Australian news – week to 18 July
- ‘ AUKUS Safety plan?
- Extreme risk’: AUKUS warnings as Garrett’s inquiry docks in Adelaide
- ‘Height of unfairness’: Former SA senator slams government over AUKUS nuclear waste move.
- Why Australia’s new office marks a turning point for AI governance.
- Antisemitic, really? Jewish leader speaks out on Royal Commission hypocrisy.
- Royal Commission or Lobby Show? | The West Report
- Starting from scratch on nuclear in Australia would take longer, cost more than first-time offshore wind.
- From Crimea to AUKUS: How distant wars reshape Australia
‘Extreme risk’: AUKUS warnings as Garrett’s inquiry docks in Adelaide
“Extreme” economic risk and nuclear waste disposal concerns for the $368 billion AUKUS submarine project are being heard at an independent inquiry in Adelaide today.
The risk associated with the Federal Government’s $368 billion AUKUS nuclear submarine project are being criticised by former federal senator and self-described ‘transparency warrior’ Rex Patrick this morning at an independent inquiry held in Adelaide today.
And transparency warnings were raised over the government’s plans for nuclear waste from submarines built at Osborne in South Australia, Patrick saying he was fighting in the Federal Court for information to be made public.
Meanwhile, former South Australian Liberal MP Christopher Pyne, who was Minister for Defence from 2018 until his retirement in 2019, said he “thought twice about appearing” at the inquiry led by famed Australian musician and former federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett.
Pyne said he bit the bullet because he believed in the “battle of ideas”.
The independent inquiry into the defence agreement between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States was established earlier this year to scrutinise the deal.
It is being led by former Labor MP and Midnight Oil front man Peter Garrett, with public hearings taking place across the country, including in Adelaide today and tomorrow.
Other commissioners included First Nations leader Karina Lester, former West Australian Premier Carmen Lawrence, former Chief of the Australian Defence Force Chris Barrie and co-CEO of the Australia Institute Leanne Minshull. A final report was expected on October 30.
“Adelaide is at the epicentre of the AUKUS project,” Garrett told reporters at a press conference before the inquiry started.
“Whether it’s questions on the safe, long-term storage of radioactive waste, whether it’s the impact on communities in Adelaide and around Osborne, whether it’s the question of opportunity cost for the Adelaide economy.
“It is a matter of some regret that the AUKUS decision – the biggest-ever decision by any Australian government to spend public money on submarines, some not even built – was made with minimal public debate.”
The inquiry has been supported by trade unions and non-profit organisations to address questions over whether risks – economic and political – were being managed appropriately, Patrick telling the inquiry the country was taking on a “hugely risky program”.
“From an absolute cost perspective, it is unaffordable and it is bankrupting,” he said.
“There’s also an opportunity cost. You know – $360 billion – if you think about what you can spend with that amount of money… we wouldn’t be worrying about fuel security, we wouldn’t be worrying about industrial resilience.”
He added that nuclear waste storage was “a problem that needs to be solved”, noting he was fighting in the Federal Court for the release of documents around where the government was planning to store waste from the nuclear submarines.
“I’m not asking for the release of documents that relate to how fast a submarine might go, how many weapons it might have… I’m asking for information that is incidental to this project but really important to it: Where are you going to put the waste associated with this?” Patrick said.
Pyne gave evidence ahead of Patrick, and emphasised the importance of the AUKUS project in terms of national defence against China, saying the uplift in defence capability would be imperative “if we find ourselves on our own in the worst case scenario”.
He described AUKUS as “unstoppable” and said it would deliver a permanent boost for defence spending, an upgrade to Australia’s bases and facilities, an investment in STEM and trade skills, and would be a permanent change to Australia’s national security.
The inquiry was set to continue until this evening, with other speakers including anti-nuclear campaigner David Noonan and SA Greens MLC Melanie Selwood.
The Greens today released new findings from a survey of 343 South Australians, showing 83.7 per cent of respondents were “mostly concerned” about AUKUS.
Seventy-one per cent said AUKUS would make Australia less secure, and 74.5 per cent said they did not see “clear benefits” from the defence pact.
AUKUS was set to be a boon for the South Australian economy and jobs creation, with the nuclear submarine shipbuilding yard set to be constructed at Osborne at a cost of at least $30 billion.
Both the state and federal governments said they hoped the project would create 10,000 jobs in design and construction as well as up to 1000 apprentices per year at an on-site training facility, with the first newly built submarines expected to be delivered to the Australian Navy in the 2040s.
Enough steel to make 17 Eiffel Towers as well as 710,000 cubic metres of structural concrete will be used in the construction of the 420-metre-long fabrication hall.
However it has already weathered several hiccups.
In June, Federal Defence Minister Richard Marles announced Australia would only buy three second-hand nuclear-powered submarines instead of the promised mix of new and used US vessels.
This plan was expected to happen before Australia eventually built its own submarines using US nuclear-propulsion technology and parts made in Britain.
The second-hand subs announcement comes after the US has struggled to make enough Virginia-class submarines for its own use, leading some American lawmakers to question how it could also build enough of the boats to meet Australia’s needs.
Australia faces a critical window to receive the submarines before its existing, 1980s-designed Collins-class vessels are retired from service.
AUKUS Safety plan?
Robyn Wood, 17 July 26
The Advertiser editor says that AUKUS must be embraced by all (Editorial Advertiser 17.7.26). This could possibly be easier if the state and federal government actually released emergency and safety plans should there be a nuclear accident or terrorist attack involving the AUKUS nuclear submarines. Instead we are told they will be developed at some stage down the track. Hardly reassuring.
‘Height of unfairness’: Former SA senator slams government over AUKUS nuclear waste move
Adrian Zorzut 15 July 26, https://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/military/height-of-unfairness-former-sa-senator-slams-government-over-aukus-nuclear-waste-move/news-story/1cfe188f41d9b5530b81e065a4656ebc
The government has an AUKUS program, which they also have to justify to the Australian public but also that they have thought about and have a proper proposal to deal with the waste that will inevitably come from that program. And we know these sorts of topics are controversial. The government needs to gain a social licence and secrecy is not the way to do that,”
As plans to develop nuclear submarines under the AUKUS deal move ahead, the government is being coy about where they’re going to dump nuclear waste.
A former South Australian senator has slammed the federal government for refusing to release information about potential storage sites for nuclear waste that comes from AUKUS submarines.
Rex Patrick said the Australian public had a right to know where hazardous spent fuel from nuclear-powered submarines will be buried and shot down claims the information was a national security secret.
The former submariner turned politician is now considering taking the government to court after they refused three Freedom of Information (FoI) requests.
Mr Patrick wants Canberra to disclose the cost and potential locations for a storage facility as well as a cabinet report on this topic.
“Sensitive is not a ground for exemption. There is no military sensitivity in the storage of nuclear waste. Information about the submarines themselves will potentially attract a national security exemption, but the waste that comes from them has nothing to do with engaging in conflict or defending the country,” he told news.com.au.
“It’s incidental to the project but obviously a significant problem that needs to be addressed. It’s not like someone can build a facility in complete secrecy.”
Mr Patrick, who was an independent SA senator between 2017 and 2022, partially won a court order to cap maximum legal costs he’d have to pay if he lost an appeal against the government to $20,000. Without the cap, the former senator claims he’d face a legal bill of up to $150,000.
Handing down his finding on Monday, July 13, federal court judge O’Sullivan said the information Mr Rex’s was seeking was “a matter of significant public interest,” but stopped short of the senator’s request for a $5,000 cap on legal expenses, a copy of the judgement shows.
Mr Patrick wants to fundraise the cash but said there is no point unless he has a shot of winning his case in court and is consulting with a lawyer on what to do next.
“I’m not in the court to run litigation needlessly. I’m focused on the document and now I need to react,” he said.
‘There will be a cost’
Mr Patrick said he lodged a FoI request for a cabinet report on potential storage sites, which was knocked back by the government and the Administration Review Tribunal (ART) – a watchdog for administrative decisions made by government ministers.
The former parliamentarian plans to appeal and claims the sections of the report he is seeking are not exempt from Freedom of Information laws and are of tantamount interest to the public.
He is also separately challenging a successful appeal by the government to stop the release of other related paperwork he was due.
He claims the government wants him to cover up to $150,000 in its legal fees if he loses.
