Antinuclear

Submission to the AUKUS Public Inquiry – cancel AUKUS, cease to be part of American militarism – Bevan Lee Ramsden

ED. This is a long and clearly argued submission. For reasons of space and time, I am here posting only extracts from it. It can be found in full at https://aukuspublicinquiry.com/

This submission argues that the AUKUS Security Pact should be cancelled and as a
starting point activating the six month cancellation clause in the Naval Propulsion
Agreement.
The AUKUS Security Pact should be cancelled for the following reasons:

1. The eight nuclear-powered hunter-killer submarines are neither necessary nor
   suitable for Australia’s territorial defence. Twenty air-independent submarines
   would be far more effective, be easier to maintain and would cost only fraction
   (8%) of the $375 billion.
2. AUKUS gives the United States porting and maintenance facilities for its nuclear
   submarines which may be nuclear-armed and will make Australia a missile target
   by enemies of the United States in war time.
3. AUKUS undermines our sovereign ability to make independent decisions about
   involvement in US wars and will inevitably draw Australia into future US wars
4. AUKUS requires Australia to store toxic nuclear waste from the nuclear
   submarines with consequential health risks to present and future populations and
   exposes local populations to the health risks of a nuclear radiation leak or
   accident.
5. AUKUS Pillar 2 ties Australian defence manufacturing and research into the arms
   manufacturing programs of the United States and for their benefit not Australia’s.
6. AUKUS compromises Australia in undermining its commitment to the Nuclear
   Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Treaty of Rarotonga (South Pacific nuclear-free
   zone) as well as providing an impediment to Australia signing the TPNW.
7. The enormous public expenditure anticipated for this narrowly focussed
   acquisition of up to eight nuclear subs will severely compromise national efforts to
   address other urgent matters of human security including fuel and food security,
   housing and medical security and to address the climate crisis.

I will now provide the arguments for cancellation of the AUKUS Security Pact
starting with Pillar 1.

Pillar 1- The acquisition of nuclear-powered attack submarines.

……………………………………………………………………….. The remaining argument used by nuclear submarine proponents is that they are
needed for defence of Australia’s territorial waters. However, Australia’s territorial
waters are in many places too shallow for the large, noisy, nuclear-powered
submarines to operate in safely and without detection, If submarines are needed
for defence of our territorial waters, smaller vessels are available from Japan and
Sweden which would be far more suitable. These vessels have quieter,
air-independent propulsion, cost far less and are free of radiation hazards. Former SA Senator and submariner Rex Patrick has said that Australia could acquire 20
air-independent subs for $30 billion, which is only 8% of the $375 billion for the 8
nuclear-powered vessels.

The arguments for Australia needing nuclear-powered submarines for our defence
clearly do not withstand scrutiny.

So why are successive governments committed to acquiring them?

There appears to be only one answer.
The US views nuclear subs as a vital part of its strategy to contain China, to track
and destroy Chinese naval vessels in the event of war with China. Our subservient
Australian leadership wants us to participate in such a war as we have done in all
the other post-WW2 wars the US has instigated,………………………..

Conclusion one: The eight nuclear-powered hunter-killer submarines are neither
necessary nor suitable for Australia’s territorial defence. Twenty air-independent
submarines would be more effective for territorial defence, be easier to maintain
and would cost only fraction (8%) of the $375 billion.

Conclusion two: The US has made it clear that it will expect Australia’s
nuclear-powered subs to participate in any US-instigated war and be subject to US
orders. To acquire such submarines in order to join a war with the US against
China would not only be extremely foolish but an economic disaster for Australians
and bring an unnecessary war to our soil.

The cost

Cost has to be another reason for questioning the acquisition of these
nuclear-powered submarines. Five of the eight submarines are of a new type, the
SSN series, to be designed by the UK and built largely at the Osborne shipyards in
South Australia. Given that they are yet to be designed and are to be built at a
facility that has no prior experience in building such vessels, the estimated cost of
$375 billion has to be regarded as a massive under-estimate………………………………………………………………..

Under Aukus and the Force Posture Agreement $8 billion of tax-payers fund will be
spent on the development of porting and maintenance facilities at HMAS Stirling,
Garden Island in WA for US and UK nuclear submarines. This development includes
a “controlled industrial facility” which will store the low -level nuclear waste from
these submarines. Greens Senator David Shoebridge has found out that
intermediate-level nuclear waste could also be dumped at this location.

