion-sized crater

When MWM made the first ever FOI request for an Australian Submarine Agency’s Budget Estimate’s Brief (October 2023) there were seven pages dedicated to nuclear non-proliferation. In the latest Budget Estimate’s Brief (June 2026) there was nothing.

If the IAEA does not reach agreement with Australia, whether for political or technical reasons, AUKUS is dead. The price of then proceeding without IAEA agreement would be to risk a catastrophic breakdown of the already shaky nuclear non-proliferation regime.

“That would be something the AUKUS powers could not afford. “

The US and UK can walk away, thankful for the billions in taxpayer’s dollars that we’ve gifted to their industry. And even more will have been wasted here in Australia.

We’ll be left with a nuclear explosion sized crater in our Defence budget with nothing to show for it. The money will be gone, and our national security will have been compromised.

August 1, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | weapons and war | Leave a comment

Are Australian military exports fuelling massacres in Sudan?

by Andrew Bartlett | Jul 28, 2026 |, https://michaelwest.com.au/are-australian-military-exports-fuelling-massacres-in-sudan/

While the heat is on Defence for arms sales to Israel, the government is mute on its role enabling the atrocities in Sudan. President of Australians for War Powers Reform Andrew Bartlett reports.

A great deal has been said about Australian military exports to Israel during the genocide in Gaza and despite a series of denials from the Albanese government, there is clear evidence that some exports are continuing.

But there is now credible evidence that Australia may be contributing to serious atrocities in another conflict zone – Sudan – where appalling civilian massacres have been documented over the past two years.

As an example of how grave the situation is in Sudan, in February the BBC reported that 6000 civilians were killed in one city in just three days.

In November last year, multiple media outlets published satellite images of the city of El Fasher in which piles of dead bodies could be seen from space.

A brutal militia group called the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) is actively engaged in a massive civil war against the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF).

According to the UN, both sides have committed severe atrocities, war crimes, and human rights violations since the war began.

Why is Australia involved?

But how on earth is Australia involved?

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is accused of providing weapons and resources to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan.

Despite this, Australia continues to export military equipment to the UAE – in fact, almost $300 million worth in the last five years.

If there is even a slight chance that our exports are being used to slaughter large numbers of unarmed civilians, you’d think the government would at the very least properly investigate this possibility.

But there are no signs that the government has taken any action, and getting straight answers from them about our arms trade with the UAE is like pulling teeth.

Human rights groups and civil society groups have both warned the government about this possibility and asked questions about the trade, but the result has been PR doublespeak. 

Defence plays a deadbat 

In December, Greens Senator David Shoebridge grilled senior defence officials in Senate estimates about exports to either Sudan or the UAE, but he got no answers.

For half an hour the officials simply recited policy documents but did not provide any meaningful answers about the transfer of sensitive goods to this bloody conflict.

One official said he didn’t know if there were any existing exports permits for Sudan and that he would have to go back and check the records. 

They were asked, given the civilian bloodshed, whether any permits were under review. No answer was forthcoming.

Under the Arms Trade Treaty, which Australia has signed, states are prohibited from transferring military equipment if they are likely to be used in attacks directed against civilians.

Our organisation, Australians for War Powers Reform, has also sought answers on these matters and has faced blatant stonewalling.

Wong and Marles duck

We wrote to Foreign Minister Penny Wong in November and received a response from the Defence Department which did not address any of the questions raised.

We have also contacted Defence Minister Richard Marles on two occasions and have not received a response.

In August last year, 64 civil society organisations, including the ACTU, Amnesty International, The National Council of Churches and The Human Rights Law Centre, called for a parliamentary review of Australia’s growing arms export sector, to ensure compliance with the Arms Trade Treaty.

“This call too has fallen on deaf ears”.

The level of secrecy and the complete lack of accountability is unacceptable.

The Australian community does not want weapons or other military equipment being used in a brutal civil war, where civilians are targeted en masse.

At present there is no reliable way to establish if our exports are making their way to Sudan and that’s for one reason only – the government won’t tell us.

ICC weighs in

This week the International Criminal Court reported a breakthrough in its investigation of atrocities in Sudan.

The court says it now has concrete evidence linking the RSF militia to war crimes and that charges were likely to follow.

The ICC system is notoriously slow, and charges will not stop war crimes in the near future.

The Albanese government should act immediately to thoroughly investigate our involvement and cancel or pause any suspect export permits.

August 1, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | weapons and war | Leave a comment

A global threat for millennia: experts warn Australia’s nuclear submarine legacy will be weapons-usable uranium cache

Ben Doherty,25 June 26, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/25/aukus-nuclear-submarines-danger-weapons-grade-uranium

 Uranium waste from Aukus submarines will be enriched to an estimated 80%: the same level as the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

Australia’s proposed nuclear submarine fleet will leave behind tonnes of weapons-usable uranium-235: radioactive for hundreds of millions of years, and capable of being processed into scores of warheads, nuclear experts have told a public inquiry into Aukus.

And a former White House national security adviser has told the Guardian that Australia’s Aukus deal – involving the transfer of highly enriched uranium to a non-nuclear weapons nation – sets a dangerous proliferation precedent that other countries such as Iran could try to exploit, weakening global control of the spread of weapons-usable nuclear material.

Associate Prof Tilman Ruff, founding chair of the Nobel prize-winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, told the Aukus public inquiry that the legacy of Australia’s nuclear submarine fleet – of which each vessel will have a service life of about three decades – will be hundreds of kilograms of high-level radioactive waste. Even as waste, the submarines’ spent reactor fuel will be highly enriched uranium (HEU), usable to build nuclear weapons.

“No nation has resolved the huge problem of how to manage this material and there’s no guarantee – given the timeframes involved and the hazards of the material over geological time – that any arrangement that we come up with could reliably isolate that material for hundreds of thousands, or millions of years.

“The additional complication here is that it needs a really high level of security because, in 10,000 years, somebody could still go and dig that stuff up and build nuclear weapons with it.”

The uranium left behind by Australia’s nuclear submarines at the end of their working lives will likely still be enriched to about 80%: the same level as the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

The Australian government has repeatedly said the precise amount of high-level nuclear waste that will be left behind by its submarine fleet is classified.

But documents released under freedom of information laws show Australia will be responsible for each submarine’s nuclear reactor compartment, “roughly the size of a four-wheel drive”, and spent nuclear fuel “roughly the size of a small hatchback”.

Leading global experts on non-proliferation have now estimated each nuclear submarine decommissioned by Australia – beginning in the 2050s – will contain about 400kg of HEU, enriched to about 80%, containing about 320kg of uranium-235 (U-235).

The International Atomic Energy Agency states a “significant quantity” of highly enriched uranium – enough to make a weapon – is 25kg of contained U-235.

U-235 has a half-life of 700m years: it will be a weapons proliferation risk for millennia. And the radioactive materials generated by its fission process will be toxic to humanity and the environment for millions of years.

The HEU left behind by each one of Australia’s three second-hand Virginia-class submarines bought from the US would be sufficient for more than a dozen weapons.

Australia’s domestically built Aukus-class submarines – Australia is proposing to build five – will be powered by Rolls-Royce’s in-development PWR3+ reactor. The quantity of HEU required to power that reactor is classified but they are expected to be larger than the Virginia-class reactors, Ruff said.

The Aukus agreement mandates that Australia is responsible for the disposal and storage of all of the nuclear waste left behind by its nuclear-powered submarines in perpetuity

By the end of the century, when all eight of Australia’s planned nuclear powered submarines have been retired, Australia will be responsible for the management of “at least 3 tonnes” of U-235 in the highly enriched uranium spent fuel waste, Ruff told the Guardian.