Mr Patrick won an ART decision in May to access the paperwork which helped develop the cabinet report. The government immediately appealed the decision. The parties are expected to battle it out in court.
“That’s an awful situation for me and for you as a journalist. To win an FoI in a tribunal and have the government appeal it and say if you don’t win this, you will be charged $150,000. I think that is the height of unfairness from the government,” he said.
“The whole point of the FoI regime is to allow people to get access to information, to participate in democracy, to scrutinise the government and what this does is signal that if you win, there will be a cost.”
A spokesperson from the Department of Industry, Science and Resources told news.com.au, “As this matter is before the court it would not be appropriate to comment.”
This month, Jacqui Lambie, Pauline Hanson and David Pocock were just some of 18 independent and minor-party members to pen a letter urging Attorney-General Michelle Rowland to intervene in the public interest.
“It is clear to us that this is an attack on our freedom-of-information regime, with the intent of deterring Australians from pursuing access to information,” they said, according to The Guardian.
“Dragging an ordinary citizen, self-represented and under threat of costs, to argue questions of law raised by the government is most unfair.”
Mr Patrick said a third FoI request is before the Information Commissioner. Mr Patrick submitted a request for the latest cost estimates for a facility with the Australian Submarine Agency but was told they couldn’t find them – a response he said was an “extraordinary situation” for an organisation that is supposed to cost projects from cradle to grave, a submission to an independent inquiry into AUKUS shows.
Mr Patrick said he believes an underground storage facility could cost “billions” to build and up to $30m a year to maintain.
‘Nothing stopping the PM’
Mr Patrick, who calls himself a transparency warrior, said the documents were a “significant public policy interest”.
“The government governs for us. The government has an AUKUS program, which they also have to justify to the Australian public but also that they have thought about and have a proper proposal to deal with the waste that will inevitably come from that program. And we know these sorts of topics are controversial. The government needs to gain a social licence and secrecy is not the way to do that,” he said.
The former submariner suggested because a storage facility isn’t needed until a nuclear-powered submarine is nearing decommissioning, the government is refusing to make a decision or release information. The average lifespan of a nuclear sub is 33 years, he said.
Mr Patrick added at least one site is needed to bury spent fuel and the decommissioned reactor inside the submarine. He said reactor components are generally buried in a shallow facility while spent fuel needs cooling before it is buried deep underground.
“These are politically-sensitive and emotional issues that the government is seeking to kick down the road, possibly to a time period where they’re not even in power,” he said.
“The government just really doesn’t want to deal with this publicly because it’s a politically controversial topic.”
Mr Patrick is calling on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to release the cabinet report, which the government is claiming to be exempt from FoI laws.
“Even if the document is a cabinet document, there is nothing stopping the prime minister from releasing it and the prime minister is at liberty to do that and he hasn’t.”
The Department of Industry, Science and Resources, the Prime Minister’s Office and the Australian Submarine Agency have been contacted for comment.
500 march towards Pine Gap this morning demanding closure of the facility.
Monday 20 July 2026, Mparntwe Alice Springs, Arrernte Country
Hundreds from across the country have joined a rally on the road to Pine Gap this morning demanding the closure of the controversial military facility. The action closes out the Close Pine Gap Sacred Land Back Convergence 2026 organised by Mparntwe for Falastin and Anti Militarism Action Network, the biggest convergence of its kind since 1987.
The Hayes family – Traditional Owners of Kuyunba, the sacred land that Pine Gap occupies – lead the rally, with a list of four demands:
- Return of Kuyunba
- The closure of Pine Gap
- Compensation for the years Kuyunba has been occupied
- Compensation to the families in Gaza for the lives lost there
These actions have been echoed by rallies across the country.
The action follows two days of learning and discussion about militarism and colonialism. Experts from around the country addressed the violent reality and risks of Pine Gap.
“If ever there was a message to end the world, it would come through Pine Gap. We would be the handmaidens of that,” said Senator David Shoebridge on the weekend, adding, “US bases have never made us safe, but right now they are especially making us a target.”
Felicity, Wyonna and Jacquita Hayes, Arrernte Apmereke-artweye Traditional Custodians, said earlier to supporters:
“We want people to support us to close down Pine Gap. We want them to know it’s a sacred site. We don’t want to be feeling guilty all the time when bad things are happening overseas to little ones. We’re not the ones controlling that facility, but we feel guilty that it’s coming from our land.”
Royal Commission or Lobby Show? | The West Report.
The Royal Commission into anti-Semitism has a problem: it is not credible.
The evidence is not being tested. Instead, it has descended into a storytelling farce about hurt feelings, while the data shows Muslim and Arab hate is worse than Jewish hate in Australia — in many cases, not all.
This week in nuclear-related non corporate news
Theme of the week. The World Cup football is nearly over – perhaps now we’ll get some real news. Lots of media reassures us that the wondrous FIFA religious ceremony will not be affected by wildfire smoke. But nuclear facilities will be.
Some bits of good news –
| The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, treated like failures, have changed billions of lives. |
The UK (finally) ratified the high seas treaty. Children are overwhelmingly positive for the future, says survey
TOP STORIES.
Ministry of Ddefence (MoD) finally admits ‘extensive’ human radiation experiments on nuclear test veterans.
The Killing Machines -Governments and Technology Obsessing Over Efficient Death.
Israel And The United States Are Merging Their Militaries. Here’s Why.
The Men Who Own the War Now Run It.
Warming Europe complicates France’s bet on nuclear power . Europe’s Nuclear Plants Can’t Beat the Heat .
Nuclear Power is Now Trump Power…What Could Go Wrong?
From the archives – A 90 million gallon nuclear tragedy
Climate. Norwegian rocks to protect Sizewell B on Suffolk coast. The European holiday destinations where 50ºC summers could become the norm. UK has ‘no future’ if it fails to act on ecosystem collapse threatening national security.
Noel’s notes. The global small nuclear reactor bandwagon is led by Britain- It ought to fail, but will it?
AUSTRALIA.
- ‘Extreme risk’: AUKUS warnings as Garrett’s inquiry docks in Adelaide. ‘Height of unfairness’: Former SA senator slams government over AUKUS nuclear waste move.
- Starting from scratch on nuclear in Australia would take longer, cost more than first-time offshore wind.
- Royal Commission or Lobby Show? | The West Report Antisemitic, really? Jewish leader speaks out on Royal Commission hypocrisy.
- Why Australia’s new office marks a turning point for AI governance.
NUCLEAR-RELATED ITEMS
CLIMATE. France Cuts 6.4 GW of Nuclear Power as Heatwave Grips the Country.
Atomic rivers. The (Un)sustainability of nuclear power in an age of climate change
France temporarily shuts down three nuclear reactors over heatwave.
Nuclear power reactor forced to shut down due to extreme 28C heat.
Heatwave: EDF will once again shut down nuclear reactors – ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2026/07/15/3-b1-heatwave-edf-will-once-again-shut-down-nuclear-reactors/
EDF will spend nearly 9 billion euros to adapt to climate change – ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2026/07/16/3-b1-edf-will-spend-nearly-9-billion-euros-to-adapt-to-climate-change/
Climate Change – It’s only a matter of time…
ECONOMICS.
Nuclear Commercial Shipping Still Fails The Business Case.
‘Sip your coffee while watching the sunrise’: How Israel is colonizing the West Bank by selling Palestinian land to Jewish Americans.
Bangladesh’s Nuclear Power Play Is a Test for Emerging Economies.
Insuring Small Modular Nuclear Reactors.
Holtec bets big on small nuclear reactors in its IPO filing.
Grant to support expansion of TRISO-X nuclear fuel campus.
Nuclear costs crowd out key defence priorities in UK investment plan, say SDR authors.
Great British Energy appoints Amentum and Cavendish in £360M SMR deal.
Government U turn as Sizewell B is to get a fixed-price government contract -ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2026/07/15/3-b1-government-u-turn-as-sizewell-b-is-to-get-a-fixed-price-government-contract/
Nuclear power costs billions- Here are seven better ways to use that money – Martin Roche- ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2026/07/14/3-b1-nuclear-power-costs-billions-here-are-seven-better-ways-to-use-that-money-martin-roche/
EDUCATION. What do you need to know to run a nuclear power plant?
ENERGY. Two Geothermal Bets Are Starting to Undercut Nuclear on Cost.
ENVIRONMENT. Federal government proposes to lessen nuclear reactor environmental reviews. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Targets Faster Nuclear Licensing With National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)Streamlining Proposal.
What is it like living near the site of a new nuclear power station?
ETHICS and RELIGION. The Killing Machines -Governments and Technology Obsessing Over Efficient Death.
What ceasefire? People still being killed and Gaza still under siege.
| HISTORY ‘They used axes to spare the ammo’: How modern Ukraine’s Nazi heroes massacred Poles during WWII How Israel planned the Gaza genocide decades ago. 250 Years of a Country and What Have We Learned? – The nuclear industrial complex creation catastrophe. |
| INDIGENOUS ISSUES. Saugeen Ojibway Nation Says It Was Shut Out of Canada’s Nuclear Strategy |
| LEGAL. No, Israel Does Not Have ‘A Right To Exist’. Fearing Justice: Rubio Gets Bolshie About the International Criminal Court (ICC). |
| MEDIA Thirteen films that are essential to understanding the nuclear age. Iran aside, don’t ignore Trump’s war crimes in the Caribbean, Venezuela and Somalia. Walt Zlotow – Chicago Tribune misleads its readership with Bob Kustra’s imaginary commentary ‘What Ronald Reagan would do today for the people of Ukraine |
| OPPOSITION to NUCLEAR . TELL Nuclear Regulatory Commission: Don’t weaken radiation standards. How Fear of Nuclear Armageddon Leads Me to Protest. PICTURE Activists protest outside Pioneer Park nuclear event -ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2026/07/19/1-b1-activists-protest-outside-pioneer-park-nuclear-event/ |
POLITICS.
- Hamas’s Governance Exit Exposes Israel’s Real Objectives.
- ‘Seismic Shift’ as Over 100 House Democrats Vote to Cut Off US Military Aid to Israel.
- JD Vance Says Israeli Officials Are Pressuring U.S. to Prolong Iran War.
- Liberals Have Relaxed About Trump Because They Trust Him To Keep The Wars Going.
- The risk of nuclear war is rising – This is what Burnham must do. ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2026/07/17/6-the-risk-of-nuclear-war-is-rising-this-is-what-burnham-must-do/ Add stopping Sizewell C to Andy Burnham’s “to do” list. Labour MP Brian Leishman opposes new nuclear energy near Clacks
- July 22 deadline to comment on downgrade of impact assessment for nuclear projects | Canada’s Federal government pushing for power with a “nuclear fist” | Dates and Deadlines.
POLITICS INTERNATIONAL and DIPLOMACY.
Europe is Teetering on the Brink. Support Without a Seat at the Table: Poland’s Costly Alignment with Ukraine. A Sustainable Peace in Ukraine: Diplomacy, Neutrality, and the Limits of the Current Order.
Jeffrey Sachs: We’re Led by the Most Incompetent Leaders Imaginable.
Walt Zlotow -All hail Marco Rubio, Potentate of Venezuela.
Trump Says Iran Deal Is “Over,” Signals More US Strikes Are Likely Coming,
| RADIATION. Radiation Protection –analysis of NRC proposals. Challenging New York Time’s Suggestion That We Should Stop Worrying and Love Radiation Trump Administration Scrapping Nuclear Energy Rules Requiring Plants to Keep Radiation Levels “As Low as Reasonably Achievable” |
| SAFETY. ‘At risk of horrific contamination’: The Soviet nuclear submarine wreck that is a ‘ticking time bomb’. Incidents. Satellite images show damage inside Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant. World warned of ‘nuclear apocalypse’ after drone kills nuclear plant engineer in Ukraine Mysterious drones spotted flying over nuclear power plant. No radiation leak after ‘contamination’ events at Africa’s only nuclear plant, regulator says. |
| SECRETS and LIES. The West Won’t Punish The Settlements: its Two-State Solution Was Always a Sham. Trump claimed Iran’s nuclear sites were ‘obliterated’ – Now another is in his sights. Iran Accuses Kushner, Witkoff of Pursuing Profits Over Peace in Diplomatic Talks. 2009 quake may have prompted data rigging by central Japan nuclear operator |
| SPACE. EXPLORATION, WEAPONS. Eight NATO allies to create new satellite mega-constellation. Corporations Lead U.S. Militarization of Space. |
| SPINBUSTER The false promise of nuclear power. It’s Not Terrorism When We Do It. |
| TECHNOLOGY. BEC showcases nuclear powered A.I data centre, Pioneer Park (and Radiation Free Lakeland protestors were there in opposition) AI and the absurdity of nuclear deterrence. |
| WASTES. Uranium-Chomping Bacteria Found In Bowels Of Mine That Once Supplied Soviet Nuclear Weapons. Cumbrian environmental groups quit GDF nuclear waste talks . Ed Milliband to decide on Cumbrian nuclear waste plan. Canada’s Federal Government in Disarray Over Nuclear Waste Project Assessment . Decommissioning. Ukraine draft law on Chernobyl decommissioning to 2036 approved. |
WAR and CONFLICT.
- Is London shifting from nuclear deterrence to war-fighting?
- Trump Killed Those US Troops In Jordan.
- Time for all US service personnel in Middle East to disobey illegal Trump orders to wage criminal war on Iran.
- Trump’s New Iran Strikes Are Turning Failure Into a Wider Disaster.
- Trump says US will ‘take out’ Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain nuclear facility.
- Iran war takes terrifying turn, missiles bombard NUCLEAR plant.
- CALLING THE ODDS ON DOOMSDAY.
- The five countries that could go nuclear next – and how worried we should be.
WEAPONS and WEAPONS SALES . Autonomous Weapons: The Wave of the Future in Military Conflicts Worldwide.
Faslane set for £15bn upgrade to ‘future-proof it for war-fighting’.
Why is Britain spending huge amounts on nuclear militarism? . ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2026/07/17/3-b1-why-is-britain-investing-huge-amounts-in-nuclear-militarism/
US industrial base is becoming stronger for wartime production, study finds.
A Budget of the Pentagon, By the Congress and For the War Profiteers.
Dennis Kucinich Warns Congress Is Quietly Merging the U.S. and Israeli War Machines.
America’s AI War Has No Civilian Stop Rule.
North Korea vows boost to nuclear buildup, military intelligence.
Why Australia’s new office marks a turning point for AI governance
15 July 2026 , RMIT University, https://theaimn.net/why-australias-new-office-marks-a-turning-point-for-ai-governance/
The Federal Government has today announced a new Office of AI within the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, alongside plans for a national artificial intelligence framework. An RMIT expert says this stronger oversight of the rapidly evolving technology is a welcome step.
Lisa Given, Distinguished Professor of Information Sciences
“As technology companies increasingly look to build data centres in Australia, communities have expressed significant concerns about energy and water use, and placement near residential neighbourhoods.
“Australians are also worried about disruption from AI technologies, raising concerns about potential job losses, copyright infringements of material used to train AI models, and data privacy.
“Addressing such varied challenges, particularly when AI technologies are evolving at such a fast pace, warrants the coordinated approach this office will take.
“Given the known risks posed by generative AI technologies like deepfake images that mislead customers or hallucinated content that misinforms chatbot users – Australians need government intervention to protect them from harm.
“The creation of this office marks a significant shift in the government’s overall approach to governing AI, towards being more hands-on and proactive.
“In 2024, the government planned to regulate high-risk AI implementation, which was later abandoned. It also proposed – and then paused – digital duty of care legislation, to hold technology companies to account for harmful content and tool designs.
“By creating this office, and reintroducing digital duty of care legislation this year, the government has recognised the need for coordination and intervention to address the varied risks posed by AI, while also supporting its potential benefits.”
Lisa Given is a Distinguished Professor of Information Sciences at RMIT University. She is director of RMIT’s Centre for Human-AI Information Environments and the Social Change Enabling Impact Platform
Antisemitic, really? Jewish leader speaks out on Royal Commission hypocrisy
by Jeffrey Loewenstein | Jul 14, 2026, https://michaelwest.com.au/antisemitic-really-jewish-leader-speaks-out-on-royal-commission-hypocrisy/ |
Were the ‘attacks’ described really attacks of an antisemitic nature,The tide has turned a little at the Royal Commission into Antisemitism with a second Jewish witness breaking from the Israel narrative. Jeffrey Loewenstein reports.
Sarah Schwartz, co-founder of the Jewish Council of Australia (JCA), gave evidence at the Royal Commission into Anti-Semitism and Social Cohesion last week.
I venture to suggest that it will come to be seen that Schwartz gave seminal evidence which the Commissioner is going to find hard to ignore when she is writing her report; evidence supported yesterday by the compelling testimony of Jewish university peace activist Yasmine Johnson.
Until Schwartz gave her evidence, we had seen testimonies given by members of the Jewish community – some of which can only be described as very troubling in terms of evidence – which sometimes bordered on hysterical.
But, the elephant in the room?
Sarah Schwartz, co-founder of the Jewish Council of Australia (JCA), gave evidence at the Royal Commission into Anti-Semitism and Social Cohesion last week.
I venture to suggest that it will come to be seen that Schwartz gave seminal evidence which the Commissioner is going to find hard to ignore when she is writing her report; evidence supported yesterday by the compelling testimony of Jewish university peace activist Yasmine Johnson.
Until Schwartz gave her evidence, we had seen testimonies given by members of the Jewish community – some of which can only be described as very troubling in terms of evidence – which sometimes bordered on hysterical.
But, the elephant in the room?
“Were the ‘attacks’ described really attacks of an antisemitic nature,”
or were they people venting their anger and outrage at Jews seen to be rusted-on, unquestioning supporters of Israel’s egregious actions in Gaza?
Take the example of a uni student in Canberra who just yesterday was reported in the Nine media thus: ”Liat told the Commission she had felt “very physically unsafe” during the long encampment at her university campus … when people would laugh and leer at me and say, ‘Look at the baby killer, look at the genocide supporter’”.
No, that is not pleasant, but the fact is – a fact unchallenged aside from the state of Israel itself and the likes of the ECAJ in Australia – that more than 20,000 Palestinian children have been killed by the state of Israel and more than 44,000 injured since October 2023.
Why the rise in antisemitism?
What was more than significant, is that many of those who gave evidence of alleged antisemitism demonstrated absolutely no introspection. Why had there been a rise in anti-semitism sinceOctober 7?
Not because Hamas attacked Israel. No, it was, in many cases people showing their anger, yes, in some instances in a totally misguided way, at Israel’s actions in Gaza. Why did some 300,000 people from all walks of life and all ages, march across the Sydney Harbour Bridge on a foul, wet and windy day?
The palpable anger by a significant part of the Australian community, including many Jews, at what Israel did in Gaza, and continues to do to this day, is reflected in the sober evidence given at the Royal Commission yesterday by Yasmine Johnson, a co-convener for Students for Palestine and a protest organiser.
Following her evidence, Johnson, who is Jewish, told the media
“the idea that campus protests “create a dangerous atmosphere, fear for people, is farcical”.
Antisemitism, anti-genocide conflation
“What we’ve heard,” she said “so far is day after day after day of evidence which conflates legitimate anti-genocide, pro-Palestine activism with genuine antisemitism which exists in our society.”
The earlier mentioned witness Liat, and others like her, may feel uncomfortable about what is being shouted out at her as much as she probably sees posters like ‘Free Palestine’ as confronting and antisemitic, but has Liat – who acts as a spokesperson for the Australasian Union of Jewish Students – either personally or on behalf of her organisation ever publicly accused Israel of being responsible for war crimes in Gaza, even if not genocide? Almost certainly, not!
And that is the rub.
Might this alleged antisemitism just have had something to do with Jews so visibly parading around with Israeli flags draped acrosss their shoulders, waving Israelis flags at solidarity rallies for Israel, Jewish communal leaders excoriating those who called out Israel for engaging in genocide or starving children, and welcoming the Israeli President as their “national leader” ?
“Really? I thought we were Australians.”
The “average” person could be forgiven for concluding that members of the Jewish community were demonstrating that they identified with and supported Israel.
The question to be asked here is why it is that criticising Israel by Jews is said to make the speaker a self-hating Jew, a “kapo” a “Judenrat” or, as in the case of Schwartz, to even be accused on ABC Radio National as being ‘anti Jewish?”
They are shameful, offensive and disgraceful epithets. They are intended to be so.
Not be ignored in the above is that the likes of a Mark Leibler, the ECAJ, AIJAC, the Zionist Federation of Australia and similar groups see Jews who criticise Israel as a no-go area even if they, falsely, assert that Jews are free to openly express their views about Israel. It’s simply untrue!
There is the expectation from these quarters that all Jews will, as a matter of solidarity, support Israel as the Zionist/Jewish homeland. With this forked-tongue and double-speak it is no wonder that the sort of slurs and insults which Schwartz described at the Royal Commission are rife in the Jewish community.
A climate of fear
Conversely, those in the Jewish community who might otherwise speak out against Israel fear that they will be subjected to all manner of insults and even the break-down of family relationships.
Given the airing of Schwartz’s evidence, one has to also wonder why there has been total silence from the usually vocal Jewish organisations. Should they not be publicly calling out vilification of fellow-Jews, calling for vilification to be stopped and asking for respect for those Jews who are not Zionists, strident or not.
Proof of the “attitude” in the Jewish community to those who are not at one with supporting Israel is clearly demonstrated by the Australian Jewish News which, just last week, pulled a story attacking those in the Jewish community who attacked their fellow Jews with the the sort of offensive epithets directed at Sarah Schwartz.
My Israel question
I can speak personally to how the Jewish community reacts when Israel or the Israel Lobby comes under scrutiny. Back in 2006, Melbourne University Press published my son’s book “My Israel Question”. The book flew off the shelves.
The response from the so-called powers-that be in the Jewish community – including a Jewish Federal member of Parliament in Parliament, even exhorting people not to buy the book – bordered on feral.
Even putting aside the death threats to my son and his then partner, as an example of hate mail – which Schwartz has so clearly shown in her evidence – one early so-called correspondent wrote that he hoped that when the Nazis came to Australia that he and his parents would be the first to be marched into the gas chambers.
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The tide has turned a little at the Royal Commission into Antisemitism with a second Jewish witness breaking from the Israel narrative. Jeffrey Loewenstein reports.
Sarah Schwartz, co-founder of the Jewish Council of Australia (JCA), gave evidence at the Royal Commission into Anti-Semitism and Social Cohesion last week.
I venture to suggest that it will come to be seen that Schwartz gave seminal evidence which the Commissioner is going to find hard to ignore when she is writing her report; evidence supported yesterday by the compelling testimony of Jewish university peace activist Yasmine Johnson.
Until Schwartz gave her evidence, we had seen testimonies given by members of the Jewish community – some of which can only be described as very troubling in terms of evidence – which sometimes bordered on hysterical.
But, the elephant in the room?
Were the ‘attacks’ described really attacks of an antisemitic nature,
or were they people venting their anger and outrage at Jews seen to be rusted-on, unquestioning supporters of Israel’s egregious actions in Gaza?
Take the example of a uni student in Canberra who just yesterday was reported in the Nine media thus: ”Liat told the Commission she had felt “very physically unsafe” during the long encampment at her university campus … when people would laugh and leer at me and say, ‘Look at the baby killer, look at the genocide supporter’”.
No, that is not pleasant, but the fact is – a fact unchallenged aside from the state of Israel itself and the likes of the ECAJ in Australia – that more than 20,000 Palestinian children have been killed by the state of Israel and more than 44,000 injured since October 2023.
Why the rise in antisemitism?
What was more than significant, is that many of those who gave evidence of alleged antisemitism demonstrated absolutely no introspection. Why had there been a rise in anti-semitism sinceOctober 7?
Not because Hamas attacked Israel. No, it was, in many cases people showing their anger, yes, in some instances in a totally misguided way, at Israel’s actions in Gaza. Why did some 300,000 people from all walks of life and all ages, march across the Sydney Harbour Bridge on a foul, wet and windy day?
The palpable anger by a significant part of the Australian community, including many Jews, at what Israel did in Gaza, and continues to do to this day, is reflected in the sober evidence given at the Royal Commission yesterday by Yasmine Johnson, a co-convener for Students for Palestine and a protest organiser.
Following her evidence, Johnson, who is Jewish, told the media
the idea that campus protests “create a dangerous atmosphere, fear for people, is farcical”.
Antisemitism, anti-genocide conflation
“What we’ve heard,” she said “so far is day after day after day of evidence which conflates legitimate anti-genocide, pro-Palestine activism with genuine antisemitism which exists in our society.”
The earlier mentioned witness Liat, and others like her, may feel uncomfortable about what is being shouted out at her as much as she probably sees posters like ‘Free Palestine’ as confronting and antisemitic, but has Liat – who acts as a spokesperson for the Australasian Union of Jewish Students – either personally or on behalf of her organisation ever publicly accused Israel of being responsible for war crimes in Gaza, even if not genocide? Almost certainly, not!
And that is the rub.
Might this alleged antisemitism just have had something to do with Jews so visibly parading around with Israeli flags draped acrosss their shoulders, waving Israelis flags at solidarity rallies for Israel, Jewish communal leaders excoriating those who called out Israel for engaging in genocide or starving children, and welcoming the Israeli President as their “national leader” ?
Really? I thought we were Australians.
The “average” person could be forgiven for concluding that members of the Jewish community were demonstrating that they identified with and supported Israel.
The question to be asked here is why it is that criticising Israel by Jews is said to make the speaker a self-hating Jew, a “kapo” a “Judenrat” or, as in the case of Schwartz, to even be accused on ABC Radio National as being ‘anti Jewish?”
They are shameful, offensive and disgraceful epithets. They are intended to be so.
Not be ignored in the above is that the likes of a Mark Leibler, the ECAJ, AIJAC, the Zionist Federation of Australia and similar groups see Jews who criticise Israel as a no-go area even if they, falsely, assert that Jews are free to openly express their views about Israel. It’s simply untrue!
There is the expectation from these quarters that all Jews will, as a matter of solidarity, support Israel as the Zionist/Jewish homeland. With this forked-tongue and double-speak it is no wonder that the sort of slurs and insults which Schwartz described at the Royal Commission are rife in the Jewish community.
A climate of fear
Conversely, those in the Jewish community who might otherwise speak out against Israel fear that they will be subjected to all manner of insults and even the break-down of family relationships.
Given the airing of Schwartz’s evidence, one has to also wonder why there has been total silence from the usually vocal Jewish organisations. Should they not be publicly calling out vilification of fellow-Jews, calling for vilification to be stopped and asking for respect for those Jews who are not Zionists, strident or not.
Proof of the “attitude” in the Jewish community to those who are not at one with supporting Israel is clearly demonstrated by the Australian Jewish News which, just last week, pulled a story attacking those in the Jewish community who attacked their fellow Jews with the the sort of offensive epithets directed at Sarah Schwartz.
My Israel question
I can speak personally to how the Jewish community reacts when Israel or the Israel Lobby comes under scrutiny. Back in 2006, Melbourne University Press published my son’s book “My Israel Question”. The book flew off the shelves.
The response from the so-called powers-that be in the Jewish community – including a Jewish Federal member of Parliament in Parliament, even exhorting people not to buy the book – bordered on feral.
Even putting aside the death threats to my son and his then partner, as an example of hate mail – which Schwartz has so clearly shown in her evidence – one early so-called correspondent wrote that he hoped that when the Nazis came to Australia that he and his parents would be the first to be marched into the gas chambers.
Unhinged? Yes!
But as Schwartz spelt out in her evidence at the Royal Commission many in the Jewish community see attacking those who do not support Israel 100% as legitimate. And if that extends to thuggery, look no further than the Jewish group the Lions of Zion and their “activities” – an organisation supported by the powers that be in the Jewish community.
Thankfully the JCA has provided an ever-growing forum and voice for Jews who will not remain silent given Israel’s genocide in Gaza and breaches of multiple international laws and conventions.
Let’s not forget, while Israel denies what a slew of scholars, human rights organisations and aid and medical agencies have found – including those learned on genocide, some of whom even live in Israel itself – the facts on the ground speak volumes. We have all seen and read about it.
Israel clearly stands guilty as charged!
What ceasefire? People still being killed and Gaza still under siege
by Cathy Peters | Jul 11, 2026 , https://michaelwest.com.au/what-ceasefire-gaza-still-under-siege/
As Jillian Segal denied the undeniable at the Bondi Royal Commission this week, not much is changing in Gaza, and Trump’s Board of Peace stands by idly. Cathy Peters with the latest.
In a move that’s been largely unreported here, Hamas announced earlier this week that it would dissolve its governing Emergency Committee with the resignation of its acting leader.
This move has been recognised as an attempt to hasten the transfer of administrative authority to the Trump-appointed Board of Peace’s National Committee for the Management of Gaza (NCAG), a body of Palestinian technocrats, assembled and waiting in Cairo to manage public administration, security, recovery and transition throughout the Gaza Strip as part of the agreed ceasefire plan.
However, despite being established in January this year, the NCAG has not yet been given access to enter Gaza by the Board of Peace or Israel.
Trump’s controversial Board of Peace predictably dismissed Hamas’ move, stating that the NCAG is not yet in a position to take on this role while Hamas retains control of weapons. Hamas maintains that while Israel is still killing Palestinians, it will not disarm.
Nine months since the Gaza ceasefire and Trump’s 20-point peace plan of October 2025, conditions throughout the Strip have remained unlivable and deadly for Palestinians, with more than 1000 killed by Israeli forces and more than 3,500 injured.
“Parents stay awake all night in their tents to stop rats feeding on their children”
The amount of humanitarian aid is far short of what is required, and there is a trickle of medical evacuations despite some 16,500 Palestinians needing urgent medical transfer out of Gaza.
A Board of inaction
The UN Security Council supported the establishment of the Board of Peace in November last year, noting that it would be temporary and transitional, although Trump subsequently declared it would address other world conflicts beyond Gaza.
The composition of the Board of Peace Executive and the Gaza Executive Board includes a number of Trump’s leadership team, plus other Republican operatives, wealthy U.S.businessmen and real estate magnates, as well as Tony Blair.
Donald Trump – Chairman for life
Marco Rubio – U.S. Secretary of State
Jared Kushner – U.S. presidential advisor and son-in-law
Steve Witkoff – U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East
Tony Blair – Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Marc Rowan – CEO of Apollo Global Management
Ajay Banga – President of the World Bank Group
Qatar and the UAE and more Republican government appointees. Susie Wiles, White House Chief of Staff and former Trump campaign adviser. and Robert Gabriel, U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor.
According to the UN Security Council Resolution 2803, this body has UN support to ‘set the framework and coordinate funding for the redevelopment of Gaza’ until the Palestinian Authority has ‘satisfactorily reformed’. It also authorised the Board to deploy a temporary International Stabilisation Force in Gaza; however, this has not occurred.
Israel has moved some of the anti-Hamas Palestinian militias it’s been arming and funding for three years now into the area it has occupied behind the yellow line. These various militias, led by factional gangs, drug lords and criminals, pose additional threats to Hamas disarming and the transition of power to a Palestinian-led reconstruction committee and the ultimate withdrawal of the IDF.
Yellow and orange lines
The Israeli-defined ‘yellow line ’, according to Israel’s legal NGO Gisha, pushes more than two million people into less than half of the Strip’s territory, exacerbating unbearable overcrowding that is harming public health, including outbreaks of disease and infestation of rats and other pests.
Israel’s seizure of such vast areas also prevents Gaza residents from returning to their homes and lands. Most of Gaza’s agricultural lands lie east of the Yellow Line, meaning they are within areas controlled by Israel. Continued denial of access for farmers to their lands prevents the rehabilitation of vital food sources.
From March 2025, Israel instituted the ‘orange’ line, a line that delineates almost 48% of Gaza’s land mass where any international organisations are prohibited from moving with prior coordination with Israeli authorities. Gisha reports that this orange line is now a new border that has expanded the area that Israel now directly controls.
While negotiations have stalled for 9 months on the initial implementation of the ceasefire agreement, the IDF, following on from Netanyahu’s call in May, has now occupied almost 70% of Gaza, with the yellow cement perimeter markers defining an ever-shrinking area where 2.1 million war-wounded and dispossessed Palestinians are helplessly surviving.