The AUKUS Agreement has thus opened the door to Australia having to store
submarine nuclear waste and the concern is that the high level nuclear waste from
the nuclear reactors that drive the propulsion system of these submarines will also
have to be stored somewhere in Australia when those reactors have passed their
use-by-date.. Such a facility has not been determined yet and the provision of such
a secure facility which will prevent toxic leaks for centuries has proved a problem
for many countries and therefore presents a potential toxic threat to Australians in
the future. It should be noted that these nuclear propulsion reactors use
weapons-grade enriched uranium.

No costing has been done on the design and provisioning of such a facility in
Australia…………………………………………..

The Australian Naval Nuclear Power Safety Bill, 2023 declares Garden Island in WA
and Osborne in SA to be nuclear zones, areas in which the scenarios determined
by ARPANSA, would apply

The residents living near Garden Island and the Osborne Shipyard have not been
ad-vised of the ARPANSA risk analysis and emergency responses in relation to a
nucle-ar radiation leak or accident and so have had no opportunity to ask questions or raise any opposition based on this concern.

It is becoming clear that whether Australia receives or builds its own nuclear
subma-rines, this porting and maintenance facility at Garden Island and also the
proposed similar porting and maintenance at a facility on the east coast of
Australia, will be-come southern ocean ports for the US navy,its nuclear
submarines and perhaps more of its naval fleet pulling Australia even more
securely into US war plans.

In doing so they make Australia a missile target by enemies of the United States in
times of war.

AUKUS introduces nuclear weapons into Australia………………………………………………

The flawed process of signing onto the AUKUS Security Pact

The decision-making process behind AUKUS reeks of authoritarianism and
contempt for the Australian people and parliament. There was no public or
parliamentary discussion as one would expect prior to making such a significant
and costly national decision.

Scott Morrison was the Prime Minister who in 2021 secretly signed us up for AUKUS
together with an unknown number of faceless security advisors. He then sold the
idea to the leaders of the ALP in a two- hour power point presentation with no
documentation, no business case and no costing detail.

The ALP leadership enthusiastically embraced AUKUS and have never questioned
its legitimacy and never held any public discussion or inquiry into AUKUS and the
nuclear submarine acquisition. It has become bipartisan policy of the ALP and
Liberal Coalition with One Nation applauding in the background.

Only the Greens and some Independents have voiced questions and opposition regarding AUKUS.
AUKUS was entered into by a deeply flawed and anti-democratic process and
should be subjected to an immediate review in the form of a Royal Commission or
independent public inquiry.

AUKUS Pillar 2- Integrating Australian research and manufacturing with the US to
increase supply to the US war machine.

………………………………………………………………………………. Under Pillar 2, Australian defence industry will also be increasingly dominated by
the big three US software corporations (which already dominate and surveil all of
us), us-ing massive data centres and military focussed artificial intelligence (AI)
corporations such as Anduril and Palantir.

In practice, Australian defence developments and research will be acquired by the
US military. The Pillar II focus on sharing technologies between partners means in
prac-tice a mostly one-way sharing that is towards the US and building up its war
industry. So they will suck our brains for their benefit.

Under Pillar 2, Australian industry will become increasingly integrated into the US
mili-tary industrial complex – serving the needs of US government and US military rather than Australia.

We do not need Pillar 2. We need a publicly -owned, sovereign defence industry
manufacturing to meet our territorial self-defence needs which is quite a different
role to one designed to meet the needs of the US in its wars of aggression.

Alternatives to AUKUS.………………………….

The United States is a fractured, undemocratic society flouting international law
with impunity. We can have no affinity with this dangerous “ally” as former PM
Malcom Fraser said in his book “dangerous allies”.

The heavy US military footprint on our country will only attract a missile attack by
enemies of the US when they are at war. AUKUS is part of the US military footprint
on Australia…………………………………………………………………….

For a peaceful, independent and more secure future, AUKUS must be cancelled
and the Force Posture Agreement terminated, a consequence of which will be the
regaining of sovereignty and ending the heavy US military footprint on our
continent.

October 11, 2026 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics