Antinuclear

Submission to AUKUS Public Inquiry – absurd that the seller of submarines is immune from any liability – Monica Mesch

179.Monica Mesch.

Subject: Agreement among the Government of Australia, the Government of the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the Government of
the United States of America for Cooperation Related to Naval Nuclear
Propulsion

I thank the Committee for allowing submissions relating to the above Agreement.

I particularly wish to submit my total disagreement with Part E of ARTICLE IV
Naval Nuclear Propulsion Plants, Related Equipment, and Material:-

E. Australia shall indemnify, subject to paragraph F of this Article, the United
States and the United Kingdom against any liability, loss, costs, damage or
injury (including third-party claims) arising out of, related to, or resulting from
Nuclear Risks connected with the design, manufacture, assembly, transfer, or
utilization of any Material or Equipment, including Naval Nuclear Propulsion
Plants and component parts and spare parts thereof, transferred or to
betransferred pursuant to this Article.

It is unconscionable that Australia, on behalf of its citizens, would sign off on
allowing this section in a treaty or otherwise with any dealings or purchases that
it makes with any country.

Ask anyone of your citizens if they’ve ever bought materials or equipment that
indemnify a supplier in the manner in which you propose?

It’s the dumbest thing I’ve heard of lately…. and ridiculous!

October 3, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics | Leave a comment

Submission to AUKUS Public Inquiry- AUKUS benefits foreign entities not Australians – Simon Murr

168. Simon Murr

The most serious risks for Australians are:
Dependence on U.S. political and industrial reliability (which is not guaranteed).
Receiving older, less capable submarines at enormous cost.
A potential decade‐long submarine capability gap.
Strategic entanglement in U.S.–China rivalry.
Massive financial exposure with uncertain returns.

October 3, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics | Leave a comment

Submission to the AUKUS Public Inquiry- SEA LANES, SUBMARINES AND THE LIMITS OF AUSTRALIAN POWER- Peter Holding

150. Peter Holding

Executive Summary

This submission argues that: 

• The principal justification for AUKUS—the protection of Australia’s sea lanes—is unconvincing in the context of a major conflict between the United States and China. 

• The ability of any allied naval force to guarantee normal commercial shipping during a major United States–China war is highly questionable. Australia’s proposed fleet of three nuclear-powered submarines would make only a limited contribution to that task. 

• Australia’s submarine contribution is unlikely to materially alter China’s strategic calculations or significantly strengthen deterrence. 

• Claims that AUKUS will provide Australia with substantially greater influence in Washington are overstated. Australia’s strategic value to the United States already derives principally from intelligence cooperation, particularly Pine Gap, and from Australia’s geographic position in the Indo-Pacific. 

• Concerns about coercion in a China-dominated Asia deserve consideration, but discussions often overlook the reality that allies as well as rivals use economic and political pressure to advance their interests. 

• Australia’s long-term security is more likely to depend upon economic resilience, diplomatic flexibility and political independence than upon a small fleet of nuclear-powered submarines. 

The central question is not whether Australia faces strategic challenges. It clearly does. The question is whether AUKUS is the most effective and proportionate response to those challenges. 

Protecting Australia’s Sea Lanes 

One of the most frequently repeated justifications for AUKUS and Australia’s massive expenditure on nuclear-powered submarines is the need to protect “Australia’s sea lanes”.

But what exactly are these sea lanes, and can the proposed submarine fleet achieve that objective? 

through the Indonesian archipelago, the South China Sea, the Strait of Malacca, the Indian Ocean and across the Pacific. Through them flow our exports of iron ore, gas, coal and agricultural products and many imports upon which Australia depends- manufactured products, pharmaceuticals, industrial components and much of our refined fuel. 

As a trading nation, Australia clearly has an interest in keeping these routes open. The question is whether nuclear submarines can do so. 

Can Nuclear Submarines Keep the Sea Lanes Open? 

The central assumption behind current defence policy is that Australia can contribute to the protection of these sea lanes and, through deterrence, help prevent conflict from occurring in the first place. 

Yet this argument becomes difficult to sustain when one asks what would happen in the very conflict for which these submarines are supposedly being acquired: a war between the United States and China. 

If such a war occurred, commercial shipping throughout East Asia would immediately become hazardous. Insurance costs would soar. Shipping companies would avoid conflict zones. Missile strikes, submarines, drones, mines, cyberattacks and attacks on port infrastructure would threaten commercial traffic. The economic consequences would extend far beyond the immediate combat zone. 

The argument is not that Australia’s submarines would operate alone. Supporters of AUKUS envisage them contributing to a broader allied effort, principally alongside the United States. Even so, it is difficult to see how allied naval forces could guarantee the safety of commercial shipping during a major war between the world’s two largest military powers. 

