Nuclear likely to remain part of Coalition’s energy policy as Dan Tehan warns Australia risks being left ‘stranded’
Nuclear power looks set to remain part of the Opposition’s energy policy, with the Liberal MP responsible for developing the Coalition’s policy warning Australia risks being “left stranded” as other countries embrace the technology.
Patrick Hannaford, Digital Reporter, Sky News, September 8, 2025
The Coalition’s energy policy has been under review since its record defeat at the May election, with Opposition Leader Sussan Ley having set Victorian MP Dan Tehan the task of leading a comprehensive review with the aim of developing a policy that lowers energy costs and reduces emissions.
Mr Tehan provided a major signal the Coalition remained committed to nuclear on Monday, after he arrived in the United States for a nuclear-focused fact-finding mission…………………………..
“So we have to make sure that we are absolutely on top of everything that’s going on. And it’s not only in nuclear space, when it comes to SMRs and large scale reactors that are being built globally. But also the latest developments which are taking place in fusion, which could be absolutely groundbreaking in five or 10 years’ time.
“If we’re not on top of this, then as a country, and especially as a nation which needs energy abundance to keep up with the rest of the world, we’re just not going to be in the picture, sadly.”
The Victorian MP said he planned to visit Idaho to investigate developments relating to small modular reactors, before going to Oak Ridge, where research is being done on nuclear fusion. “I’ll also be discussing fusion there, because there will be a fusion reactor, which will be up and trialling in 2027 here in the US,” he said………………………………………………………………… https://www.skynews.com.au/australia-news/politics/nuclear-likely-to-remain-part-of-coalitions-energy-policy-as-dan-tehan-warns-australia-risks-being-left-stranded/news-story/eeabb56aee6aeb681a12da64c2ba72eb
SSN AUKUS – Heading for a quagmire (Part II)
Peter Briggs, September 6, 2025 , https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/09/ssn-aukus-heading-for-a-quagmire-part-ii/
In the first part, I identified the factors mitigating against the sale of 3-5 Virginia class submarines to cover the gap until the arrival of the British designed SSN AUKUS.
In the final analysis, the USN remains well short of its target of 66 attack submarines and it will be this shortfall in numbers that will be the deciding factor.
Could be SSN AUKUS be fast tracked to fill the gap? SSN AUKUS depends on the UK’s capacity to design and build two new classes of nuclear-powered submarines.
The first priority for the UK’s submarine design and building capability is four of the large, Dreadnought class ballistic missile submarines, to replace the ageing, worn out Vanguard class, which have reached their end of life.
The UK’s second priority, the Astute attack submarine program is late, over-budget and experiencing reliability issues. Of the five submarines delivered currently none are at sea:
- Astute has just entered mid-life refit, joining her sister ship Audacious in Devonport dry docks.
- Ambush is alongside in the submarine base in Faslane and has not been to sea for three years, along with her sister ship, Artful, which has not been to sea for two years.
- The fifth and final operational SSN, Anson, has just returned to Faslane.
Two of the class are yet to be delivered.
The UK’s third priority is SSN AUKUS.
The UK’s Submarine Arm appears to have fallen below critical mass, evidenced by the difficulties they have experienced in replacing the senior submarine leadership. Recovery will be challenging and prolonged. A recent decision to allow rescrubs on the UK’s submarine commanding officer’s course (it was called the “Perisher”, as failure meant exiting the submarine arm) illustrates the compromises in standards now required. An expansion to meet the government’s recently announced goal of 12 new attack submarines, delivered at 18-month intervals, would be a huge challenge. The call comes as the UK struggles to meet higher priority defence challenges in implementing its “ NATO first” policy.
The UK’s submarine design, supply chain and build capability are in no better shape to meet this political goal. Such a program would require:
- Laying down an attack submarine every 18 months.
- Having sufficient space for the resultant production line:
- For example, a delivery interval of 18 months and a build time of say, 10 years, means there will be 6-7 submarines in various stages of construction at the peak of the program.
- A shipyard with sufficient space and equipped to accommodate this is required.
