Nuclear fallout: why Karina Lester is calling on Australia to sign the treaty banning atomic weapons
The late Yami Lester was blinded due to fallout from British nuclear testing at Emu Field. His daughter Karina addressed the UN in New York this week.
In the 1950s the British Government conducted a series of nuclear weapons tests at Maralinga and Emu Fields in South Australia.
Yankunytjatjara-Anangu woman Karina Lester, whose father the late Yami Lester went blind due to effects from the tests, wants to ensure no-one forgets.
On Thursday she spoke at the United Nations in New York as part of an International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear weapons (ICAN) delegation at the Third Meeting of States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
“Australia hasn’t signed and ratified the treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons,” Ms Lester told NITV from New York.
“It’s really important to voice our concerns, and in particular as victims or affected communities of the British nuclear testing, so as a second generation survivor.”
On October 15, 1953, the British Army, with the support of the Australian Menzies Government, detonated a 9 kiloton nuclear bomb, called Totem 1, at Emu Field, 480km north-west of Woomera in South Australia, without warning any of the Anangu communities living nearby.
“Totem 1 was the first mainland test in Australia. The radiation fallout drifted over Dad’s community, Walyatjatjara community, where Anangu and Yankunytjatjara people were living and working on their traditional lands none the wiser of what was being conducted under 160km south,” Karina said.
“But they did witness the black mist rolling over their traditional lands, and there was huge impact for our people.
“For Dad, four years after those tests, his world turned into complete darkness.
“People on that day became really ill. Many of the older, weaker generation passed.”
Karina says there were ripples that are still felt today, more than 70 years later.
“Because we had the fallout fall onto our environment, our trees, animals, our sand dunes, our grasses, our food that we eat as well.
“So it’s been a long, generational story for my family, where the onus is always on the victim to be continuing to speak about these things and to speak about nuclear injustice.”
As part of the Aukus security treaty between Australia, the United Kingdom and the US, Australia has signed up to acquire nuclear-powered attack submarines and will be responsible for radioactive waste generated through operations, maintenance and decommissioning.
“Us South Australians are very concerned because we often are pressured to be the nuclear waste dump of the nation,” Karina said.
“There’s been many struggles in that area where Indigenous peoples and Aboriginal people of South Australia have needed to fight against government pressure looking for a nuclear waste dump and nuclear powered submarines will produce this waste.”
Karina also has concerns about Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s plan for nuclear power.
“These power plants are on traditional lands of Indigenous peoples across our nation and while there are seven locations that have been identified, yet the Coalition has not come to address and talk to Aboriginal people of those communities,” she said.
“There’s a strong message coming from South Australia that we certainly do not want nuclear power in our state, when we have been struggling and fighting against nuclear mining, nuclear waste dumps and nuclear testing.”
The nuclear industry has impacts on Indigenous peoples across the world, Karina pointed out.
“In our very own state of South Australia, they mine uranium, they tested in the 50s and 60s, they put pressure on the Aboriginal community to be the waste dump of the nuclear waste that is produced by industry,” she said.
“And now coming up with a bright idea of nuclear power.
“Aboriginal voices of South Australia have been strong to say ‘no nuclear power plants in our state’.
“So our strong message is, ‘no, we don’t want nuclear power’.”
Karina is disappointed that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has not yet ratified the treaty against nuclear weapons.
“For us affected communities in very remote South Australia who carry the scars and carry this burden and this trauma of this lived experience through generations, now our government has failed us,” she said.
“We are out of sight and out of mind.”
It’s time to ditch Virginia subs for AUKUS and go to Plan B
In this op-ed, Henry Sokolski argues Australia should switch its focus from buying Virginia-class submarines and instead put that money towards Pillar 2 technologies.
Breaking Defense Henry Sokolski March 06, 2025
Earlier this month, the Australian government made its first payment of $500 million toward eventually obtaining US nuclear-powered submarines under the 2021 AUKUS agreement. Because the submarine deal is unlikely to overcome budgetary, organizational, and personnel hurdles, that payment should be Australia’s last.
Rather than sacrificing much of its defense program to buy nuclear submarines, Canberra should instead adopt an AUKUS Plan B that would field new defense technologies such as uncrewed systems and hypersonic weapons that would enhance Australia’s security faster, and for far less.
Most experts believe funding AUKUS’s nuclear submarine plans will be challenging. Australia’s defense budget this year is almost $35 billion USD, and is planned to rise to almost $63 billion annually by the end of this decade when Australia would begin buying US nuclear submarines. At more than $3 billion per boat, each Virginia sub will eat up five to ten percent of the Australia defense budget that year, assuming Australia can double its defense spending in five years. Already, a former top officer has warned that the submarine pact will “cannibalize” other priorities and require deferring future surface warships or eliminating some ground units.
Another potential stumbling block is what’s needed to manage a nuclear propulsion program. More than 8,000 people work for the US Naval Nuclear Propulsion program. Today only about 680 people work at the Australian Submarine Agency. If Australia wants a sovereign submarine force that isn’t dependent on Washington’s oversight, it will need thousands of additional skilled civilian workers.
Military personnel is also a challenge. The Royal Australian Navy (RAN) includes about 16,000 sailors today. Each Virginia-class submarine has a crew of about 130 people, and about 400 sailors per ship to account for training, shore duty, and maintenance. With retention already difficult for the Australian Defence Force, the RAN may be hard-pressed to find and keep the thousand-plus highly-qualified personnel it needs to crew the nuclear sub fleet……………………………..
https://breakingdefense.com/2025/03/its-time-to-ditch-virginia-subs-for-aukus-and-go-to-plan-b/
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