Australian nuclear-related news -week to 11 July
Australian news -week to 11 July
- Australian uranium to supercharge Indian nuclear power surge in breakthrough deal
- Vile abuse, targeted by Murdoch – The cost of speaking out against Israel
- 23 July Nuclear Weapons Survivors film screening – Adelaide!
- Liberal frontbencher gorges on nuclear freebies.
- Former WA health chief warns AUKUS inquiry of ‘nuclear disaster waiting to happen’
- India, Australia set to seal uranium supply pact during PM Modi’s visit.
The hypersonic hypocrisy of Pacific nuclear politics
Australia and New Zealand rightly criticise China’s nuclear-capable missile tests in the Pacific. Their silence on repeated US tests exposes a glaring double standard.
In March, the US launched a Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile from the Vandenberg Space Force Base, California. Travelling at speeds of more than 24,000 kilometres an hour, it landed near the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands 6,700 kilometres away 24 minutes later.
Minuteman III missiles can deliver up to three separate nuclear warheads, each more than 20 times as powerful as the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
On 3 March, 2025, the Marshall Islands formally announced its intention to join the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone by signing the Treaty of Rarotonga.
Searches of the NZ Herald and Stuff websites for stories about the missile test, and the signing of the treaty come up empty.
And yet, on Tuesday, both the NZ Herald and The Post led with news that China had test-fired a nuclear-capable ballistic missile in the Pacific. Neither report made any mention of the 15 ballistic missile tests fired into the Pacific by the USA since 2021.
New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters and his Australian counterpart, Penny Wong, were both quoted as saying the Chinese missile test went against the intent of the Treaty of Rarotonga.
“The Pacific Islands Forum leaders have made clear that they want the Pacific to be an ocean of peace. We believe this test is inconsistent with that objective,” Wong said.
Wong isn’t wrong.
In 2024, Kiribati publicly criticised an earlier test of a Minuteman III missile that also landed in the Ronald Reagan Space and Missile Test Range located near the Kwajalein Atoll. As the name suggests, the tests are a regular occurrence.
A statement from the President’s office, reported by RNZ, said Kiribati objected equally to China and the US using the South Pacific for test-firing nuclear-capable missiles.
“Kiribati continues to advocate for the cessation of weapons testing in the Pacific Ocean and urges global cooperation to ensure the peace, security, and stability of our shared environment. We remain committed to protecting the peaceful future of the Pacific and safeguarding the well-being of future generations.”
It’s a thought – almost – echoed by Winston Peters in his response to the Chinese test: “This missile was fired into the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone established by the Treaty of Rarotonga. China’s action goes against the object and intent of that Treaty.”
You’ll search long and hard to find any similar criticism of the US missile tests by Ministers Peters and Wong. That’s despite the people of the Marshall Islands themselves and the leaders of neighbouring countries making it clear any testing of ballistic missiles in the Pacific goes against the spirit of the Treaty of Rarotonga.
The Chinese missile test is widely being reported as a response to Australia and Fiji’s signing of the Ocean of Peace Alliance the previous day.
Without confirmation from China, it’s impossible to know for certain, but it seems likely that the alliance – which New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has expressed interest in signing up to – is seen as a ratcheting up of military tensions in the South Pacific.
When it comes to the “object and intent” of the Treaty of Rarotonga, mentioned by Peters, few if any of the signatories would have countenanced one of their members purchasing nuclear-powered submarines.
But in 2023, Australia announced it was doing just that with the planned purchase of three nuclear submarines at an estimated cost of more than A$300 billion (about 15 times the combined GDP of the Forum countries excluding New Zealand and Australia).
Shortly after the announcement, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Damukana Sogavare told the UN General Assembly that his nation “would like to keep our region nuclear-free and put the region’s nuclear legacy behind us… We do not support any form of militarisation in our region that could threaten regional and international peace and stability.”
The legacy Sogavare mentions is nowhere felt more keenly than the Marshall Islands, where the US carried out 67 atmospheric nuclear tests between 1946 and 1956, resulting in sky-high rates of thyroid cancer.
The US has paid out just US$150 million in compensation despite the internationally mandated Marshall Islands Nuclear Claims Tribunal having awarded over US$2 billion in personal injury and property claims.
A survey by the Asia New Zealand Foundation earlier this year found that just 23 per cent of New Zealanders viewed China as a threat, compared to 35 per cent who saw the US as one.
The US has more than 5,000 nuclear warheads with 1,700 actively deployed; China has 620 with 34 deployed.
China has a long-standing policy of no-first-use of nuclear weapons, while the US refuses to rule it out.
When our leaders claim to be supporting Pacific countries in their commitment to a nuclear-free Pacific by rightly criticising China’s missile tests while steadfastly refusing to criticise the USA’s regular testing of intercontinental nuclear-capable ballistic missiles, they’re indulging in hypersonic hypocrisy.
23 July Nuclear Weapons Survivors film screening – Adelaide!
ICAN Australia is honoured to be bringing the Australian premiere of the award-winning documentary ‘Our Planet, The People, My Blood’, a powerful documentary about the global legacy of nuclear testing, to Adelaide this month!
We are thrilled and lucky to be joined by UK film director Daniel Everitt-Lock, as well as The Hon Melissa Parke, Executive Director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. Plus more speakers to be announced!
Australian Premiere: ‘Our Planet, The People, My Blood’ documentary
Thu, 23 Jul, 10am – 12pm ACST
The Mercury
13 Morphett St, Adelaide SA 5000
Link to register and more information here.
Tickets are free – but registration essential. Numbers strictly limited to venue capacity.
This documentary follows Alan Owen, descendant of an Atomic Soldier, as he fights for nuclear testing victims’ rights worldwide. Following his journey through global accounts, he challenges the UK Ministry of Defence in a landmark case seeking recognition and features testimony from communities. The film also includes other nuclear survivors, including Jeremy Lebois from Oak Valley, near Maralinga, South Australia.
This event coincides with the ALP National Conference, So please share this widely with your civil society and MP networks, both in Adelaide and whose who may be visiting Adelaide for ALP proceedings.
Cooperation yes, uranium no: planned uranium sales to India would facilitate certain nuclear waste and risk and possible nuclear weapons
Dave Sweeney | Nuclear Free Campaigner, Australian Conservation Foundation | www.acf.org.au, 9 July 26
In response to news of a major uranium deal between Australia and India, the Australian Conservation Foundation’s Dave Sweeney said:
“There are serious and unresolved concerns about plans to elevate Australian uranium sales to India.
“For more than a decade there has been a civil nuclear cooperation agreement with India but regulatory concerns have constrained exports.
“A Joint Standing Committee on Treaties examination of the deal in September 2015 recommended a series of clear steps occur before any Australian uranium was supplied to India.