- The second critical input is the workforce to staff the production line and supply chains.
- None of these capabilities exists today.
- Is SSN AUKUS the solution for Australia?
Is SSN AUKUS the solution for Australia?
The new SSN AUKUS is to be over 10,000 tonnes, more than 27% larger than the Virginias proposed to be sold to Australia. Why Australia needs such a large, expensive submarine has not been explained.
The submarine is still being designed – there are no costings, no production schedules and no milestones publicly available to validate “schedule free” assurances that all is well. Earlier talk of a mature design is no longer heard.
The project to manufacture the reactor cores for the new ballistic missile submarines and SSN AUKUS is in serious difficulties. Three successive years of red cards from the UK’s independent auditor, which noted that “Successful delivery of the project appears to be unachievable” – another mess! Unlike its predecessors, no shore base prototype has been built to de-bug and validate the design. Any delay in manufacturing the reactor cores will impact delivery of the new ballistic missile submarines and hence, delay starting on the SSN AUKUS production line.
Based on past performance and the issues set out above, the British program to deliver SSN AUKUS cannot be fast tracked. Indeed, it is highly likely that it will be late, over budget and with the first of class issues which are a feature of any new design.
The final mess: the Australian Government has proved unwilling to increase the Defence vote to fund the program. Instead, funds are being diverted from other important defence capabilities – Australia’s SSN AUKUS program is eating everyone else’s lunch.
Decision-making and funding for essential infrastructure to support the capability is now years behind schedule. This is similar to the situation which has led to Britain’s inability to sustain its submarines.
The existing plan is, therefore, comprised of multiple, serial risks; I would describe it as a quagmire.
With Australia’s access to Virginia class submarines in grave doubt and SSN AUKUS, at this stage, a high-risk design project, Australia is in danger of losing its submarine capability. Far from increasing Allied submarine capability, AUKUS now threatens to reduce both the US and Australian operational submarine forces.
AUKUS Pillar 1, Australia’s transition to a sovereign, nuclear-powered, conventionally armed submarine capability is a good idea. However, the path we are on leads elsewhere, to a series of unmanageable risks, many beyond our control.
The government needs to change course, to avoid others’ unmanageable risks and better manage our own:
- Plan B should settle on one class of submarine, not the impractical, highly unlikely to arrive, Virginia/SSN AUKUS mix now envisaged.
- The submarine selected should be based on a mature design, in production, not, as SSN AUKUS is, a new design from questionable antecedents.
- There are two obvious options; a Virginia derivative, or the French Suffren.
- It will have to be built in Australia; there is no spare capacity in the US, Britain or France. The KISS rule applies.
- Perhaps a competitive process should select the best fit, easiest to build in Australia option?
Australia must control its own destiny, not outsource it to become part of someone else’s unmanageable risk. However, the path we are on leads elsewhere, to a series of unmanageable risks and a drop in Allied submarine capability/deterrence when we can least afford it.
Changing at this late stage would not inject further delay; it will most likely be quicker. The current plan is not going to deliver a sovereign, operational capability any time soon and, given the uncertainties set out above, certainly not as planned and possibly, never. Since we have no accurate, contracted costings for the current plan, it is difficult to conclude that an accurately priced contract for a known design would be more expensive compared to the great unknown and serial delays which await SSN AUKUS. Yes, it would require political courage, but given the growing concerns over the current plan, a change that provides greater sovereignty, increased Allied submarine capability, plus improved certainty over costs and timings would be a welcome.
When ambition meets reality, reality always wins – eventually! Time for Plan B!
Read Part 1 of this series.
Secret antisemitism research. Envoy Jillian Segal hides evidence?
by Emma Thomas | Aug 31, 2025 https://michaelwest.com.au/secret-antisemitism-research-envoy-jillian-segal-hides-evidence/
Jillian Segal, the government-appointed Special Envoy for Antisemitism, has refused to answer questions from the NSW parliament about her plan. Emma Thomas reports.