“That’s enough for 120 nuclear weapons using the International Atomic Energy Agency standard.”

Australia has spent decades reducing its HEU stocks. There is presently less than 3kg of HEU in the entire country, held for research purposes.

Ruff told the public inquiry into Aukus, established by the Australian Peace and Security Forum, that his primary concern over Aukus was that it exacerbated regional tensions and made Australia “a higher priority target, including for nuclear attack”.

Ruff cited the work of Dr Frank von Hippel, senior research physicist and professor of public and international affairs emeritus at Princeton University, who estimated that the reactor of a Virginia-class submarine – such as those Australia is set to buy from the US – would be decommissioned at the end of its working life still containing about 400kg of HEU, enriched to about 80%.

Von Hippel, who served as an assistant director for national security in the Clinton White House, told the Guardian “by the IAEA’s metric, 0.4 tons of 80% enriched uranium would be sufficient for 13 implosion bombs”.skip past newsletter promotion

July 28, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | weapons and war | Leave a comment

Billions of dollars are failing to lift production of AUKUS submarines.

Michael Koziol, SMH, July 24, 2026 

Washington: Billions of dollars of additional funding for the US defence industrial base have not improved the production rate of Virginia-class submarines, a top Pentagon official says, casting further doubt on whether Australia will receive its AUKUS subs on schedule.

Austin Dahmer, a senior policy official at the US Department of Defence, told a hearing on Capitol Hill that while undersea forces were the decisive instrument in denying Chinese domination of the Pacific, they were also the forces the US was the least able to produce.

“Virginia-class boats have been delivering at roughly 1.1 to 1.2 a year since 2022, against a requirement of two to 2.33, counting AUKUS pillar one,” he said.

“Two per year is not now expected until roughly 2032 … The strategy is sound. Production capacity is the point of failure.”

The US Congress has approved billions in additional funding to build submarines, while Australia has tipped in at least $US2 billion ($2.84 billion) with another $US1 billion to come. But Dahmer said the extra money had not helped.

“I would underline that Congress has already appropriated [funds] substantially, and the rate has not moved,” he said. “Any recommendations that consist of more money without a mechanism to materially compress those timelines will not change the outlook.”

Dahmer is a deputy to Elbridge Colby, the undersecretary of defence for policy who has in the past expressed scepticism about AUKUS. He made the comments to the National Commission on the Future of the Navy on Wednesday (US time) during a hearing on ways to improve US sea power.

Afterwards, he told this masthead the navy was working hard to improve delivery of the Virginia-class submarines so that a future administration would be in the best possible position when it decides whether to transfer a vessel to Australia………………..

The comments underscore the practical hurdles facing AUKUS despite the political commitment from all three countries, and come as Australian Labor Party members prepare for a possibly fiery debate about the pact at their national conference in Adelaide.

Under the $368 billion-plus agreement, Australia is due to receive at least three nuclear-powered submarines from the US starting in 2032, before building a new class of the vessel, the SSN-AUKUS, with the UK.

The US has now clarified all three of the submarines it proposes to sell to Australia will already be in service, rather than new. But the president of the day must approve the transfer and be satisfied it does not degrade US war-fighting capability.

Arthur “Trip” Barber, a retired 40-year veteran of the US Navy and the Pentagon, who now sits on the National Commission on the Future of the Navy, said the fundamental problem was shipyard wages, and their inability to retain workers.

“We need to pay shipyard workers a compelling amount of money so they stay on the job,” he told this masthead……………….

A staunch AUKUS supporter who is now a defence lobbyist, Christopher Pyne told the inquiry he did not believe the project would be delivered on time nor on budget, but “they’ll give it a good go”.

Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles was contacted for comment. His office referred inquiries to the government’s Australian Submarine Agency………… https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/billions-of-dollars-are-failing-to-lift-production-of-aukus-submarines-20260723-p60hq7.html

July 27, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | weapons and war | Leave a comment