“It said important changes and checks and balances were needed, including independent review of India’s nuclear regulatory regime, improved safety standards, the full separation of India’s military and civil nuclear facilities, improved nuclear decommissioning planning and comprehensive on-site inspections from the International Atomic Energy Agency.
“These concerns remain relevant today. There are compelling reasons for Australia not to send uranium to India.
“Australian uranium would fuel radioactive risk and waste and potentially allow the diversion of domestic uranium reserves to fuel India’s nuclear weapons program in an already tense region.
Some in the Indian government basically have admitted as much, including the former head of New Delhi’s official National Security Advisory Board, K. Subrahmanyam who outlined to the Times of India that given ‘India’s uranium ore crunch, it is to India’s advantage to categorize as many power reactors as possible as civilian ones to be refuelled by imported uranium and conserve our native uranium fuel for weapon-grade plutonium production’.
“Australia regularly cites the importance of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, yet India – a nuclear weapons state – is not a signatory to the NPT.
“Australia should not facilitate atomic exceptionalism or risk in the region.
“Like Australia, India’s energy future is renewable, not radioactive. That is the policy area that the Australia and Indian prime ministers should be preferencing”.
Vile abuse, targeted by Murdoch – The cost of speaking out against Israel
by Stephanie Tran | Jul 2, 2026, https://michaelwest.com.au/hitlers-jew-judenrat-kapo-the-cost-of-speaking-out-against-israel/
Executive Director of the Jewish Council of Australia, Sarah Schwartz, has told the Bondi Royal Commission of sustained abuse by pro-Israel activists. Stephanie Tran reports.
Giving evidence on Thursday, Sarah Schwartz, a human rights lawyer, said attacks from pro-Israel groups sought to delegitimise Jewish people who criticise Israel.
“They rest on the idea that Jewish identity is inherently tied to Israel, and therefore Jewish people who don’t support Israel or who criticise Israel are not really Jewish and are traitors,” she told the Commission.
Schwartz said she had been referred to as a “self-hating Jew”, “Hitler’s Jew”, “kapo” and “Judenrat”, and had been depicted using Holocaust imagery, including “on a train to concentration camps” and with the yellow Star of David imposed on Jews under Nazi rule.
Holocaust weaponised
She said the atrocities of the Holocaust were a motivation for her Palestine solidarity work and the weaponisation by pro-Israel accounts of Holocaust imagery was “incredibly disturbing”.
“I was taught that never again meant never again for anyone, and that’s why I do the work that I do,” Schwartz said.
“To have the symbols of the Holocaust and Nazi imagery and Jewish persecution used against me has been incredibly disturbing and distressing, and I think it
Schwartz said the stereotype that all Jewish people are politically aligned with Israel “causes immense harm”.
“I speak … almost every day to Jewish people who contact me and who are terrified of speaking out, because they know that if they speak their political convictions, they face the risk of a similar sort of abuse and vilification and targeting that I have experienced.”
Murdoch media coverage fuelled abuse
Schwartz told the commission that reporting by The Australian undermined her safety and ultimately led her to abandon a police application intended to protect her from ongoing harassment.
She recounted an incident in March 2025 after police applied for a personal safety intervention order (PSIO) on her behalf against lawyer Zara Cooper, who targeted Schwartz on Instagram under the pseudonym “@clammy_fraud”.
Schwartz said she first learned of the application through a journalist from The Australian, who contacted her to say the newspaper was preparing a story.
“I informed him I hadn’t been informed of the nature of the PSIO,” she said.
“When I asked him if he could provide me with a copy, he said he couldn’t provide me with a copy … because I didn’t know its contents, I also couldn’t really respond to a lot of it, because it was a police application.”
Schwartz said the following day’s front-page article incorrectly suggested she, rather than police, had initiated the proceedings in an attempt to suppress free speech.
Free speech for me, not for thee
he told the Commission that The Australian subsequently published further articles about the case, including reproducing images and slurs that formed part of the material relied upon by police in seeking the intervention order.
“What was most distressing to me is The Australian chose to republish some of the offensive imagery that was the basis on which police applied for the PSIO,” she said.
“[The Australian] republished content that took my image and placed it on a train to concentration camps, content calling me a kapo and other various slurs.”
Schwartz said the coverage convinced her that pursuing legal protection would expose her to further public attention and place her at greater risk.
“It became very clear to me after that coverage that this was becoming a media circus,” she said.
“Having reported these matters to police … was actually something that was
“going to make me less safe because of the media coverage.”
She subsequently told police she no longer wished to proceed with the intervention order, and the application was withdrawn. She has since been reluctant to report further incidents because she fears doing so would attract similar publicity.
“It’s become very clear to me that, because of the media interest in me as a person, but particularly because of News Corp’s targeting of me, it’s not going to be safe for me to engage in reporting,” she said.
She also expressed concern that republishing the abusive material normalised antisemitic attacks against Jewish critics of Israel.
“I think that media reporting really normalises the use of these terms against other Jewish people … people see that coverage and think that it is legitimate to call a Jewish person Nazi-aligned or to place our face on a train to concentration camps.”
Being Pro-Palestine is not antisemitism
Schwartz dispelled suggestions that pro-Palestinian activism is a significant driver of antisemitism, stating that, despite attempts to portray Palestine solidarity spaces as hostile to Jews, that had not reflected her own experience.
“I know that there is a lot of public discourse … that suggests that human rights spaces and Palestine solidarity spaces, in particular, are spaces that might be hostile to Jewish people,” she said.
“That hasn’t been my experience at all.”
Instead, Schwartz said she had received “many messages of support and clear condemnations of antisemitism” from Muslim colleagues following the Bondi terror attack.
Government response
Schwartz criticised the government’s responses to antisemitism, which have disproportionately focused on the Palestine solidarity movement, including the banning of protest slogans.
“I think that government responses, which locate the source of anti-Semitism within the Palestine solidarity movement, suggest for Jewish people who are also part of that movement that either we’re not really Jewish or that we are somehow against Jewish people in our own communities.”
Asked what measures would most effectively combat antisemitism, Schwartz said governments should prioritise addressing far-right extremism and
“It’s really important for us to take the threat of far-right extremism really seriously … we know that it’s rising and it’s becoming more mainstream,” she said.
“It is critically important that governments and institutions don’t adopt policies in response to antisemitism that engage in that form of conflation itself that suggests that antisemitism is coming from the Palestine solidarity movement.”
She also called for progressive Jewish organisations to be included in policymaking on antisemitism.
“It’s really important that organisations such as the Jewish Council and other progressive Jewish organizations actually have a seat at the table” she said.
“It shows the broader community that
“the Jewish community, like every community, has a diversity of opinions.”
Australian uranium to supercharge Indian nuclear power surge in breakthrough deal
Matthew Knott, July 8, 2026
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Indian counterpart Narendra Modi are set to strike a breakthrough deal to unleash a surge of Australian uranium exports to India, ending more than a decade of delays since the nations signed a historic nuclear co-operation pact.
Modi, one of the world’s most powerful leaders, was scheduled to arrive in Melbourne on Wednesday night for meetings with Albanese on Thursday and what is set to be a raucous rally at Marvel Stadium where Modi will be cheered by 30,000 members of the Indian-Australian community.
Sources familiar with the planning of the visit said the leaders were expected to sign a long-awaited commercial uranium supply agreement, as flagged by this masthead in June, alongside pacts on critical minerals and defence co-operation.
Albanese told reporters on Wednesday he would have more to say about uranium exports to India in the coming days, as he flagged that he and Modi would make “a range of announcements” during the visit.
Australia and India signed a nuclear co-operation pact in 2014 which was controversial at the time, including within the Labor Party, because India has not signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
Modi wants Australia’s uranium to power India’s data centre boom
There have been only negligible uranium shipments over the past 12 years due to technical and regulatory barriers in India.
Changes to Indian safeguards have now paved the way for significant quantities of uranium to be exported for peaceful purposes.
India is planning a massive increase in nuclear power capacity to help reduce its reliance on fossil fuels and power the boom in data centres linked to artificial intelligence.
Major tech companies such as Google, Meta and Amazon are pumping billions of dollars into data centres in India, the world’s most populous nation with 1.47 billion people.
India has set an ambitious target to have 100GW of nuclear power capacity by 2047, 10 times greater than current levels.
The state-owned Nuclear Power Corporation Of India has said the country planned to add 18 more nuclear reactors to its energy mix by 2032.
Sources in the resources sector, who were not authorised to speak publicly, said Australian uranium companies were eager to seize opportunities to export to India and were willing to expand their operations if necessary.
Australia has the world’s largest uranium reserves – almost a third of the global total – according to the World Nuclear Association, but is only the world’s fourth-largest producer.
Uranium mining is banned in NSW, Queensland and Western Australia.
Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said during a meeting with Foreign Minister Penny Wong in May: “On the energy side, we have energy trade, we are looking to expand that as well into the uranium supplies.
“Our own nuclear sector has undergone reform, which will grow nuclear energy.”
Albanese described Modi as “the boss” during a stadium rally in Sydney during his last visit in 2023, prompting concerns from human rights advocates that he had not spoken out about discrimination towards minorities and democratic backsliding in India under Modi’s watch.
Pranav Aggarwal, from the Australia-India Foundation, said members of the Indian diaspora were travelling from Perth, Darwin, Auckland and Tasmania to attend the stadium rally in Melbourne.
Albanese will also speak at the event.
Former WA health chief warns AUKUS inquiry of ‘nuclear disaster waiting to happen’
A former Western Australian public health chief has warned the AUKUS inquiry that there is a ‘nuclear disaster waiting to happen’, arguing there is no safety plan to protect Perth communities in the event of a major nuclear accident at naval base HMAS Stirling.
By Tegan George,Tue 30 Jun 2026, https://thepoint.com.au/new/260630-former-wa-health-chief-warns-aukus-inquiry-of-nuclear-disaster-waiting-to-happen
A former Western Australian public health chief has warned the AUKUS inquiry that there is a ‘nuclear disaster waiting to happen’, arguing there is no safety plan to protect Perth communities in the event of a major nuclear accident at naval base HMAS Stirling.
Dr Colin Hughes, the former head of Public Health in Perth, told the independent inquiry that governments had failed to adequately prepare for the possibility of a nuclear accident involving visiting or serviced submarines.
“There is actually no nuclear safety plan for Rockingham, Kwinana, or the people of Fremantle and Perth in the case of a major nuclear catastrophe,” he said.
Dr Hughes described a worst-case scenario involving a major incident at a submarine servicing facility, triggering explosions, fires, radiation leaks and mass evacuations across Perth’s southern suburbs.
“Concrete slabs are scattered across access roads, twisted steel hangs from shattered structures,” he said.
“Sections of the reactor building are simply gone. Fires burn in dozens of locations.
He said emergency responders would be confronted by an “invisible threat”.
“Radiation cannot be seen. It has no smell, no colour, no warning.
“Radiation alarms on emergency vehicles begin sounding, and some responders stare at the readings, unsure whether the instruments are malfunctioning.
“Commanders quickly realise this is not a normal fire.”
Dr Hughes said the scenario had been developed with the assistance of ChatGPT and was based on historical nuclear disasters, including Chernobyl and Fukushima.
“The precautionary principle in medicine is always to take the worst-case scenario and to say, ‘we need to be able to plan for it and prevent it’,” he told the inquiry.
Under the AUKUS agreement, Australia will purchase three second-hand Virginia-class submarines from the United States, with deliveries expected from the early 2030s.
Dr Hughes argued governments needed to answer some fundamental questions before moving ahead with the trilateral security pact.
“Where is the hazard equipment for our first responders to be able to go down there and extract people who have been injured? And where do they go? What are the hospital facilities?” he asked.
“Where’s the map that says this childcare centre, that kindergarten, that school, that aged care centre — how many people are there? Where are they going to go, and how are we going to do it?
“Because that is what we need to know as a population.”
Commissioner Dr Carmen Lawrence, a former WA Premier, said comparisons with overseas nuclear submarine bases highlighted how little information was available to communities living near HMAS Stirling.
“I’ve had a good look at some of the material that exists in the UK and the US, in communities that are home bases for nuclear-powered vessels and, in some cases, nuclear-armed vessels,” she said.
“And I have to say on the basis of that comparison we’re not doing very well at this stage in terms of informing our population, let alone first responders.”
Dr Hughes told the hearing that Western Australia had navigated the COVID-19 pandemic successfully because the state had ‘listened to the science’.
‘We saved over 10,000 lives because government listened to health professionals,’ he said.
“But they’re not listening now. They’re ignoring the fact that we have a nuclear disaster waiting to happen.”
Commissioner Lawrence acknowledged that while the chance of an accident may be ‘low probability’, the consequences would be ‘high impact’.
Dr Hughes also raised concerns about the potential long-term health impacts of radiation exposure, citing studies that showed “people who serve on the submarine are 30 per cent more likely to develop cancers of various kinds.”
He argued governments needed to assess the risks associated with accidents, terrorism and military conflict and ensure communities were prepared.
“My plea is, please, if you are going to continue with this madness, at least tell the people of Rockingham and Kwinana how they are going to escape or protect themselves from a nuclear disaster waiting to happen,” he said.
Liberal frontbencher gorges on nuclear freebies
Rear Window, Hannah Wootton, Jul 7, 2026
You’d think visiting Europe in its latest heatwave would convince anyone of the sun’s power. But when Charles
Kiefel is paying your airfare, nuclear still beats solar.
Hannah Wootton, Jul 7, 2026 –If there’s one thing opposition energy spokesman Dan Tehan loves more than
nuclear power, it’s a free “study tour”. Especially if it involves the uranium sector’s
biggest cheerleader Charles Kiefel.
In mid-June, Tehan headed to London, Oslo and Munich for “high-level discussions around energy, industry and defence policy”. His economy flights, accommodation and meals were all covered by energy business groups the Svalbard Group and Just Transition Institute.
But Tehan also got a business-class airfare from Munich back to Melbourne paidfor by Kiefel, the “former director of the Clean Energy Regulator”, according to his
parliamentary register of interests. Funny how Kiefel’s title doesn’t mention the businessman is a proponent of exporting uranium to the US. Or that he funded a separate “study tour” for Tehan to the US last September to look at nuclear
reactors.
But flying economy all the way back from Europe is a Europe is a gruelling ask for a man such as Tehan, who is carrying the burden of an atomic future. And Kiefel is certainly a fan of gifting him the finer things in life.
The US trip included putting Tehan up in Washington DC’s luxury Hay-Adams Hotel. It overlooks Lafayette Square and charges $1800-a-night. The stay wasrevealed by this column [https://www.afr.com/rear-window/senior-liberal-s-luxury-hotel-tv-gaffe-20250909-p5mtp6], when Tehan beamed into a Sky News interview from his hotel room and forgot to turn off the TV screen with the hotel’s branding in the background.
The investment has been worth it for Kiefel. Tehan’s fervent commitment to nuclear [https://www.afr.com/policy/energy-and-climate/why-i-believe-the-liberal-party-must- reset-its-climate-playbook-20251105-p5n7wa] only increased following the US trip. No wonder the anti-nuclear brigade went feral over it.
He’s secured a lasting loyalty, too. Just four days before Tehan jetted off for the June trip, he penned an opinion piece for his own website accusing “Labor’s energy luddites” of “dragging Australia into the Dark Ages”.
The evidence for all this? “What American officials told me
[https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/nuclear-energy-not-done-with-yet-say-liberals-20250908- p5mt72], repeatedly, when I visited” last year. Oh Danny Boy, at least pretend you came up with your opinions independent of multimillionaire backers.
He even referenced conversations with Singaporeans on that trip who told him how their government was looking into new nuclear technologies. “Singapore, a city-state with no natural resources, is preparing seriously. What exactly is our
excuse?” Could it be the abundant sources of non-nuclear energy?
The June trip presumably offered a new source for Tehan to cite. It included site visits to universities and meetings with executives from BP, Shell, and Vitol. As for the “defence policy” part of his discussions, Tehan visited an Oxfordshire facility which is “home of the UK’s civil and military nuclear science developments” and met with “companies involved in defence” in Norway. Plus the Norwegian energy and defence ministers. Reassuring stuff.
Tehan told us he took the trip as “any opportunity to get access to senior government ministers when you’re in opposition is too good an opportunity to pass, especially when it doesn’t cost the taxpayer a cent”.
The Coalition promises an independent, self-reliant energy future. A shame that the same can’t be said of Tehan’s policy positions or travel plans.
Pacific nuclear survivors urge Australia to sign and ratify UN treaty banning nuclear weapons ahead of key conference
Australia is the only state party to a nuclear-weapon-free zone treaty in any region of the world that has claimed to be protected by the nuclear weapons of another state.
Andrew Mathieson, July 3, 2026, https://nit.com.au/03-07-2026/25161/pacific-nuclear-survivors-urges-australia-to-sign-and-ratify-the-un-treaty-banning-nuclear-weapons-ahead-of-key-party-conference
A delegation of Pacific nuclear survivors joined Indigenous advocates in Canberra on Wednesday to call on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to sign and ratify an international disarmament agreement which aims to comprehensively ban and eliminate nuclear weapons in the region.
Members of the Parliamentary Friends of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons invited members of the Pacific civil society to Australia’s Federal parliament to lay bare the human and environmental toll of tests over several decades.
The Australian parliamentary friends forms a bipartisan, cross-party forum, which currently is comprised of 47 of the 226 MPs across both houses and from all sides of politics, who meet and interact with nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation proponents to discuss treaty matters and their ongoing issues.
They were also reportedly joined this week by Anangu-Yankunytjatjara woman and second-generation nuclear test survivor, Karina Lester, who recently spoke with National Indigenous Times about the impact on her family of the 1953 British nuclear tests at Emu Field in remote South Australia.
She urged mobs that were “tested on, mined on, threatened with nuclear waste dumps or feared the impacts on their people, country and culture” to find their voice and speak up at the public inquiry that had commenced last month in Melbourne.
Australia has not yet signed or ratified the treaty which the United Nations first established as a resolution in 2017.
The invitation to multiple Pacific islander representatives coincided with two significant anniversaries falling on the first two days of the month: the 80th year of the first US test detonation on Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands followed by the 60th year of the first French test detonation at Mururoa Atoll, Mā’ohi Nui in colonial French Polynesia.
‘Powerful nations can have consequences that last for generations’
Pacific civil society members lined up to plea to Australian MPs from the Labor Party, the Liberal-National coalition, the Greens and Independents.
“The experiences of the Marshall Islands and other Pacific communities remind us the decisions made by powerful nations can have consequences that last for generations,” the spokesperson for a concerned Marshall Islands Student Association, Samuel Barton, told the gathering.
“We ask the world to remember our history, stand with survivors, pursue nuclear disarmament, and place human dignity, justice, and peace at the centre of global decision-making.”
The UN general assembly first decided nine years ago to convene a conference to negotiate a legally-binding instrument to prohibit the use of nuclear weapons.
The Australian government announced in 2023 that it was “considering the treaty systematically and methodically, as part of (Australia’s) ambitious agenda to advance nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament”.
According to the Labor government’s national defence strategy published two years ago, “Australia’s best protection against the increasing risk of nuclear escalation is (the) US extended nuclear deterrence and the pursuit of new avenues of arms control”.
But this implicit endorsement of nuclear weapons is incompatible with the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, the government has also admitted.
‘Australia must match its history with urgent new action’
Australia is the only state party to a nuclear-weapon-free zone treaty in any region of the world that has claimed to be protected by the nuclear weapons of another state.
Reverend James Bhagwan, General Secretary of the Pacific Conference of Churches, said that in a region of increasingly militarisation that signing the treaty “would be a clear commitment to a nuclear-free free Pacific and a genuine ocean of peace”.
Merewalesi Tuilau, speaking on behalf of the Fiji Veterans and Families Association, added the Pacific “demands and deserves complete freedom from nuclear weapons and their threat – not simply management, but total elimination.
“Australia has shown it can lead,” Mr Tuilau said, “Australia must match its history with urgent new action”.
‘We want nuclear weapons testing to be relegated to history’
The anniversaries of the dual detonations in the Pacific were acknowledged after Labor member for Macquarie Susan Templeton put forward a motion to push the government to signing the treaty ahead of its ALP national conference later this month.
“With the legacy of nuclear testing still felt deeply in Australia, our region, right across the world, we want nuclear weapons testing to be relegated to history,” she said.
“I will continue to advocate for the importance of sustained international commitment to nuclear non-proliferation, including the Treaty on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and also the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.”
The Canberra event was a part of a wider lobby and advocacy tour that also took in Sydney and Melbourne, sharing heartfelt testimony from Indigenous communities affected by nuclear testing and calling for a Pacific region that is “decolonised, demilitarised, de-nuclearised and decarbonised”.
Articles 6 and 7 of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons call on “victim assistance, environmental remediation, and international cooperation and assistance” to address ongoing and unresolved humanitarian, human rights, and environmental impacts from nuclear weapons.
Empire Managers Invent Fake Threats So We Won’t Fight The Real Monsters
Caitlin Johnstone, Jul 04, 2026, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/empire-managers-invent-fake-threats?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=205002670&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Western politics is mostly just empire managers making up fake problems to fight so they don’t have to address the real problems.
Can’t stop waging wars or the western empire will collapse. So they make up fake threats from dictators and tyrants and take action to stop them.
Can’t stop inflating the military budget and circling the planet with more and more war machinery or the military-industrial complex will stop reaping profits. So they tell you to be afraid of Muslims and “terrorists” and Russia and China and take action to protect you from them.
Can’t stop polluting the world and destroying the biosphere or capitalism will perish. So they split us into two mainstream warring factions arguing about culture war wedge issues and promise to protect each faction from the other side.
Can’t stop supporting Israeli atrocities or they’ll hamstring their hegemonic agendas in west Asia and make an enemy of the Zionists. So they create a boogie man of “antisemitism” and set up envoys, inquiries and task forces dedicated to stopping it.
Can’t get money out of politics and stop wealthy oligarchs from using their riches to manipulate western politics to their advantage, because the oligarchs run the empire. So they fearmonger about “communism” on the right and tell the centrists that the leftists are costing them elections.
Can’t stop ramping up authoritarianism and eroding the civil liberties of the citizenry or else they won’t be able to suppress future revolutions. So they cite unpopular people and groups as reasons why the authoritarianism is necessary to protect the public while constructing a giant cage of surveillance and control around everyone.
Can’t stop coercively extracting resources and labor from the global south because that’s the whole reason the empire was set up in the first place. So they tell everyone the immigrants are the source of all their problems and make western politics revolve around immigration policy.
The empire managers make up fake problems to solve because the empire is the source of all the real problems
They make up fake monsters to protect us from because they themselves are the real monsters.
They make up imaginary ghouls and goblins lurking around every corner because they don’t want us looking up and seeing the real bastards who are poisoning our world.
Another week in the non-corporate nuclear news
Website of the week – NUCLEAR WASTE WATCH
Theme of the week – British Prime Minister to bow out just as his pet policy -small nuclear reactors – is reaching crisis point – look out for the onslaught of panicky pro nuclear propaganda.
Some bits of good news – Heatwaves made the case for more urban green. China restores over 10m hectares of desertified land in 14th Five Year Plan. Ghana launches mass campaign against neglected tropical diseases.
TOP STORIES.
Empire Managers Invent Fake Threats So We Won’t Fight The Real Monsters.
Record heatwave cripples Europe’s energy supply as nuclear reactors are taken offline.
When the right denies the true danger of heatwaves, ask yourself this: whose children’s lives is it willing to risk.
Four US presidents steered European NATO into decline in furtherance of US proxy war against Russia.
American Sovereignty: The USA + Israel = The Department of Forever War.
We’re up against forces that have all the money in theworld’: Erin Brockovich on her battle against AI datacentres.
Israel Is An Apartheid State – And Its Weird Marriage Laws Show Us How.
US moves to eliminate longtime radiation safety principle for nuclear power.
Climate. World Bank drops climate financing targets following pressure from US. Will the heatwave spark action, or further inflame the culture wars?
If you aren’t terrified by this heatwave, you should be.
AUSTRALIA. Pacific nuclear survivors urge Australia to sign and ratify UN treaty banning nuclear weapons ahead of key conference.
Friends of the Earth Adelaide has made a submission to the AUKUS Public Inquiry.
Royal Commission on cohesion hears only half the story.
More Australian news at https://antinuclear.net/2026/06/24/this-week-in-australian-news/
NUCLEAR-RELATED ITEMS
| ATROCITIES. Obliterating Gaza’s Children: The Damning UN Report. The Gaza Ethnic Cleansing Agenda Continues To Roll Forward. They’re Still Pushing The Ethnic Cleansing Of Gaza. Netanyahu’s War on Humanity: Ethnically Cleansing the Palestinian West Bank. |
| CLIMATE. Swiss nuclear power station shut down as river warms. |
| ECONOMICS. Billionaire to invest £35bn in small modular nuclear reactors rollout across UK. EDF agrees to sell US, Canada unit to to private equity firm KKR – must raise cash to maintain its 57 aging reactors and finance the construction of six new units. |
| EDUCATION. University of Manchester and United Kingdom National Nuclear Laboratory (UKNNL) sign landmark nuclear partnership agreement. |
| ENERGY. The World Is Racing to Develop New Nuclear Fuels. |
| EVENTS. 30 July – WEBINAR (Free) – Is Nuclear Power the Solution to Climate Change? |
| INDIGENOUS ISSUES.Anishinabek Nation stands united in unequivocal opposition to the transportation of nuclear waste through the entire Anishinabek Nation territory. |
| LEGAL White Flag Judgments: Palestine Action, Protest and the UK Courts |
| MEDIA . CNBC Helps SpaceX Pull Off Trillion-Dollar Pump-and-Dump. New York Times Reported Iran Deal From Pro-Israel, Pro-War Perspective. |
| OPPOSITION to NUCLEAR . The Golden Rule and Crew are ready – Summer 2026 voyage. |
POLITICS.
- The plot to subvert the midterms is getting stranger and more dangerous. U.S.-Israel Military Merger Delayed: Here’s Why and How You Can Stop It.
- Say goodbye to independent assessments of nuclear projects in Canada. Nuclear Power is NOT the Solution – It’s the Problem! NO CANDU! Canada’s Nuclear Energy Strategy a “Cash Cow” for the Nuclear Industry.
- Jeffrey Sachs: The Greater Israel Project is Collapsing.
- Scottish National Party blocks new nuclear power. ‘Changes nothing’: Scottish government hits back at Westminster nuclear study. Westminster’s nuclear obsession will cost us dearly – Scotland. No nuclear energy in Scotland – Greens. MSP says ‘no’ to nuclear power plant as UK Government eyes Fife.
- UK: Inside Labour Together’s secret war against Jeremy Corbyn.
- New nuclear plants a difficult option for Switzerland.
- Lithuania to lift ban on nukes, president says.
POLITICS INTERNATIONAL and DIPLOMACY.
- UN Peacebuilding Week: Military Expenditure Soars as Funding for Civilian Protection and Prevention Collapses.
- Poland revokes the Order of the White Eagle it had awarded to Volodymyr Zelensky.
- The state of nuclear power in 2026
- Russia Closes Border Crossings With Several NATO States After Finland Lifts Nuclear Ban.
- Iran trumps US on Hormuz.
- The AI Cold War: How Silicon Valley Is Selling Fear of China to Protect Its Monopoly.
| PUBLIC OPINION. Poll shows many Danes worried about planned nuclear reactors at Barsebäck, near Copenhagen. |
| RADIATION. RADIATION TRAINWRECK -NRC deregulating radiation standards? US looking at easing restrictions on radiation exposure at the nation’s nuclear power plants. |
| SAFETY. More issues reported during manufacture of Sizewell C’s reactor vessels than Hinkley Point C’s. Regulator says additional scrutiny was not required over Hinkley Point C bullying concerns. |
| SECRETS and LIES. We’re Expected To Remember October 7 But Never Ask Questions About It. |
| SPINBUSTER. Israel rebrands scheme to ethnically cleanse Gaza of Palestinians as ‘Freedom of Movement Plan’: Report. The new nuclear madness is climate criminality. |
| TECHNOLOGY. AI is changing biological and nuclear risks; governance must change accordingly. Gaza: How We’re Learning to see the AI-Driven Genocide. The emerging AI battlespace: Counter-AI threats to AI-powered satellite remote sensing analysis. Polish tycoon backs Britain’s £35bn mini nuclear reactors plan. – ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2026/07/04/6-b1-polish-tycoon-backs-britains-35bn-mini-nuclear-reactors-plan/ |
WASTES
. National interest in nuclear site gets mixed reaction. Nuclear Waste Transportation and Burial Plan Could be “Pre-Approved.
| WAR and CONFLICT. Europe and Russia Edge Toward Direct War as Nuclear Fears Grow. Russia hearing the European clamour for war, announces it is ready. |
| WEAPONS and WEAPONS SALES. The Pentagon’s Budget Redirected Would Exceed Our Wildest Dreams. Starmer Lied: Britain Is Cutting £11 Billion from Frontline Defence What’s in Keir Starmer’s defence investment plan? Key points – ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2026/07/04/3-b1-whats-in-keir-starmers-defence-investment-plan-key-points/ All of our submarines are missing. |
Royal Commission on cohesion hears only half the story
the same evening news that reports rising antisemitism in Australia – correctly, and without my objection – routinely fails to report the parallel rise in anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian abuse, the vandalised mosques, the women afraid to wear hijab in public, the children told by implication that their faith makes them suspect
By Wayne Hawkins | 2 July 2026, https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/royal-commission-on-cohesion-hears-only-half-the-story,21247
Australia’s Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion risks undermining its own purpose by excluding evidence of Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism, writes Wayne Hawkins.
AUSTRALIA’S Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion is now in its third Sydney hearing block, running until 10 July.
It was established in January, in the aftermath of the Bondi Beach attack that killed 15 people on a night meant for celebration. Nobody disputes that the Commission has real work to do. The rise in antisemitic incidents recorded since October 2023 is documented, severe and deserving of the most rigorous scrutiny our institutions can offer.
But an inquiry into hatred reveals something about itself in who it decides not to hear from. And on that count, this Commission has already answered the question.
In May, the Loud Jewish Collective applied for leave to appear before the first hearing block, wanting to give evidence about their own members’ experiences of antisemitism. They were refused — the Commissioner was, in the words used to reject them, “not satisfied” that they had a direct and substantial interest in the matter.
The Australian Palestine Advocacy Network met the same fate. Two organisations, both with members who have lived antisemitism or anti-Palestinian racism directly, both judged to be outside the scope of an inquiry into hatred and social cohesion in Australia.
I find it hard to read that as anything other than a decision about which Australians get to define what cohesion means.
I wrote a parliamentary submission earlier this year arguing that Islamophobia is racism — not by analogy, not as a lesser cousin of antisemitism, but structurally, mechanistically, the same thing happening to a different group. Collective blame. The demand that an entire community continuously prove its loyalty to the actions of people who share only its faith. The recasting of legitimate political grievance – in this case, mass civilian death in Gaza – as evidence of an inherent, civilisational danger.
These are not two separate phenomena needing two separate inquiries that never speak to each other. They are the same mechanism, pointed in two directions at once, often by the same actors in the same news cycle.
The Commission’s own proceedings have illustrated the problem it was never asked to examine. Commissioner Virginia Bell described the 7 October attack, in passing, as a “Hamas invasion”, a characterisation that quietly recasts a population under decades of occupation as the invading force on their own land.
Witnesses in an SBS News report on the second hearing block have testified to being “tired” of seeing Palestinian flags at cultural events, of overhearing artists call for a free Palestine, of having to scroll past footage of starvation in Gaza on their phones.
These are real discomforts and I don’t dismiss them. But an Inquiry that treats a 45-second elevator ride past distressing news as a harm worth recording, while refusing entry to the people living the underlying catastrophe, has told us where its sympathies sit before a single recommendation is written.
This is not a call to relitigate the Commission’s right to exist, or to diminish what Jewish Australians have endured since the Bondi attack and well before it. It is a call to notice the asymmetry, because the asymmetry is the story.
No one has asked Christian Australians to account for Christian nationalist violence as the price of being heard on social cohesion. No one demands that Buddhist or Hindu Australians distance themselves from documented nationalist violence against Muslim minorities in Myanmar and India before their testimony is taken seriously. Only one direction of scrutiny in this country currently requires an entire community to prove, in advance and as a condition of entry, that it is not secretly the threat.
I don’t say this to score a point against the Commission. I say it because the same evening news that reports rising antisemitism in Australia – correctly, and without my objection – routinely fails to report the parallel rise in anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian abuse, the vandalised mosques, the women afraid to wear hijab in public, the children told by implication that their faith makes them suspect.
A Royal Commission with “social cohesion” in its title, that structurally cannot hear from the second-largest group experiencing religious and racial hostility in this country, is not examining social cohesion. It is examining one half of a single problem and calling the result whole.
The fix here isn’t complicated and it doesn’t require abandoning the Commission’s core purpose. It requires the Commissioner to recognise that anti-Palestinian racism and Islamophobia sit inside the same terms of reference as antisemitism, not outside them — because they are produced by the same mechanism of collective blame, and because a finding on “social cohesion” that only canvasses the cohesion of part of the country isn’t a finding at all.
Bell still has time, before her final report in December, to widen the door rather than defend its current width.
Naming a mechanism early is not alarmism — it’s the only thing that has ever interrupted one before it finishes running its course. Every Australian who has had a synagogue vandalised, a mosque firebombed, or a hijab grabbed in the street deserves the same seriousness from the institutions meant to protect them.
An Inquiry that only extends that seriousness in one direction isn’t building cohesion. It’s choosing sides while insisting it isn’t.
Wayne Hawkins is an independent commentator based in Tasmania and an independent candidate for the federal seat of Clark.
The state of nuclear power in 2026
On life support, barely comatose
There was a renewed burst of enthusiasm for nuclear power a few years ago. In Australia it was confined to the political right and didn’t last long, but elsewhere support was broader. Most notable was the 2023 commitment by more than 20 countries, led by the US, UK and France, to triple global nuclear capacity by 2050. In the three countries mentioned, that would imply building 330 GW of new capacity as well as replacing retiring capacity
So far, this commitment has produced only one final investment decision, for two reactors at Sizewell C in the UK. Construction is expected to start in 2027, with commercial operation in the late 2030s at best. After that, there are no large plants even on the drawing boards in the UK. A few sites have been identified, and there’s a proposal for some half-size reactors (called SMRs but not actually modular or very small) to be built by Rolls-Royce. These don’t even have a prototype yet.
France is a few steps behind. Three sites have been identified, each with two reactors, but none has reached final investment decision yet. The most likely to happen is at Penly, but even that is doubtful. And once Macron’s term finishes in 2027, the political push is likely to dissipate.
Nothing at all is happening with large-scale new nuclear in the US. Proposals to complete the half-finished VC Summer plant in South Carolina have gone nowhere, and even the planned restart of the Palisades plant has missed multiple deadlines. The Trump Administration recently announced an $18.7 billion loan program with the aim of building ten AP1000 reactors, but this is just theatre. There are a few pilot small reactors with construction underway, but all such efforts have failed until now.
Looking at the world as a whole, the first half of 2026 has seen
* two (2) new reactors connected to the grid, both in China
* three (3) construction projects reaching first nuclear concrete, all in China
* zero (0) new final investment decisions outside China
* one (1) new/revised export contract, probably just symbolic, between Rosatom and Uzbekistan
Generously assuming a 4:1 capacity ratio, the two new reactors would be equivalent to around 8 GW of firmed solar. That’s what China installs every week or so, and the world as a whole every four or five days.
In summary, nuclear power isn’t a vital source of energy, obstructed by politics. Outside China, it’s a zombie, animated by political imperatives. In China, it’s an afterthought, running far behind solar and wind, as well as (regrettably) new coal and gas, and about level with new hydro.
How the Iran War Fuel Crisis Is Reshaping the Pacific
June 25, 2026, Hugo Temby, Australian National University and Joel Nilon, Australian National University for The Conversation, https://scheerpost.com/2026/06/25/how-the-iran-war-fuel-crisis-is-reshaping-the-pacific/
The past five years have not been easy for the people of the Pacific. COVID restrictions disrupted tourism and upended supply chains, while global fuel shocks raised prices and hit island economies hard.
The region relies on expensive imports of fossil fuels, as domestic sources are largely lacking. Some nations spend up to 25% of their GDP on securing fuel, even before this year’s price spikes.
In recent months, authorities in the Marshall Islands and Tuvalu announced emergency measures to conserve fuel. Fiji’s main energy provider has warned electricity rationing is now a possibility, and the Samoan government is considering school closures to save fuel.
News of a peace deal between the United States and Iran has been welcomed. But even if the deal holds, it’s unlikely to lead to quick relief.
In May, the region’s leaders took a rare collective step by invoking the Biketawa Declaration by consensus. It means governments are united in their response to the ongoing fuel crisis.
Why is this significant?
Pacific leaders formalised this declaration in 2000 at the Biketawa Islet in Kiribati as a way to collectively respond to major regional challenges such as conflict.
The declaration paved the way for the long-running Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (2003–17) during a period of conflict, and the Pacific Regional Assistance Mission to Nauru (2006–09) during an economic crisis.
Over time, it has been drawn on to manage the region’s security more broadly, including environmental and social threats.
Most recently, the declaration enabled a regional response to the COVID pandemic, allowing transport of vaccines and other medical equipment to Pacific countries during lockdown periods.
This year’s fuel crisis has affected the entire region. As Pacific Islands Forum Secretary General Baron Waqa recently warned, the region is “highly exposed to external shocks”. He said the fuel crisis is:
beginning to intersect across Pacific economies, with direct implications on essential services, connectivity, economic resilience and the livelihoods of our people
The first step has been to establish a regional response mechanism to the fuel crisis, encouraging better coordination between nations.
An unequal crisis
The fuel crisis poses a bigger challenge to Pacific Island countries than many other nations. Almost all the region’s fuel is imported from a handful of East Asian countries, where it is refined. These countries were in turn highly reliant on oil from the Middle East – 80% of the crude oil processed in refineries was transported via the Strait of Hormuz.
The full impact of the Iran war has not yet washed through. Tankers in transit before the Hormuz closure have continued to make deliveries, while support from donors such as Australia has helped some countries manage what has, so far, mostly been a price shock.
Nations such as Fiji had healthy fuel reserves before this year’s fuel crisis.
But others had very little buffer, from about a month’s supply (Tonga, Cook Islands and Tuvalu) to even less (Kiribati).
Maintaining fuel storage facilities in difficult environmental conditions is an ongoing challenge for many nations.
What now?
It’s an uncertain time for the Pacific. The Iran peace deal — if it holds — may mean more oil products can flow. But damage to energy infrastructure will take time to repair. Insurance premiums and food prices may stay high for some time.
Pacific foreign ministers have left open the possibility of more direct measures if fuel security isn’t assured. These haven’t been determined, but joint purchases of fuel could be on the table if political and practical challenges can be overcome.
Australia has indicated its priority is to monitor the situation in the Pacific and engage with Pacific partners. In a recent round of “fuel diplomacy” in Asian markets, Australia called for continued attention to the Pacific’s unique energy security needs.
But difficult choices lie ahead.
Access to affordable, reliable energy is one of the world’s sustainable development goals, and Pacific communities deserve no less.
The region and its partners will need to find a way to respond to the immediate crisis without worsening the longer-term and much larger threat posed by climate change.
Before this year’s crisis, many leaders were focused on reducing fossil fuel imports and boosting energy self-reliance through renewables. The goal was to be the first region to run on 100% renewables.
Fuel security is the most pressing problem today. But the broader goal is still clear. Pacific energy ministers recently reaffirmed the goal of a 100% renewable energy future and agreed to accelerate the rollout.
The world’s continued reliance on fossil fuels created the conditions for both crises. Only reducing the world’s reliance on fossil fuels will solve them.
Hugo Temby, Research fellow, Australian National University and Joel Nilon, Senior Pacific Fellow, Australian National University
Iran trumps US on Hormuz
| US President Donald Trump’s innate inability to empathise with others and lack of intelligence to foresee consequences are likely to hand Iran a long-term financial advantage and incidentally, but more importantly, threaten the treaty that has been the most productive of peace and prosperity in recent history – the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. |
Crispin Hull,June 30, 2026, https://www.crispinhull.com.au/2026/06/30/iran-trumps-us-on-hormuz/?utm_source=mailpoet&utm_medium=email&utm_source_platform=mailpoet&utm_campaign=crispin-hull-column
The tit-for-tat breaches of the US-Iran 60-day ceasefire in the past few days certainly point that way. Let me explain.
Of 193 members of the UN, 44 are landlocked. The other 149 have coastlines linking each of their coastlines to the other 148 countries’ coastlines such that they can as a practical matter drive to those other nations by boat or ship with no natural barrier or no requirement to use easily blocked roads or railways.
The UN convention took eight years to negotiate in the 1970s. It was a triumph of diplomacy and law over the assertion of power and force. It resulted in one of the greatest trade-offs in history between powerful nations, on one hand, and less powerful nations, on the other.
In short, before the convention, powerful trading nations saw their economic interests in both the unfettered exploitation of the resources of the oceans and in having freedom of navigation across the oceans to help free trade, but ultimately they were willing to forgo the former in order to secure the latter.
The trade-off was enormous. Rich, powerful nations thought that freedom of navigation across the world’s oceans was so important for trade and hence prosperity that they were willing to grant poor and less powerful nations significant exclusive rights to their adjacent oceans in return for that freedom.
The question posed by the negotiators was how to achieve peace and greater prosperity. The answer was negotiation and compromise.
Each nation, even the militarily and economically weak, got the exclusive rights to all the ocean’s resources, particularly fishing and mining, up to 200 nautical miles from their shore and the total sovereign rights of territorial waters up to 12 nautical miles from their shore.
n return vessels from any nation, especially militarily strong and rich trading nations could sail anywhere on the oceans, but if they came within 12 nautical miles of another nation’s shores they had to inform that nation of their passage, and make their passage expeditious – no more lingering with menace close to other nations’ shores (gunboat diplomacy).
The arrangement facilitated trade and made the passage of warships less threatening. Good all round.
Before that, the three-nautical-mile limit was the general unwritten rule. Within that limit, nation states could do whatever they liked with their ocean and beyond that foreign vessels could do whatever they liked – from fishing to playing wargames.
Three nautical miles was of practical importance. In the nineteenth century that was the limit of a cannon shot. It meant that a ship outside that limit could not hit land and that land-based artillery could not hit a ship.
But It also meant that the nations either side of major choke points in world navigational routes – especially Gibraltar, Malacca and Hormuz – which did not have at least a little strip of international waters in the middle had to permit free passage of all vessels.
The latest US-Iran talks and spats over Hormuz, now puts this arrangement in jeopardy. At its narrowest Hormuz is less that 24 nautical miles wide. It means that the territorial waters of Iran to the north and Oman to the south overlap in the middle. It means any ship travelling through has to identify itself to either Iran or Oman and travel expeditiously, or it could be prevented from passage.
Under the ceasefire agreement Iran agreed to allow free passage, but the agreement was vaguely worded. Vessels seeking passage opted to travel as close to the Omani side as possible. Iran read that as a breach of the ceasefire and fired on those vessels. The US retaliated by hitting Iranian targets on the coastline.
It is clear that Iran wants to come to some arrangement with Oman to charge vessels fees in the future in return for passage rather than allowing Oman to let its side of the Strait be used for free safe passage. Whether those fees are characterised as fees for services or a toll, they will still be contrary to the convention. And once one nation starts, others will surely follow.
With drones and rockets we now have the reverse of the 19th century position. Instead of a nation worrying about ship-based weapons firing on its land, ships now have to worry about land-based weapons firing upon ships.
It puts Iran in the box seat. With that threat in place Iran can insist on payment of a fee before guaranteeing safe passage. Iran can just use the insurance system to enforce payment. Without insurance no ship-owner will transit, and without guarantee of safe passage no insurer will grant insurance to a vessel.
All very foreseeable. But it would require thinking in a way that strategists usually think – asking the question: what would I do if I were in the enemy’s position? How would I react if I were the enemy? But Trump is incapable of viewing anything from any perspective but his own.
Arguably, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea has done more in the past 40 years to prevent hostilities and to create the certainty for shipping that generates trade and prosperity than all the force and threat of force that any single nation can muster.
But Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have always preferred force to negotiation.
From the start, they asked the wrong question and got the wrong answer. Netanyahu, facing an election this October, asked how could he stay in power after the Hamas-inspired attack on Israel in October 2023 so he does not have to face questions about how he allowed such a lapse of security? Trump asked, having torn up the well-negotiated Obama deal with Iran to prevent its acquisition of nuclear weapons, how can he ensure Iran does not get those weapons.
The wrong answer they got was: war. In Netanyahu’s case it was genocidal war. If only they chose negotiation and the rule of law rather than force, the world would not be facing an even stronger Iran and an indefinite economic threat to the world that its stranglehold over Hormuz now gives it.
If the world had insisted that Israel follow the 1947 UN resolution that called for the termination of the British Mandate and the partition of historic Palestine into independent, democratic Arab and Jewish states with guaranteed rights for all citizens, there would now be peace in the Middle East.
Trump has always preferred force and the threat of force over the rule of law – domestically and internationally. What he does at home is for the Americans to worry about. After all, they voted him into office. But there is little or no redress for those affected by what he does in the world – usually foolishly and impetuously.
That is why Australia should use whatever tools it has to steer international affairs towards the rule of law and negotiation and away from the use of force.
1 This month.
Australians deserve the truth
about
AUKUS – https://aukuspublicinquiry.com/
23 July – Australian Premiere: ‘Our Planet, The People, My Blood’ documentary
Thu, 23 Jul, 10am – 12pm ACST
The Mercury
13 Morphett St, Adelaide SA 5000
Link to register and more information here. tickets free but you must register
30 July – WEBINAR (Free) – Is Nuclear Power the Solution to Climate Change? https://my.acaw.org.au/event/acaw-is-nuclear-power-the-solution-to-climate-change
18:30 – 19:45 ACST
19:00 – 20:15 AEST
PETITION – To: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Australian Labor Government
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
Antinuclear 