Modern conflict would not resemble the relatively uncontested maritime operations of recent decades. Long-range missiles, submarines, drones, cyberattacks, mines and attacks on port infrastructure would create risks across vast areas of ocean. Commercial shipping companies and insurers would respond accordingly. Insurance premiums would rise sharply, many vessels would avoid conflict zones altogether, and some trade routes could become effectively unusable regardless of how many warships were deployed. 

Australian submarines might contribute to military operations conducted by an allied coalition. That is not the same thing as ensuring that commercial sea lanes remain open for normal trade. The ability to sink enemy vessels is not necessarily

the same as the ability to guarantee the safe passage of civilian shipping. 

Indeed, the widespread use of drones in Ukraine and the Middle East has highlighted how relatively inexpensive systems can threaten far more expensive military platforms. This raises further questions about whether a strategy centred on a small number of extremely costly submarines represents the most effective means of protecting Australia’s interests. 

Would AUKUS Strengthen Deterrence? 

Nor is it obvious that Australia’s submarine force would significantly increase deterrence. 

China will make its strategic calculations primarily based on the military capabilities and political resolve of the United States. It is difficult to believe that Beijing’s decision-making would be materially altered by the addition or subtraction of a small Australian submarine force. 

This does not mean the submarines would be militarily irrelevant. Rather, it means that their existence is unlikely to be decisive in the strategic calculations of a great power.

Does AUKUS Increase Australia’s Influence in Washington? 

A second argument often advanced is that AUKUS increases Australia’s influence in Washington. 

Australia already possesses assets of enormous value to the United States, particularly Pine Gap and other intelligence and defence facilities. If Australia has influence in Washington, it derives principally from these assets, from decades of intelligence cooperation, and from our geographic position in the Indo-Pacific. 

Three submarines will not provide influence that Pine Gap does not already provide. 

More fundamentally, history suggests that great powers pursue what they perceive to be their own interests. If a future crisis over Taiwan occurs, Washington will act according to its own assessment of American interests, not according to the wishes of Canberra. 

What Would Chinese Regional Dominance Actually Mean? 

Supporters of AUKUS often respond that the real issue is not sea lanes or submarines but what happens if China becomes the dominant power in Asia. 

No serious analyst suggests that China intends to invade Australia. Australia is geographically distant, sparsely populated, militarily capable and occupies a continent that would be extraordinarily difficult to conquer and administer.

The more plausible concern is that China could seek to pressure Australia to align more closely with Chinese preferences on issues such as Taiwan, intelligence cooperation, human rights criticism or regional disputes. 

That concern is not irrational. However, it raises an important question. Why do we assume that coercion is uniquely a Chinese problem? Economic Coercion by Allies: Recent Examples 

The United States has repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to use economic pressure against allies when it believes its interests require it. 

Recent examples are instructive. 

In 2025 the Trump administration imposed significant tariffs on Canada despite Canada being one of America’s closest allies, a NATO member and a Five Eyes intelligence partner. The dispute became intertwined with broader political disagreements and repeated public comments questioning Canadian sovereignty and suggesting that Canada should become America’s “51st state”. 

The administration also imposed and threatened tariffs against Brazil while openly criticising legal proceedings involving former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, a political ally of President Trump. Trade measures were linked to concerns about Brazil’s domestic political decisions. 

Similarly, the United States threatened retaliatory tariffs against several European allies in response to digital services taxes and regulatory measures affecting major American technology companies. The objective was not simply to secure market access but to influence the domestic regulatory choices of allied governments. 

These examples demonstrate that great powers frequently use economic leverage against both allies and rivals. 

Coercion, Influence and Australian Independence 

China has certainly attempted to exert pressure on Australia. It has objected strongly to criticism of its human rights record, calls for a COVID inquiry and other policies it regarded as hostile. Its trade restrictions on Australian exports were clearly intended to influence Australian behaviour. 

However, China’s pressure has generally been directed at what Australia says or does about China. 

By contrast, the United States has often sought influence over Australia’s domestic economic arrangements themselves. 

Successive American administrations and corporate interests have pushed Australia on pharmaceutical regulation, intellectual property rules, investment

provisions, agricultural market access and other matters. The Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme has repeatedly been a target of American lobbying because it restrains drug prices and therefore pharmaceutical profits. 

In other words, China has largely sought to influence Australia’s foreign policy towards China. The United States has often sought to influence how Australia’s domestic economy operates. 

Indeed, one could argue that American influence already penetrates much more deeply into Australian institutions than Chinese influence does. Intelligence cooperation, defence procurement, technology standards, financial markets and trade arrangements all bind Australia closely to the United States. 

The point is not that America and China are identical. They are not. The point is that the mere possibility of coercion cannot by itself justify one alliance and condemn another relationship. The relevant question is not whether coercion exists, but how much coercion exists, in what forms, and with what consequences. 

Trade, Protectionism and Australia’s Economic Interests 

Australia is a trading nation. Yet if our prosperity depends upon open markets and relatively free flows of goods and capital, it is worth noting that China remains deeply dependent upon and supportive of international trade while the United States has become increasingly protectionist. 

Under both Republican and Democratic administrations, tariffs, industrial subsidies, export controls and economic nationalism have become mainstream features of American policy. Donald Trump accelerated trends that were already emerging, but those trends have continued under subsequent administrations. 

This raises a difficult question. If open trade is an Australian value, why do we automatically assume that our economic interests align more closely with the United States than with China? 

Historical Affinities and Strategic Assumptions 

The usual answer invokes shared history, shared values and the alliance. 

Australia has deep historical, cultural and institutional ties to the Anglosphere. We speak the same language as Britain and America. Our legal and political systems have common roots. Our intelligence services are closely integrated.

But perhaps these historical affinities also shape our perceptions in ways we rarely examine. 

Australians tend to view the United States as familiar and therefore reassuring, even when Washington imposes tariffs on allies, seeks changes to our domestic policies, or pursues its own interests at our expense.

China, by contrast, is often portrayed as fundamentally alien, opaque and threatening. 

The old phrase was “the inscrutable Oriental”. We no longer use such language openly, but it is worth asking whether remnants of that mindset still influence some of our strategic assumptions. 

This does not mean China poses no challenges. It does. Nor is Australia about to abandon the alliance with the United States. Support for the alliance is deeply embedded in Australian political culture and remains strong across much of the electorate. 

Conclusion 

This submission argues that public discussion of AUKUS often proceeds from a series of assumptions that deserve closer scrutiny. 

Even if one accepts concerns about China’s growing power, it does not automatically follow that spending hundreds of billions of dollars on a small fleet of nuclear-powered submarines is the most effective response. 

The ability of even a large allied naval force to guarantee normal commercial shipping during a major United States–China war is highly questionable. Australia’s proposed submarine capability would make only a limited contribution to that task. Nor is it likely to alter China’s strategic calculations in a decisive way or provide Canberra with substantial additional influence in Washington beyond that which Australia already derives from intelligence cooperation and its strategic location. 

Australia’s security ultimately depends not on the illusion of controlling events far beyond its power, but on maintaining economic resilience, diplomatic flexibility, political independence and a realistic understanding of the limits of Australian influence. 

October 3, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics | Leave a comment

Submission to AUKUS Public Inquiry – Citizens Party – foreign interests used Australian Strategic Policy Institute to foment fear of China and drum up support for AUKUS

149. Robert Barwick On behalf of Citizens Party

AUKUS is the policy product of foreign interference
On 15 February 2024 Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) senior analyst Dr
Alex Bristow explicitly connected the willingness of the Australian public to bear
the growing cost of military spending that AUKUS represents, with our level of
alarm about one country—China.

“We will not generate or sustain public consent for necessary rises in defence
spending and the whole-of-nation effort required in the years ahead until our
national security establishment stops treating China as a taboo subject in public”,
Dr Bristow wrote in an article on the ASPI website (https://www.aspi.org.au/strateg
ist-posts/we-mustnt-be-afraid-to-mention-china-in-public-discussions-about-defenc
e/).

There you have it—focus on China to “generate” public consent for mega-spends
like AUKUS.

However, this was not mere advice from ASPI; the AUKUS Public Inquiry should
examine how ASPI has taken the lead on focussing Australians’ attention on China
for more than a decade, and how it has been funded by the US and UK
governments, as well as American and British weapons manufacturers, to do so.
Having paid ASPI in the low tens of millions of dollars over more than a decade to
make repeated, mostly unfounded and always exaggerated accusations against
China in Australia, the US and UK governments and their biggest weapons
companies have already received billions of Australian dollars through the AUKUS
program.

This is the universal business model of the military-industrial complex: sponsor
think tanks that relentlessly hype tensions and threats; cash in with defence
contracts.

Analysis by APAC News published 31 March 2021 (ASPI sponsors collect billions
from Defence) showed that ASPI received almost $7 million in sponsorship and
commercial revenue the previous year, the majority from foreign governments and
weapons companies.

APAC News reported that since 2001, weapons companies that sponsored ASPI
had collectively received more than $51 billion in contracts from the Australian
government.

Because of its funding, ASPI became a specialist in hyping a China “threat”
narrative.
The AUKUS agreement was announced later in 2021 following an intense period of
relentless anti-China commentary from ASPI.

The quality of ASPI’s analysis varies, from sometimes competent analysis, such as
its assessments of China’s technological capabilities, to ridiculous, baseless
fearmongering.

For example, this year is the 10th anniversary of a particularly embarrassing
instance of ASPI inciting baseless hysteria. In 2016, when Australia conducted its
first online census, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) census website portal
failed, overwhelmed by the public trying to access it on census night. ASPI
Executive Director Peter Jennings immediately jumped to shape the media
narrative by claiming China hacked the census. “I think we’ve had quite a
sophisticated attempt to take down the ABS and maybe also to steal information,”
he told the ABC. “They [China] have the capacity to do this and the interest to do
it.” The ABS later concluded that there was no hack—the IBM hardware hosting the
website was inadequate for the job.

The census claim was a harbinger of things to come, as 2016 coincided with a shift
in US policy towards confronting the rise of China, which ASPI faithfully
represented in Australia.

For a decade, ASPI has pumped out allegations of Chinese cyberattacks on
Australian institutions, foreign interference in Australian politics and the Australian
Chinese community, Chinese infiltration of Australian universities through
academic research collaboration, Chinese bots manipulating Australian social
media, and more.

Because the Citizens Party regularly fact-checked ASPI’s claims, and debunked
most of them, it also became ASPI’s target: an ASPI report in 2023 claimed that
Chinese bot accounts on Twitter were boosting two things: statements by former
prime minister Paul Keating, and the Citizens Party’s campaign to stop banks from
closing branches in regional Australia! (The bot accounts ASPI identified had no
followers and no engagement, and ASPI didn’t prove they were Chinese.)

In this period the Australian media has amplified ASPI’s claims, and ASPI personnel
became permanent, ubiquitous fixtures on media interviews and current affairs
shows when anything to do with China was in the news—without ever declaring
the conflict of interest from their funding.

The Citizens Party urges the AUKUS Public Inquiry to examine the way the foreign
interests which are profiting from AUKUS used ASPI to shape public opinion in
Australia to accept the bill for AUKUS.

In this period the Australian media has amplified ASPI’s claims, and ASPI personnel
became permanent, ubiquitous fixtures on media interviews and current affairs
shows when anything to do with China was in the news—without ever declaring
the conflict of interest from their funding.

The Citizens Party urges the AUKUS Public Inquiry to examine the way the foreign
interests which are profiting from AUKUS used ASPI to shape public opinion in
Australia to accept the bill for AUKUS.

October 3, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics | Leave a comment

Australia’s West Bank Abdication: The Comfort of Complicity

Twelve nations put a price on Israel’s illegal settlements. Canberra sat at the table for months, then remembered it had a Security Council seat to win.

URBAM WRONSKI WRITES, 29 Sept 26

Do we have principles?

Strutting what it sees as the high moral ground of the world stage, Australia is wont to pose as the honest broker, champion of the underdog and even warden of the mystical rules-based order, a form of words that rivals the Nicene Creed for opacity and is chanted with the same glazed piety, loudest by those least inclined to live by it.

Hypocrisy? If we don’t like our principles, as Groucho almost said, we have others.

This month twelve nations put their names to trade sanctions on Israel’s illegal settlements in the West Bank: the UK, France, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Sweden.

Four diplomatic sources told the ABC that Australia stayed in the talks until close to the end. One EU official had seen an earlier draft with Australia written in.

Whether Canberra ever agreed to be there, nobody will say.

Then the pens came out and Australia remembered a pressing engagement elsewhere.

Two EU officials were “surprised”. Another was “disappointed”. A Nordic official said Canberra had “missed an opportunity”.

That is how you talk about a mate who didn’t show.

We are not so much walking back our stance against illegal settlements as not walking the talk at all.

Before we go there, let’s look at what hides behind the benign euphemism of the word settlement.

What the word hides

The settlements are Israeli civilian towns built on land Israel captured in 1967.

Article 49(6) of the Fourth Geneva Convention forbids an occupying power to move its own civilians into the territory it occupies. In July 2024 the International Court of Justice found the occupation itself unlawful and said the settlements must be evacuated.

Some settlements are cities with shopping malls and council rates. Others are one caravan, one flag and a flock of sheep on a hilltop.

Both do the same job.

Take Ras Ein al-Auja, a Bedouin village in the Jordan Valley. This is innovation. Who needs a bulldozer?