The Special Envoy’s Plan to Combat Antisemitism has been heavily critiqued since it was released last month. The plan proposes a suite of interventions across government and civil society, including allowing the Special Envoy to weigh in on immigration issues and to ‘monitor’ public media.
Among the plan’s more controversial (and impractical) recommendations is a proposal to withhold government funding from universities and arts bodies that fail to meet the Special Envoy’s criteria.
Since the plan’s release on 10 July, critics have denounced it as “authoritarian”, “insulting”, designed to “enforce ideological conformity” while risking “deepening community divisions.” The plan is marred by a “biased argument”, “weak evidence”, and silence on Gaza and is “simultaneously too thin [on facts…] and overblown in its recommendations”, commentators say. It has been labelled “one of the worst public policy documents produced in recent years”.by Emma Thomas | Aug 31, 2025 |
The plan’s architect, Jillian Segal, has meanwhile retreated from public view. This follows her seemingly ill-prepared appearance on ABC on 10 July (coinciding with the release of the plan) and a 12 July report detailing her family trust’s $50,000 donation to the right-wing lobby group Advance, which is known for promoting racism and campaigning against an Indigenous Voice to Parliament.
Last week, however, the Special Envoy responded to a series of questions about her plan posed by the parliamentary committee inquiring into antisemitism in NSW.
Evidence-free policy proposals
The plan’s lack of sources, statistics or citations – that is, any evidence that might support its claims and underpin its proposed policies – has been widely noted and critiqued.
Yet, in her response to the NSW parliamentary inquiry, Segal claimed that there is a “wide base of research” behind her plan, which includes “commissioned surveys, consultations with community organisations, and international comparisons.” The plan, she insists, “is a policy framework grounded in both evidence and expert practice.”
She has, however, refused to provide evidence or publicly release any research supposedly conducted by her taxpayer-funded office, citing “security and privacy reasons.”
When asked specifically about what data or evidence supports her claim of systemic antisemitism in Australia’s public sector, Segal simply reasserted the claim that “There is clear evidence of antisemitic discrimination in parts of the public sector.” Although she provides none, she suggests the committee “review publicly available data.” Again, no such data was provided.
When asked for evidence of “foreign funding” supporting “clusters of antisemitism” in Australian universities, Segal pointed only to “credible concerns” that this “could” be happening. Pressed for specific examples of universities failing to act against antisemitism or of media outlets presenting “false or distorted narratives”, she again provided none. Instead, she described that plan as “proactive” and “precautionary”.
Neither in her plan nor in her responses to the NSW inquiry does Segal cite a single study, piece of evidence or expert assessment, from either the national or international context, that might support the efficacy of her plan to combat antisemitism. It’s possible that there are none.
No evidence for IHRA’s effectiveness
Segal’s plan hinges on Australia’s widespread adoption and application of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism – “including its illustrative examples”.
The 11 illustrative examples are highly contested because seven of them relate to criticism of the State of Israel, whose prime minister is currently wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The examples are so contentious that IHRA’s decision-making body, the Plenary, itself has not endorsed them as part of the definition. IHRA itself describes the examples only as “illustrations” that may guide the organisation’s own work. Segal’s suggestion that the definition, along with the examples, be “required” across all levels of government, public institutions and regulatory bodies
“goes well beyond IHRA’s own framework”.
First published in 2005 by the European Union agency, the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia, the definition was intended for use in data collection, not policymaking. In 2013, the definition was abandoned. It was repackaged as the “IHRA’s non-legally binding working definition of antisemitism” in 2016.
In the nine years since the definition’s adoption by IHRA, no evidence has been provided that it is effective in combating antisemitism – not in Segal’s plan, nor in external studies,
There is, however, a wealth of academic and legal critique showing that the definition fosters self-censorship and penalises speech on Israel’s violations of international law and advocacy for Palestinian rights. The definition’s efficacy – like that of Segal’s proposed plan – lies in the “proactive” and “precautionary” implementation. And as historian Avi Shlaim states, it
“has little to do with antisemitism.”
Emma ThomasDr Emma Thomas is a researcher and writer based in the Greater Sydney area. As a historian, she has spent the last fifteen years studying and teaching at universities in Australia and the United States. One of the first things she teaches all her students is that opinions and evidence-based arguments are not the same thing.
Think Tanker Demands for AUKUS: What Australia Should do with US Submarines.
“AUKUS is only going to lead to more submarines collectively in 10, 15, 20 years, which is way beyond the window of maximum danger, which is really this decade.”
26 August 2025 Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.net/think-tanker-demands-for-aukus-what-australia-should-do-with-us-submarines/
The moment the security pact known as AUKUS came into being, it was clear what its true intention was. Announced in September 2021, ruinous to Franco-Australian relations, and Anglospheric in inclination, the agreement between Washington, London and Canberra would project US power in the Indo-Pacific with one purpose in mind: deterring China. The fool in this whole endeavour was Australia, with a security establishment so Freudian in its anxiety it seeks an Imperial Daddy at every turn.
To avoid the pains of mature sovereignty, the successive Australian governments of Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese have fallen for the bribe of the nuclear-powered Virginia Class SSN-774 and the promise of a bespoke AUKUS-designed nuclear–powered counterpart. These submarines may never make their way to the Royal Australian Navy. Australia is infamously bad when it comes to constructing submarines, and the US is under no obligation to furnish Canberra with the boats.
The latter point is made clear in the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, which directs the US President to certify to the relevant congressional committees and leadership no later than 270 days prior to the transfer of vessels that this “will not degrade the United States underseas capabilities”; is consistent with the country’s foreign policy and national security interests and furthers the AUKUS partnership. Furthering the partnership would involve“sufficient submarine production and maintenance investments” to meet undersea capabilities; the provision by Australia of “appropriate funds and support for the additional capacity required to meet the requirements”; and Canberra’s “capability to host and fully operate the vessels authorized to be transferred.”
In his March confirmation hearing as Undersecretary of Defense Policy, Eldridge Colby, President Donald Trump’s chief appointee for reviewing the AUKUS pact, candidly opined that a poor production rate of submarines would place “our servicemen and women […] in a weaker position.” He had also warned that, “AUKUS is only going to lead to more submarines collectively in 10, 15, 20 years, which is way beyond the window of maximum danger, which is really this decade.”
The SSN program, as such unrealised and a pure chimera, is working wonders in distorting Australia’s defence budget. The decade to 2033-4 features a total projected budget of A$330 billion. The SSN budget of A$53-63 billion puts nuclear powered submarines at 16.1% to 19.1% more than relevant land and air domains. A report by the Strategic Analysis Australia think tank did not shy away from these implications: “It’s hard to grasp how unusual this situation is. Moreover, it’s one that will endure for decades, since the key elements of the maritime domain (SSNs and the two frigate programs) will still be in acquisition well into the 2040s. It’s quite possible that Defence itself doesn’t grasp the situation that it’s gotten into.”
Despite this fantastic asymmetry of objectives, Australia is still being asked to do more. An ongoing suspicion on the part of defence wonks in the White House, Pentagon and Congress is what Australia would do with the precious naval hardware once its navy gets them. Could Australia be relied upon to deploy them in a US-led war against China? Should the boats be placed under US naval command, reducing Australia to suitable vassal status?
Now, yet another think tanking outfit, the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), is urging Australia to make its position clear on how it would deploy the Virginia boats. A report, authored by a former senior AUKUS advisor during the Biden administration Abraham Denmark and Charles Edel, senior advisor and CSIS Australia chair, airily proposes that Australia offers “a more concrete commitment” to the US while also being sensitive to its own sovereignty. This rather hopeless aim can be achieved through “a robust contingency planning process that incorporates Australian SSNs.” This would involve US and Australian military strategists planning to “undergo a comprehensive process of strategizing and organizing military operations to achieve specific objectives.” Such a process would provide “concrete reassurances that submarines sold to Australia would not disappear if and when needed.” It might also preserve Australian sovereignty in both developing the plan and determining its implementation during a crisis.
In addition to that gobbet of hopeless contradiction, the authors offer some further advice: that the second pillar of the AUKUS agreement, involving the development of advanced capabilities, the sharing of technology and increasing the interoperability between the armed forces of the three countries, be more sharply defined. “AUKUS nations should consider focusing on three capability areas: autonomy, long-range strike, and integrated air defense.” This great militarist splash would supposedly “increase deterrence in both Europe and the Indo-Pacific.”
In terms of examples, President Trump’s wonky Golden Dome anti-missile shield is touted as an “opportunity for Pillar II in integrated air defense.” (It would be better described as sheer science fiction, underwritten by space capitalism.) Australia was already at work with their US counterparts in developing missile defence systems that could complement the initiative. Developing improved and integrated anti-missile defences was even more urgent given the “greatly expanding rotational presence of US military forces in Australia.”
This waffling nonsense has all the finery of delusion. When it comes to sovereignty, there is nothing to speak of and Australia’s security cadres, along with most parliamentarians in the major parties, see no troubles with deferring responsibility to the US imperium. In most respects, this has already taken place. The use of such coddling terms as “joint planning” and “joint venture” only serves to conceal the dominant, rough role played by Washington, always playing the imperial paterfamilias even as it secures its own interests against other adversaries.
US bases including Pine Gap saw Australia put on nuclear alert, but no-one told Gough Whitlam.
By Alex Barwick for the Expanse podcast Spies in the Outback
When Australia was placed on nuclear alert by the United States government in October 1973, there was one major problem.
No-one had told prime minister Gough Whitlam.
One of the locations placed on “red alert” was the secretive Pine Gap facility on the fringes of Alice Springs.
Officially called a “joint space research facility” until 1988, the intelligence facility was in the crosshairs with a handful of other US bases and installations around Australia.
In fact, almost all United States bases around the world were placed on alert as conflict escalated in the Middle East. Whitlam wasn’t the only leader left out of the loop.
A prime minister in the dark
“Whitlam got upset that he hadn’t been told in advance,” Brian Toohey, journalist and former Labor staffer to Whitlam’s defence minister Lance Barnard, said.
Toohey said Whitlam should have been told that facilities including North West Cape base in Western Australia, and Pine Gap were being put on “red alert”.
“There had been a new agreement knocked out by Australian officials with their American counterparts, that Australia would be given advance warning.”
They weren’t.
Suddenly, the world was on the brink of nuclear war.
Why were parts of Australia on ‘red alert’?
The Cold War superpowers backed opposing sides in the Yom Kippur War.
The Soviet Union supported Egypt and the United States was behind Israel.
As the proxy war escalated in October 1973, United States secretary of state Henry Kissinger believed the crisis could go nuclear and issued a DefCon 3 alert.
A DefCon 3 alert saw immediate preparations to ensure the United States could mobilise in 15 minutes to deliver a nuclear strike.
The aim was to deter a nuclear strike by the Soviets.
And, it simultaneously alerted all US bases including facilities in Australia that a nuclear threat was real.
This level of alert has only occurred a few times, including immediately after the September 11 attacks.
Politics, pressure and protest
The secretive intelligence facility in outback Australia caused Whitlam more trouble beyond the red alert.
During the 1972 election campaign, the progressive politician had promised to lift the lid on Pine Gap and share its secrets with all Australians.
“He gave a promise that he would tell the Australian public a lot more about what Pine Gap did,” Toohey said.
But according to Toohey, the initial briefing provided to Whitlam and Barnard by defence chief Arthur Tange left the prime minister with little to say.
“Tange came along and he said basically that there was nothing they could be allowed to say. And that was just ridiculous,” Toohey said.
“He said, the one thing he could tell them was the bases could not be used in any way to participate in a war. Well, of course they do.”
Whitlam would cause alarm in Washington when he refused to commit to extending Pine Gap’s future.
In 1974 on the floor of parliament he said:
“The Australian government takes the attitude that there should not be foreign military bases, stations, installations in Australia. We honour agreements covering existing stations. We do not favour the extension or prolongation of any of those existing ones.”
According to Toohey, “the Americans were incredibly alarmed about that”.
“As contingency planning, the whole of the US Defence Department said that they would shift it to Guam, a Pacific island that America owned,” he said.
And the following year, allegations would emerge that the CIA were involved in the prime minister’s dismissal on November 11, 1975.
Former Labor defence minister Kim Beazley labels the scuttlebutt as “bulldust”.
“I’d heard that stuff about the Americans getting frightened and therefore getting involved. I put the matter to study, I got a couple of senior public servants to have a look at it, nothing there, nothing there.”
Despite no conclusive evidence, the rumours continue to swirl.
Episode Two of the ABC’s Expanse podcast: Spies in the Outback is now available. This episode explores the wild political tensions surrounding the spy base in Australia’s backyard. Listen here.
Nationals double down on nuclear power policy.
Energy, 25 Aug 25
The Nationals are doubling down on introducing nuclear power to Australia, with leader David Littleproud vowing to take the policy to the next election.
Littleproud told National party members the nuclear policy was at the centre of the party’s fallout with the Liberals following the May federal election………………………..
“We have to have, as part of our energy mix, nuclear in that mix. It was something that we believe in passionately because we see the consequences,” he said.
“There is a sensible way to fix it and that’s what we’re going to take to the next election.”
This move comes despite The House of Representatives Select Committee on Nuclear Energy releasing an interim report in which it has found establishing nuclear power generation would be too late and too costly to support the country’s energy targets.
Committee chair Dan Repacholi MP, Federal Member for Hunter, said, “This interim report focuses on two key issues that have dominated the evidence we’ve received to date: whether nuclear power generation could be rolled out in Australia in an acceptable timeframe, and how affordable it would be—particularly compared to alternative power generation technologies currently available in Australia.”
“From the evidence considered by the Committee to date, it is apparent that it could be well into the 2040s before we might see nuclear energy generated in Australia if that form of energy generation were to be pursued. This would be too late to meaningfully support the achievement of Australia’s climate and energy targets or to help our coal power plant workforce and communities as we transition away from coal power.” https://esdnews.com.au/nationals-double-down-on-nuclear-power-policy/
Nationals Leader David Littleproud says nuclear power policy ‘sensible’ next step.
ABC News, Sat 23 Aug, 25
In short:
Nationals Leader David Littleproud told the Liberal National Party annual convention nuclear had to be part of the country’s energy mix.
It would help with food security and the environment, he said.
What’s next?
Nuclear power and energy alternatives dominated discussions at the convention’s opening day on Friday, following the near-unanimous passing of a resolution to abandon net zero by 2050………………………
Coalition practice after an election meant policies taken to the campaign would remain and only be dumped by exception, he told the Liberal National Party annual convention in Brisbane……………………
“We have to have, as part of our energy mix, nuclear in that mix. It was something that we believe in passionately because we see the consequences,” he said……………………………. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08-23/nationals-leader-david-littleproud-says-nuclear-power/105689740
In Alice Springs everyone has an opinion on the Pine Gap spy base, but no-one wants to talk about what happens inside.
I wanted to hear from the traditional owners of the Arrernte land it was built on, and from the spies tasked with finding targets in Afghanistan and Iraq during the Global War on Terrorism. But how do you investigate something as secretive as Pine Gap when everyone who works there has made a promise never to talk about what they do?
serious claims being made that intelligence gathered at the facility was being used in the Israel-Gaza war.
By Alex Barwick for Backstory, Thu 16 May 2024. https://www.abc.net.au/news/backstory/2024-05-16/backstory-expanse-podcast-spies-in-the-outback-pine-gap-barwick/103844652
In journalism, it’s often politicians who won’t answer your questions.
But in my outback town, it’s just as likely to be the neighbours who won’t, or rather can’t, answer this basic conversation starter: “So, what do you do at work?”
That’s because about 800 of the town’s 25,000 residents are employed at the most secretive intelligence facility in Australia — the Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap — on the edge of Alice Springs/Mparntwe.
When I rolled into this beautiful landscape 16 years ago and began working at the ABC’s Alice Springs bureau, it quickly became clear I wouldn’t hear from this significant section of the community.