Remote-controlled machine guns
Everyone in Gaza is constantly monitored by drones, and now occupying the eastern perimeter of this dystopian landscape are 23 massive military cranes equipped with remote-controlled machine guns and high-tech surveillance cameras inside the Israeli IDF-defined yellow line. Gaza journalist Tamar Nahed posted this description of Israel’s latest killing apparatus,
“These cranes have turned the entire city into an open field. The latest military technologies are directed at civilians. We have become an open testing ground for their new weapons. The horror is not just in the sound… it is the constant feeling of being an exposed target at all times.”
In the first week of July, the Board of Peace declared that there was no role for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in Gaza, which is a continuation of the Israeli ban on this aid organisation, which has supported Palestinians with essential humanitarian and educational aid in Gaza since 1948.
This announcement negates the Charter of the United Nations, international law principles and fundamental human rights standards.
Shelters or camps?
Despite the Board’s apparent refusal to allow the Palestinian committee of bureaucrats (NCAG) into Gaza, the Israeli news outlet Israel Hayom just reported on plans aimed at relocating Palestinian residents into barbed wire fenced designated areas. This will allow the IDF to ‘deepen its grip on areas outside of the yellow line’.
“Surviving Palestinians will be herded into fenced “humanitarian shelters” policed by foreign forces,” as reported by Israel Hayom on July 2.
Images of a camp that’s been described as a concentration camp have emerged in Tel Al-Sultan, an area near Rafah where a pilot project of ‘humanitarian shelters’ will be established. Civilians will be channelled into Tel Al-Sultan, which was a densely populated area of Rafah from which hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were ordered to flee in April last year.
This image of stark, freshly flattened land surrounded by barbed wire fences and covered with masses of metal box shelters and no evidence of any permanent cement structures (as directed by Israel) appears to be a horrific precursor to
“a very grim future for Palestinians in Gaza.“
It recalls Israel Defence Minister Katz’s plan of a year ago of a ‘humanitarian city’ on the ruins of Rafah, where the goal was to screen people before they were allowed to enter to ensure they were not Hamas and then refuse any exits except to third countries.
Legal immunity
The Board of Peace convened in Cyprus at the end of June for 3 days to “reset” after “the Iran war has completely shifted the attention in the last several months,” according to an official source. It sought to address the funding shortfalls, logistical delays and security challenges.
One of the more controversial draft resolutions was the Board’s plan to grant legal immunity to its members, contractors, and security forces; therefore
“shielding the whole enterprise from potential legal proceedings”.
As reported widely, human rights lawyers are highly critical of this proposal, including Palestinian American lawyer and academic, Noura Erakat, “They are basically saying there’s no external oversight, including applicable international law regarding occupation. It’s creating a legal system unto itself.”
At the same time, the IDF has reportedly called for fighting to resume as senior officers in the IDF claim that Hamas’ military wing is rebuilding. Hamas has maintained that it will only disarm under the auspices of the Palestinian NCAG and when Phase 1 of the ceasefire agreement is achieved, which includes the withdrawal of Israeli forces to agreed positions, full implementation of humanitarian measures and a complete end to Israel’s military attacks.
The nightmare on the ground in Gaza for Palestinians continues. The machinations of Trump’s Board of Peace appear to be
“stymying any chance for genuine reconstruction of Gaza“
led by Palestinians for Palestinians. The available evidence at this point is that the 1000-day-plus Israeli genocide in Gaza continues apace behind the veneer of Trump’s ‘peace’ plan and the continuing indifference of world powers.
Cathy Peters
Cathy Peters is a former ABC RN producer/executive producer and Greens councillor on the former Marrickville Council. She also worked for a state Greens MP and is a long-time advocate for Palestinian rights. In 2014, she co-founded PSNA / BDS Australia. She has Jewish heritage, has travelled and volunteered in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
The global small nuclear reactor bandwagon is led by Britain. It ought to fail, but will it?
14 July 2026 Noel Wauchope, https://theaimn.net/the-global-small-nuclear-reactor-bandwagon-is-led-by-britain-it-ought-to-fail-but-will-it/
Why on Earth does the Small Nuclear Reactor media bandwagon exist?
That’s a fair question, because it has been shown time and time again that small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) are not an economically viable way to provide electricity.
I can only conclude that there are other reasons for the present juggernaut of promotion of SMRs.
You may not have noticed the blithering onslaught of media promotion of SMRs going on over the past weeks, (interestingly, in conjunction with the political demise of Sir Keir Starmer). With the dramatic events in the Persian Gulf, and in climate extremities, dominating the media, a fuss about SMRs seems a small matter.
But it is not a small matter.
The global media juggernaut for SMRs is potentially essential for the survival of the global nuclear industry. If one nation sets up a multitude of, or even a few, small nuclear reactors, that will provide the necessary respectability for the industry – to be accepted as cheap. clean. safe, and embraced by local communities.
Hooray – Britain to the rescue!.
Now, there’s extraordinary excitement in both the British and overseas media. A current example:
The High Value Manufacturing (HVM) Catapult has launched a national consultation, to help UK industry capture the economic and industrial benefits of more than £100bn of expected investment in the country’s civil and defence nuclear programmes over the next decade. Industry, government, academia and regional partners are invited to contribute to the consultation through written submissions, stakeholder workshops and a programme of regional engagement running throughout 2026.
HVM Catapult doesn’t specifically state SMRs, but that’s where the UK media fervour is at. In a previous article, I have mentioned The Times, Telegraph, PR Newswire, Energy Live, Business Green, among the British enthusiasts. Internationally, there’s Construction News, Global Banking and Finance Review, World Nuclear News, Indux, and more.
What is new and remarkable about this UK SMR media fervour?
Well, there are two things. One is that it is all pitching the UK as the leader for the new nuclear renaissance. The other is that this will be a privately-led renaissance. Hence the importance of the “private” SGE £35bn plan for a fleet of SMRs across Britain, rather than the government supported Rolls Royce plan.
I digress here to point out that three nations have tried and failed to set up small nuclear reactors. Russia and China have each managed to develop one actually functioning small nuclear reactor. – in both cases – that took decades, and neither is working out very successfully – Russia – (Akademik Lomonosov floating NPP) and China (HTR-PM high temperature gas cooled reactor). The USA nearly got one happening – The Rise and Fall of NuScale: a nuclear cautionary tale.
So – at last it’s all going to happen ! And the UK is the leader – hip hip hooray! Except that the UK’s biggest SMR promoter, PM Keir Starmer is about to bow out at any moment. The policies of the heir apparent, Andy Burnham, are curiously unknown. He’s got a respectably Leftie background in supporting nuclear veterans, but I couldn’t find anything on his nuclear industry views. And, I’m inclined to think that he, or any new UK Prime Minister, would not be able to withstand the pressure of the cavalcade of vested interests in the nuclear industry. Those vested interests include not only all the UK and global stakeholders in the industry’s supply chain, but the fawning corporate media and the financially dependent universities.
There are some strong voices that speak out against this smr folly. Phil Johnstone and Andy Stirling of the University of Sussex have given a powerful condemnation of this SMR push – The hidden military pressures behind the new push for small nuclear reactors.
The nuclear industry was inaugurated in the early 1940s, specifically for creating an atomic bomb. That has continued to be its purpose for nearly a century, and it its sole real purpose today. Commercial “peaceful” nuclear power was set up as a temporarily successful fig leaf over that truly inhuman purpose. Temporarily successful, because it did provide efficient and seemingly cheap, seemingly clean, seemingly safe electricity for millions of people. We now know that not only are there long term costs – financial, environmental, health and safety costs – but that new big nuclear reactors are monumentally unaffordable.
In this 21st Century – how to make this industry look peaceful, clean, safe, and attractive to bright young career-oriented people? Well if that’s now an impossible task for dirty great Big nuclear reactors, how about a plethora of Small fig-leaves – Small Modular Nuclear Reactors.?
There may be a continued media deluge about UK’s golden SMR future, as promised by the dear soon-to- be-departed Starmer. But I doubt that there will be a deluge of investors keen to get on board the juggernaut. One saving grace of our capitalist society is that our financial writers tend to tell the truth about investment prospects. They might save the UK from this SMR folly. Then the nuclear lobby will have to really ramp up the war-mongering fever that already exists.
Starting from scratch on nuclear in Australia would take longer, cost more than first-time offshore wind
Sophie Vorrath, Jul 13, 2026, https://reneweconomy.com.au/starting-from-scratch-on-nuclear-in-australia-would-take-longer-cost-more-than-first-time-offshore-wind/
Building nuclear for the first time in Australia would take longer and cost more than building offshore wind for the first time in Australia, according to modelling by Australia’s premier science agency that once again rules out nuclear power from any and all cost-efficient scenarios for a net zero grid.
CSIRO each year delivers an annual GenCost report, a collaboration with the Australian Energy Market Operator that provides an “objective benchmark” on the costs of electricity generation, storage and hydrogen production technologies, to guide policy.
Last week, the chief economist at CSIRO’s Energy Research unit and the lead author of GenCost report, Paul Graham, discussed the findings of the draft report for 2025-26 to the Australian Wind Energy conference in Melbourne, ahead of the release of the final report, due this quarter.
So far in Australia’s journey to net zero emissions by 2050, the electricity sector has done the vast bulk of the heavy lifting on decarbonisation, as solar and wind firmed by storage supply close to half of the generation mix of the National Electricity Market (NEM).
Power plants critical to the country’s electricity production use river water to cool their reactors, which heats the water that is then released back into the river.
The job from here will be tougher, as the last of Australia’s coal fleet is ushered out. The job of the GenCost team at CSIRO is to work out what sort of contribution the electricity sector can continue to make to emissions reduction while still keeping costs as efficient as possible.
“What that means, in effect, is that the electricity sector should do enough abatement so that it doesn’t cost any more than abatement anywhere else in the economy, and to determine that, we can use scenario analysis,” Graham told the conference on Wednesday last week.
CSIRO’s draft GenCost modelling continues to find that a combination of wind and solar with firming technologies is the best way forward on both costs and emissions reductions.
On the flip-side, Graham also shared some of the numbers on where “first-of-a-kind” technologies landed in the modelling.
The below slide [on original] compares the construction times and cost premiums of a range of technologies not yet built at scale in Australia, before, including gas with carbon capture and storage (CCS), black coal with CCS, nuclear small modular reactor, nuclear large-scale, solar thermal and offshore wind.
It’s a timely reminder of why the federal Coalition’s nuclear focused campaign was such a disaster for the party at the 2025 election, and yet remains the favoured energy policy path for the LNP at the same time as it promises to deliver cheaper electricity while also putting the brakes on renewables.
As Graham told the conference, the numbers still well and truly rule out nuclear, while leaving offshore wind still “in the pocket” as a potential part of Australia’s future generation mix.
“All these technologies on the left, on the left there of that table, we’ve never really built at scale in Australia before,” Graham told the conference.
“We have to expect that there’s going to be some sort of premium associated with delivering first project and probably the second project. We tried to work through what we think that premium could be, based on this global analysis that will support projects and how they’ve fared.
“The highest premium seems to be associated with projects that take longer to build, and nuclear … takes the longest, so it’s at least six years, probably eight years. Six years is probably best case scenario, just for the construction stage.
“The data says that those sorts of [nuclear] projects where the first time the country tries to build them, generally costs at least 100% more than the international best practice,” he told the conference.
“And so we’ve got assumptions about what these first of a kind costs will be after we’ve developed the first few projects we can then assume that the workforce is able to build these close to the world best practice and then we can build things at lower cost after that.
“So when we model these different emission intensity targets and we allow for the model to build, either with mature technologies like onshore wind and solar, or onshore wind and solar plus some of these first-of-a-kind projects, then what this shows is the generation mix that the model says is least cost.
“And what that looks like from a cost perspective is that the mature technology scenario is the lowest-cost scenario. It is a bit more expensive to have offshore wind and CCS, and but not too much more, but the most expensive in each case is nuclear,” Graham said.
“The modelling didn’t want to build … particularly a lot of CCS or nuclear, because it’s quite significantly higher than the cost we need to get to net zero, so adding those technologies would only increase the cost of getting to net zero.
“As offshore wind goes, it’s in the pocket. Potentially it would be better if the costs were at the lower end of the range … but we certainly can’t rule out, we certainly wouldn’t say that offshore wind is necessarily in or out, it just depends on where we land on that on that cost uncertainty range.”
From colonial forts to nuclear submarines, Australia’s response to distant conflicts reveals a recurring pattern that continues to shape its defence strategy, writes Professor Vince Hooper.
By Vince Hooper | 13 July 2026, https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/from-crimea-to-aukus-how-distant-wars-reshape-australia,21293
IN THE EARLY MONTHS of 1854, as news of Britain’s entry into the Crimean War reached the Australian colonies, an extraordinary panic took hold.
Newspapers debated, in full seriousness, whether Russia would attack Sydney or Melbourne, whether the objective would be occupation or merely the seizure of gold from colonial banks. Fort Denison was commissioned on Pinchgut Island in Sydney Harbour. Victoria passed legislation to establish a Volunteer Corps of up to 2,000 men. A war fought thousands of miles away over a peninsula in the Black Sea was catalysing Australia’s first independent military capability.
The panic did not end with the peace. In 1863, the Russian corvette Bogatyr, flagship of the Pacific squadron under Rear Admiral Popov, sailed into Melbourne undetected. More than 8,000 Melburnians visited the ship during a goodwill tour.
After the corvette departed, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that the crew had been surveying the coastal fortifications of Port Jackson and Botany Bay. The revelation deepened the following year when a Polish officer who had deserted from the Bogatyr disclosed that Popov had received orders to attack British naval targets near Australian shores in the event of war.
Russian invasion scares recurred in 1870, when the corvette Boyarin appeared at Hobart; again in 1882, when three Russian warships entered Melbourne and in 1885, when Bare Island Fort stood guard over Botany Bay. For three decades, Crimea’s aftershock kept reshaping Australian defence thinking.
That a war triggered by a dispute over the custody of holy sites in the Holy Land could produce this cascade of consequences at the furthest edge of the British Empire is the analytical point. Australia’s strategic environment is not normally distributed. It is characterised by long periods of apparent stability punctuated by sharp, regime-changing shocks from quarters no plausible risk model would have flagged.
The original Crimean War also embedded its human residue in the colonial landscape. After hostilities ended, the British Government actively encouraged veterans to migrate, investigating New South Wales and Tasmania as suitable destinations. In Western Australia, Crimean veterans populated the pensioner guard force and the broader settler community.
Two Victoria Cross recipients of the 77th Regiment, Sergeant John Park and Private Alexander Wright, received their awards in Sydney.
Russian trophy guns arrived in Adelaide in 1859 and were fired to mark the Duke of Edinburgh’s visit in 1867. Suburbs named after Crimean battles, Balaclava in Melbourne, Sebastopol near Ballarat, Alma and Inkerman across New South Wales and Victoria, wrote the war into the geography that Australians still walk through daily.
Fast forward 160 years and the pattern repeats with unsettling fidelity. Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March 2014 might have remained a European affair in Australian strategic consciousness. The downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine on 17 July 2014, killing 298 people, including 38 Australian citizens and residents, ensured it did not.
The Abbott Government imposed sanctions, co-sponsored the UN Security Council resolution and pursued accountability through international courts. Abbott publicly vowed to “shirtfront” Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Brisbane G20 just months later, an Australian Rules football term for a front-on collision. The register was antipodean. The underlying dynamic, a distant Crimean event triggering a visceral response at the periphery, was not.
A decade on, the aftershock continues to propagate. In May 2025, the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) Council found Russia responsible under international law for the downing of MH17. Russia appealed; Foreign Minister Penny Wong called the response “deplorable”. The 2014 trigger, like the 1854 trigger before it, has not finished reverberating.
The objection writes itself: MH17 was contingent. A plane happened to be in the wrong airspace. That is not a structural transmission mechanism; it is bad luck. But this objection misunderstands what “fat tails” mean. The whole point of heavy-tailed distributions is that the specific trigger is unpredictable while the class of events is not.
Nobody in 1854 predicted that a dispute over church keys in the Holy Land would catalyse Australian volunteer militias. Nobody in 1863 predicted that a Polish deserter from a Russian corvette would reveal contingency plans to raid Melbourne. Nobody in 2014 predicted that a Buk missile in Donetsk would kill 38 Australians in a sunflower field.
The triggers were contingent. The vulnerability, a peripheral state deeply integrated into alliance networks but geographically remote from their theatres, was structural. Fat tails do not require predictable triggers. They require structural exposure to extreme events.
Russia’s broader invasion of Ukraine in 2022 confirmed the pattern rather than creating it. AUKUS, announced in September 2021, predated the invasion, but the war validated its logic. Le Chatelier’s principle holds that an external shock to equilibrium triggers a compensating response. In 1854, that response was a volunteer corps: modest, reversible, low commitment.
Nuclear-powered submarines, serviced at Plymouth’s Devonport dockyard, are none of those things. The Plymouth connection closes a circle: one of the handful of Australian colonists to fight in the original Crimean War was Spicer Cookworthy, a subaltern in the First Regiment of Foot, bearing the surname of that city’s most famous son, William Cookworthy, the Quaker who discovered china clay in Cornwall and founded the Plymouth porcelain works.
The colonies of the 1850s built forts and raised volunteers. Australia of the 2020s is acquiring nuclear submarines and reorienting its entire defence procurement architecture. The scale has changed, but the mechanism, the propagation of distant shocks through alliance networks to force option exercise at the periphery, has not.
Policymakers who assume mean reversion, or price Australian security using a normal distribution, will be caught out by the next Crimean shock. They always are.
The definitely unofficial nuclear news for the week ending 11 July
Theme of the week – Nuclear frenzy over Small Nuclear Reactors for UK – too good to be true?
Some bits of good news – Scientists hailed the world’s ‘greatest forest recovery’. Blue and fin whales are returning to seas that whaling emptied.
Ugandan Coffee Growers Shrug Off Drought Thanks to Regenerative Agriculture
Can provocative climate messaging on OnlyFans cut through social media’s noise?
TOP STORIES.
Here’s why Labour’s nuclear plans are wrong for Scotland – ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2026/07/11/2-a-heres-why-labours-nuclear-plans-are-wrong-for-scotland/.
NATO vassals buy Trump ‘unity’ with $160 billion bribe.
NATO IS FAILING UKRAINE.
Flatteries and falsehoods – A multi-million dollar PR campaign can’t hide nuclear power’s ugly truth.
Trump Sweetens the Nuclear Energy Pot, But Will Anyone Play?.
Climate. The cities most at risk from extreme heat, ranked. The Heat Is the Story—Climate Change Is the Cause. If this is Climate Change, then bring it on!’ (NOT!)
Noel’s notes. As UK’s Prime Minister fades away, will his beloved Small Nuclear Reactor dream fade too?
AUSTRALIA.
More Australian news at https://antinuclear.net/2026/07/08/australian-nuclear-related-news-week-to-11-july/
Cooperation yes, uranium no: planned uranium sales to India would facilitate certain nuclear waste and risk and possible nuclear weapons.
Former WA health chief warns AUKUS inquiry of ‘nuclear disaster waiting to happen’
23 July Nuclear Weapons Survivors film screening – Adelaide!
Vile abuse, targeted by Murdoch – The cost of speaking out against Israel.
NUCLEAR-RELATED ITEMS
| ATROCITIES. The Zionist Plan for a Concentration Camp in Gaza. |
| CLIMATE. Scottish climate campaigners condemn new nuclear power plans.ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2026/07/09/2-b1-scottish-climate-campaigners-condemn-new-nuclear-power-plans/ |
ECONOMICS.
- Local protests derail US data centre ‘monstrosity’ backed by Wall Street giant.
- Nuclear Propulsion in Shipping: Challenges Ahead.
- The UK’s countryside could be filled with small nuclear reactors after billionaire announces £35bn new investment. Great British Energy – Nuclear offers £1bn contract for SMR partner. SGE unveils plans for 4.2GW UK Small Modular Reactor fleet. AtkinsRéalis (formerly SNC Lavalin) signs Sizewell civil works agreement. Consultation to strengthen UK nuclear manufacturing.
- Marketing. Trilateral cooperation agreement on SMR deployment
EDUCATION.University of Manchester and United Kingdom National Nuclear Laboratory (UKNNL) sign landmark nuclear partnership agreement.
| ENERGY. The clear winner of Trump’s war in the Middle East is… China, says new report. £8.2bn Scottish datacentre development running out of steam? |
| ENVIRONMENT. Stirling nuclear site plan mooted in new report as politicians hit out -PICTURE We’re being asked to save two buckets of water a day.- meanwhile data centres drink a town’s worth |
| EVENTS. July 16 – 19H BST ATOMIC TIES Webinar!! PICTURE 19 July Livestream – A WORLD WITHOUT NUCLEAR WEAPONS |
| HISTORY. Why Israel fears a US-Iran Deal far more than Conflict. |
| INDIGENOUS ISSUES. Ainu land rights in crosshairs as Hokkaido communities debate nuclear waste. |
| LEGAL. Plaintiffs Demand Release of Critical Documents and Extension of Public Comment Period on Expanded Plutonium Bomb Core Production. |
| MEDIA. Francesca Albanese: “The World Is Not Sleeping—It Is Looking Away”. |
POLITICS.
- USA Report From House Dems: Trump Used 250th Planning to Hide Corruption.
- Clearwater ship has been ejected from 250 Hudson sail by US government.
- UK Labour ‘scaremongering’ to push Scotland into new nuclear, experts say -ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2026/07/11/2-b1-labour-scaremongering-to-push-scotland-into-new-nuclear-experts-say/ SNP call for temporary ban on AI data centre developments- ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2026/07/10/1-b1-snp-call-for-temporary-ban-on-ai-data-centre-developments/. Scotland could freeze datacentre projects in challenge to UK’s AI strategy. UK Government scraps public consultation on data centres and major infrastructure projects. MSP says ‘no’ to nuclear power plant as UK Government eyes Fife. Dunfermline MSP speaks out at possible Longannet nuclear site.
- Canada Canadian nuclear site question would become ‘how’ not ‘whether’ under new law . Radioactive Taxpayer Cash Cow, Canada 2026.
- This EU state’s anti-Russian crusade has become a strategic dead end.
POLITICS INTERNATIONAL and DIPLOMACY. Zelensky honoring Ukrainian WWII fighters who massacred Poles and Jews not a good way to get Polish help in lost war against Russia. Deferring a Crisis: The Iran-US Ceasefire Cracks. As in Gaza, the Israel-Lebanon ‘peace’ agreement is designed to fail
| RADIATION. Changes to radiation protection in the USA -could have been worse but are still bad |
| SAFETY. Extensions to improvement notices following asbestos shortfalls at Torness. Sizewell B nuclear power plant granted a 20-year life extension. |
| SECRETS and LIES. Revealed: Cleaning up: Ukrainian Woman suspected of Monaco bombing found shot dead near Kyiv. Labour minister dodges question on SNP Government and UK nuclear plans – ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2026/07/11/2-b1-labour-minister-dodges-question-on-snp-government-and-uk-nuclear-plans/ landmark Scottish AI project has no prospect of meeting renewables promise. GBE-N ‘doesn’t hold’ breakdown of proposed £20bn budget for SMR contract. |
| SPACE. SpaceX just launched the 1st-ever nuclear-powered commercial satellite. We condemn the attempted offshore rocket launch by the military, Hanwha, and the Jeju Provincial Government!. |
| SPINBUSTER. The Patriot Trap. |
| TECHNOLOGY. Agreement could see Odin prototype microreactor built at Berkeley. New images reveal details about Last Energy’s Welsh micro reactor plans. |
| WASTES. Spent fuel emerges as weak point in Japan’s nuclear renaissance.. Japan begins 21st release of Fukushima nuclear-contaminated wastewater into ocean. |
| WAR and CONFLICT. U.S. launches ‘powerful strikes’ on Iran after tanker attacks in Strait of Hormuz. Gaza’s 1000-Day Siege: A Catastrophic Humanitarian Collapse Across Health, Food, and Human Life. Israel isn’t leaving Lebanon and Syria may be next. As America Celebrates 250 Years, More U.S. Troops Are Refusing to Fight. |
| WEAPONS and WEAPONS SALES. Cut the Pentagon, Save the Planet: The $1.5 Trillion Climate Solution We Can’t Ignore. Trump Says He Supports Ukraine’s Long-Range Attacks Inside Russia, Will Allow Ukraine To Produce Patriot Missiles. The hypersonic hypocrisy of Pacific nuclear politics. Hawaii Bearing Huge Brunt of U.S. Military Buildup Directed Against China. As Hawaii Hosts International War Games, Residents Question Costs of Militarism. |
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.
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)
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