In late December 2025 settlers set up an outpost beside it. They ploughed the village land, tore up the road and cut the power cables. They blocked the canal and the grazing grounds.

They drove their herds to people’s doorsteps and gathered in groups at night.

On 8 January, 26 households, more than 100 people, left in a single day, +972 Magazine reports.

“They threatened to kill us, chased us, beat us,” said Abu Taleb al-Omari, 75. “In the end, they said they would slaughter us here if we didn’t leave.”

Muhammad Eshaq Rashid, 55: “I’ve never cried in my life until today.”

The settlers’ parting words, as one resident recalls them: “You lost. Wherever you go, we’ll come.”

Ras Ein al-Auja is not an aberration.

Amnesty International counts 117 herding and Bedouin communities fully or partly driven out between January 2023 and April 2026. That is 5,910 people. Of 363 unauthorised outposts, 212 went up under the present government………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Penny Wong told the Senate that Australia would pursue “further targeted measures in coordination with international partners.”

Which measures. Against whom. By when. The Senate was not told. Neither were we.

A touch of the reverse Robin Hood. We won’t tax the people taking Palestinian land, out of tender concern for the Palestinians whose land is being taken.

No-one’s buying the government guff………………………………………………………………….

Targeted measures. The very thing Canberra says it prefers. They were on the table. Canberra left them there.

And the targeted measures we already have?

In June 2025 Australia joined Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Norway in sanctioning Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. Good.

Now look at what that leaves. We sanction the man who runs the settlement project, then decline to touch the project.

The foreign policy equivalent of thoughts and prayers.

Wong is not confused about the stakes. She has said that settlement growth, E1 and “flagrant settler violence” are “extinguishing the possibility of a two-state solution.”

The Foreign Minister has read the death notice. She is still deciding on flowers.

Nor is the law in doubt. The ICJ told every state to refrain from aid or assistance in maintaining the occupation, and to take steps to prevent trade or investment relations that help keep it going.

Trade relations. The Court named the lever. Twelve nations have pulled it.

The domestic alibi

So why walk? The ABC’s sources point home.

On 14 December 2025, gunmen killed 15 people at a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach. That was antisemitic terror and the grief is real.

A royal commission followed. Its report is due on 18 December.

Several diplomats told the ABC that the pressure on Albanese since Bondi may have shaped Canberra’s decision.

Here is what the government will not say.

Jewish Australians are not the Israeli cabinet. A Hanukkah gathering on Bondi Beach is not a caravan on a hilltop in the Jordan Valley. A tariff on settlement goods is not an act against a faith.

Treat it as one and you accept the settlers’ own case: that the settlements belong to every Jew, everywhere.

Plenty of Jewish Australians see the difference. The Jewish Council of Australia, a progressive group sharply critical of Israeli government policy, wants settlement goods banned.

“Once again,” said its executive officer Bart Shteinman, “Australia is at the back of the pack when it comes to upholding our international law obligations.”

Jewish Australians call for the ban. The government cites Jewish Australians as its reason to refuse it.

Canberra is choosing which Jews to hear.

In London, Ed Miliband announced Britain’s measures and was promptly called antisemitic. Miliband is Jewish, as Rachel Withers notes in Crikey.

A charge that fits everyone is no guide to policy………………………………………………… https://urbanwronski.com/2026/09/29/australia-west-bank-abdication-comfort-of-complicity/

October 1, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics | Leave a comment

Submission to AUKUS Inquiry – Unwise to integrate Australia into USA’s military power -David Jonathan Beardsmore

147 – extract of a long submission

“…………………………………My submission advances three core arguments. First, that AUKUS operationally integrates
Australia into United States power projection in a way that serves US strategic interests rather
than Australian ones, and exposes Australia to risks it cannot control.

Second, that the
opportunity cost of AUKUS is indefensible, the soft power strategy that would actually serve
Australian regional security is being systematically underfunded while $368 billion is
committed to submarines that may never arrive on schedule, if at all.

Third, that a right-sized,
conventionally capable, agile defence force, including the asymmetric and drone capabilities
that have proven decisive in recent conflicts, oriented toward genuine Australian territorial
defence and regional partnership would serve Australian security better and at a fraction of the
cost.

AUKUS Was Conceived in a Strategic Environment That No Longer Exists
AUKUS was announced in September 2021 under a specific set of assumptions about the
international environment: that the United States was a reliable, rules-based actor committed
to multilateral institutions; that the primary strategic challenge was Chinese military
expansionism requiring a conventional military counterbalance; and that deep operational
integration with the United States would enhance rather than constrain Australian strategic autonomy. Each of those assumptions has been fundamentally called into question by subsequent events.

The United States has withdrawn from or undermined multiple international agreements and
institutions. It has used economic coercion against allied trading partners including Australia. It
has made explicit territorial claims over allied and sovereign territory, including Greenland and
assertions about the Panama Canal. Its current National Defense Strategy includes explicit
assertions of US dominance over the Western Hemisphere that echo 19th century Monroe
Doctrine thinking, with implications for how it would expect allied military assets to be
deployed.

I put a direct question to the inquiry that has not been adequately answered in public debate:
how does Australia procuring nuclear-powered submarines align with the actual current US
defence strategy? That strategy, as articulated under the current administration, appears to
prioritise the Western Hemisphere and Latin America as the primary zone of US strategic
concern, while effectively ceding leadership in Southeast Asia. If the US is reorienting toward
its own hemisphere, the strategic rationale for Australia acquiring submarines designed to
operate in partnership with US forces in the Indo-Pacific requires urgent re-examination. We
may be purchasing a capability designed to serve a US strategic posture that the US itself is
abandoning.

I put a further direct question: if Australia were to have a Virginia class submarine operating
under shared protocols with the United States Navy today, would Australia be in a position to
refuse if the United States requested operational support for naval activities in the Caribbean,
the Gulf of Mexico, or the waters around Venezuela or Cuba? The deeper the operational
integration, the harder the answer to that question becomes. AUKUS does not merely procure
submarines, it structurally commits Australia to follow the United States wherever its strategic
interests lead, for the next fifty years.

I also note that the AUKUS commitment appears to have been made without the standard due
diligence that would be required of any comparable major public or private investment. There
is no publicly available independent cost-benefit analysis. There is no published risk
assessment. The business case, to the extent one exists, has never been released. A
commitment of this magnitude made without this foundational work did not follow due process
by any reasonable standard, and the inquiry should name that failure directly.

A $368 billion commitment made on the basis of strategic assumptions that have demonstrably
shifted, without adequate due diligence, deserves to be revisited. That is not an anti-American
argument. It is the most basic principle of prudent risk management. I note in this context that
the terms of the deal have already changed significantly, Australia will now receive three
second-hand Virginia class submarines rather than the originally planned mix of new and used
boats. The goalposts have moved before a single submarine has been delivered. This ought to
raise serious questions about what further changes lie ahead over a fifty-year programme.

The Difference Between Alliance and Operational Integration
I wish to draw a distinction that has been largely absent from the public debate on AUKUS.
There is a meaningful difference between maintaining an alliance relationship with the United
States and being operationally integrated into US power projection.

Australia has maintained an alliance with the United States for over eighty years. That alliance
has served Australian interests in some respects and has drawn Australia into conflicts that did
not serve Australian interests in others, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan being the most obvious
examples. In each case, the alliance logic made refusal politically costly even when the
strategic case for participation was weak or non-existent.

AUKUS takes that logic and embeds it in steel and nuclear reactors. Nuclear-powered
submarines operating under shared US protocols, based at HMAS Stirling near Perth, are not
a defensive capability for protecting Australian territory and maritime approaches. They are a
contribution to US power projection across the Indo-Pacific and potentially beyond. That is a
fundamentally different strategic posture, and it has been adopted without the Australian
people being given the opportunity to debate or decide it.

I submit that Australia can and should maintain its alliance relationship with the United States
while declining to be operationally integrated into US power projection. New Zealand has done
exactly this, maintaining its alliance relationships while exercising greater strategic
independence, and it has not been invaded or left without allies. The argument that Australia
must choose between full operational integration with the United States and strategic isolation
is a false binary that serves the interests of the defence industry and alliance managers, not
the Australian people.

The Opportunity Cost: Soft Power Is Australia’s Greatest Strategic Asset

Australia’s greatest strategic asset in the Indo-Pacific is not military capability. It is trust,
proximity, shared vulnerability to climate change, and a history of engagement with Pacific and
Southeast Asian nations that cannot be replicated by either the United States or China. That
asset is being systematically squandered while $368 billion is committed to submarines.

The Pacific Islands Forum member nations have been explicit about their strategic priorities.
Their existential threat is climate change, not Chinese military aggression. When Australia
commits $368 billion to nuclear submarines while cutting development assistance and climate
finance to Pacific Island nations, it sends a clear message that Australian strategic priorities
have nothing to do with their actual needs. That message drives Pacific nations toward China,
not because they embrace Chinese authoritarianism, but because China is building ports,
hospitals, roads and renewable energy infrastructure while Australia is buying submarines.

China’s Belt and Road Initiative has created genuine dependency across the Indo-Pacific, in
Southeast Asia, and in Africa. That dependency is not the same as military conquest, but it
represents a form of strategic influence that shapes the decisions of governments and
peoples. The way to counter it is not submarines, it is offering a genuine alternative at scale.
Australia, in partnership with Japan, South Korea, India and European allies, has the capacity
to offer such an alternative. What has been lacking is the political will and financial commitment
to do so. AUKUS forecloses that option by consuming the resources that would make it
possible.

I submit that every dollar committed to AUKUS is a dollar not available for the development
finance, climate adaptation support, educational exchanges, diplomatic engagement, and
multilateral institution-building that constitute genuine soft power, and that would do more to
advance Australian security and regional influence than any number of nuclear submarines.

A Considered Assessment of the Chinese Strategic Challenge

I wish to be clear that I do not dismiss the Chinese strategic challenge. China’s militarisation of
disputed features in the South China Sea, its coercive economic behaviour toward trading
partners including Australia, its dismantling of Hong Kong’s democratic institutions in breach of
the Sino-British Joint Declaration, its treatment of the Uyghur population in Xinjiang, and the
ongoing military threat to Taiwan are all matters of genuine concern that deserve serious policy
responses. However, I submit that the appropriate Australian response to these challenges is
not submarines. It is the consistent application of international law, multilateral diplomatic
engagement, support for regional institutions, economic diversification to reduce dependency on any single trading partner, and the kind of soft power investment described in the previous section.

ASEAN, the ten-nation Southeast Asian bloc that sits between Australia and China, has
explicitly and consistently rejected the framing of a binary choice between Washington and Beijing. ASEAN’s strategic preference is for a rules-based regional order maintained through
multilateral institutions, not through US or Chinese military dominance. AUKUS cuts across
that preference and makes Australian diplomacy in ASEAN more difficult, not less. A
submission from Australia to the region that says ‘we are deploying nuclear-powered
submarines under US protocols’ is not the same as a submission that says ‘we are investing in
your development, your climate resilience, and your institutional capacity.’

On the question of Taiwan specifically, I acknowledge the genuine complexity of its historical
and legal status, and I recognise the democratic character of its 23 million people and their
right to determine their own future free from military coercion. However, the question for
Australian strategic policy is not whether Taiwan matters, it is whether AUKUS submarines
would meaningfully alter the outcome of a conflict over Taiwan without catastrophic
consequences for Australia. The answer to that question is clearly no. A war between the
United States and China over Taiwan, fought with Australian submarines alongside the US
Navy, would not save Taiwan and would expose Australia to retaliatory strikes against facilities
including HMAS Stirling, making Perth one of the first targets in a conflict that would threaten
the survival of Australian society as we know it.

This risk is compounded by the observable instability of United States policy on Taiwan itself.
The recent Trump administration’s engagement with China, including high-level diplomatic
contact and signals of reduced commitment to Taiwan’s defence, demonstrates that US
Taiwan policy is subject to rapid reversal depending on the domestic political calculations of
any given administration. Australia should not be structuring a fifty-year strategic commitment
around the reliability of US Taiwan policy when that policy has demonstrably shifted within a
single presidential term. We risk being entangled in a conflict the United States itself may
choose to step away from.

A Right-Sized Defence Force for Australia’s Actual Security Needs

Australia’s genuine defence needs can be summarised as follows:

• Maritime patrol and surveillance capability sufficient to monitor Australia’s vast
  exclusive economic zone and maritime approaches.
• Cyber capability, the most likely domain of future conflict affecting Australian interests,
  which is chronically underfunded relative to conventional platforms.
• Rapid response forces capable of responding quickly to crises across the Indo-Pacific,
  including disaster relief, humanitarian assistance, and peacekeeping operations that
  build regional relationships.
• Conventional deterrence sufficient to make any direct attack on Australian territory
  prohibitively costly for any potential adversary.
• Space-based intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capability that provides
  genuine strategic awareness without dependence on US systems.
• Advanced asymmetric capabilities, including drone swarms, loitering munitions,
  electronic warfare, and autonomous underwater vehicles, that represent the cutting
  edge of modern warfare at a fraction of the cost of conventional platforms.

None of these requirements needs nuclear submarines. All of them could be funded at world-
class levels for a fraction of $368 billion, with substantial funds remaining for the soft power

investment that is Australia’s most effective strategic tool………………………….

The Unresolved Nuclear Waste Question and True Cost of AUKUS

I note with serious concern that no credible answer has been provided to the question of where
the high-level nuclear waste generated by AUKUS submarines will be stored. This is not a
minor administrative detail. It is a fundamental question about the use of sovereign Australian
territory that affects First Nations communities, environmental values, and Australia’s
international standing as a non-nuclear-weapons state.

I wish to draw the inquiry’s attention to a question about the $368 billion cost estimate that I do
not believe has been adequately addressed in public debate: does that figure include
decommissioning costs? For nuclear facilities, decommissioning costs typically exceed the
original capital cost of construction, sometimes by a significant multiple, and extend across
decades after the facility ceases operation. If the $368 billion figure does not include the full
lifecycle cost of nuclear waste storage, management, and eventual decommissioning of the
submarines themselves, the true cost to Australian taxpayers and their descendants is
substantially higher than has been publicly stated. The inquiry should require a full lifecycle
cost disclosure before any further commitments are made.

Australia has ratified the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as a non-nuclear-weapons state. To
be clear, the AUKUS submarines will be nuclear-powered but conventionally armed, the
nuclear technology is in the propulsion system, not in the weapons they carry. The Australian
government and its AUKUS partners argue that this arrangement complies with the written
terms of the NPT because the treaty relates only to nuclear materials associated with nuclear
weapons, not propulsion. However, this compliance is genuinely contested and unresolved.
The arrangement involves the transfer of tonnes of highly enriched uranium to Australia, the
same material used in nuclear weapons, and cooperation in developing capabilities for nuclear
submarine operations that IAEA safeguards were not expressly designed to cover.

The Arms
Control Association and independent non-proliferation experts have noted these concerns.
Australia would become the first non-nuclear-weapons state to acquire nuclear-powered
submarines, setting a precedent that could significantly undermine the global non-proliferation The Arms
Control Association and independent non-proliferation experts have noted these concerns.
Australia would become the first non-nuclear-weapons state to acquire nuclear-powered
submarines, setting a precedent that could significantly undermine the global non-proliferation

I submit that the AUKUS commitment should not proceed, and certainly should not consume
further public resources, until the full lifecycle cost, including waste storage and
decommissioning, has been publicly disclosed, and until the waste storage question has been
answered transparently and publicly with full community consultation including First Nations
communities on whose land nuclear waste storage may ultimately be proposed.

The Democratic Deficit
Regardless of one’s view on the strategic merits of AUKUS, the process by which it was
decided represents a democratic failure that this inquiry should name clearly.

A commitment of up to $368 billion, extending obligations across multiple generations of
Australians who have not been consulted and cannot consent, was made in secret, announced
without prior parliamentary debate, and has been shielded from meaningful parliamentary
scrutiny by bipartisan political agreement. The argument that bipartisan support makes
parliamentary scrutiny unnecessary inverts the purpose of parliamentary democracy.
Bipartisan agreement between major parties is precisely the circumstance in which
independent scrutiny becomes most essential.

I submit that this inquiry should recommend that no further commitments under AUKUS be
made without a full parliamentary debate and vote, that the complete terms of existing
agreements be made public, and that an independent cost-benefit analysis, including full
lifecycle costs, be commissioned and publicly released before the submarine acquisition
proceeds further.

Conclusion and Recommendations

I summarise my recommendations to the inquiry as follows:

1. Suspend further AUKUS commitments pending independent review of the changed
   strategic environment, including the altered behaviour and reliability of the United
   States as an alliance partner and the shift in US strategic focus toward the Western
   Hemisphere.
2. Commission and publicly release an independent full lifecycle cost-benefit analysis,
   including decommissioning and nuclear waste storage costs, comparing AUKUS
   against alternative defence capability options and against redirecting equivalent
   resources to soft power, development finance, and regional engagement.
3. Resolve the nuclear waste storage question transparently and with full community
   consultation, including First Nations communities, before any further nuclear-related
   commitments are made.
4. Require a full parliamentary debate and vote before any further AUKUS commitments
   are entered into.
5. Develop and resource a comprehensive Indo-Pacific soft power strategy, including
   development finance, climate adaptation support, educational engagement, and
   multilateral institution-building, as Australia’s primary tool for countering Chinese
   regional influence and building genuine security relationships.
6. Commission a comprehensive review of Australia’s defence capability mix in light of
   the lessons of the Ukraine and Lebanon conflicts, with specific assessment of investment in asymmetric, drone, autonomous, and cyber capabilities as alternatives to or complements of conventional platform spending.
7. Right-size Australia’s defence force around its actual security needs, territorial defence, maritime surveillance, cyber capability, rapid response, asymmetric deterrence, and regional partnership, rather than around the requirements of US power projection.
8. Maintain the alliance relationship with the United States while declining operational integration that commits Australia to US military adventures beyond its own strategic interests.

September 27, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics | Leave a comment