Given local radio is all about connecting with the community and sharing people’s stories, this silence felt strange.
My curiosity grew and the book Peace Crimes, written by long-term local journalist Kieran Finnane, motivated me to start looking deeper.
I wanted to know what was going on in my backyard, but I knew trying to make a podcast about a secret military facility hidden in a secluded valley in Central Australia wouldn’t be easy.
Telling this story in a town the size of Alice Springs would undoubtedly feel personal and would likely offend parts of the community.
It’s a line regional journalists walk all the time — telling stories that are in the public interest, while living in the community that is affected by them.
Covering difficult stories in a small town
The words we write as journalists — or say, like in the Expanse: Spies in the Outback podcast — do have real world implications for real people.
That includes everyone from my neighbours, to the parents of my kids’ friends, to people I see regularly at community events.
For them, it’s not a story – it’s their life.
And that can get awkward.
But there are stories in the public interest that the Australian government won’t comment on and this often means they’re shrouded in mystery, or rife with rumour.
Pine Gap is one of those stories.
What goes on beneath the cluster of enormous, oversized-golf-ball-shaped domes covering the military base’s listening antenna on the desert floor, raises big questions for all of Australia, not just my town.
The Pine Gap intelligence-gathering facility is often described as the jewel in the crown of our military partnership with the United States.
But what have we got ourselves into, and do we benefit from it?
Protesters, politicians and spies
Over the past six months, I’ve had lots of off-the-record coffees, trawled the news and library archives, followed some bizarre leads and heard plenty of wild stories, as I have tried to understand the goings-on behind the razor wire.
I wanted to know why America’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) decided to build a so-called “space base” in outback Australia in the mid 1960s.
What motivated former prime minister Gough Whitlam to rock the boat and promise to reveal its secrets to the public?
Why were thousands of people so convinced it was a nuclear target they flocked to the desert to demand its closure?
And how had it drawn Australia onto one battlefield after the next through its large-scale surveillance and intelligence gathering?
While plenty of people outside Alice Springs/Mparntwe have never heard of this desert spy base, most people in town have an opinion on it.
There are three main camps: those who say it’s vital for the town’s economy and global peace; those who still see it as a nuclear target and want it shut down; and those who feel generally apathetic to its existence.
And yet, nobody really talks about Pine Gap.
Still, I felt it was important to really understand the diversity of views on this outback spy base as I conducted my research.
I wanted to hear from the traditional owners of the Arrernte land it was built on, and from the spies tasked with finding targets in Afghanistan and Iraq during the Global War on Terrorism.
But how do you investigate something as secretive as Pine Gap when everyone who works there has made a promise never to talk about what they do?
I certainly wasn’t looking to see anyone exiled to Russia like Edward Snowden after he leaked a raft of National Security Agency (NSA) documents, including information on Pine Gap.
In the end, gentle, determined persistence meant I was able to tell the Pine Gap story in a way that lifted the lid but didn’t put national security at risk, and that (I hope) was sensitive to the lives of those in Alice Springs affected by it.
Back in the national spotlight
And then, in late 2023 as I tracked down activists, former spies and politicians … protesters were suddenly blocking the road to Pine Gap again.
There were serious claims being made that intelligence gathered at the facility was being used in the Israel-Gaza war. With Pine Gap back in the spotlight, I knew I had to look deeper.
This spy base, which became operational in 1970 during the Cold War, had expanded through the decades in scale and capability and was more relevant than ever.
The Australian government says Pine Gap is one of the country’s “most longstanding security arrangements” with the United States but it does not comment on its operation.
As each episode of Expanse: Spies in the Outback has been released, I’ve received emails and text messages that confirm why it was an important story to tell.
Some people have been shocked and appalled, while others have been grateful to learn we have this secret intelligence facility in our backyard.
Even in my own town of Alice Springs, where everyone knows someone who works at Pine Gap, there is an appetite to know more – regardless of how uncomfortable that might be.
Follow Expanse: Spies In The Outback on the ABC listen app to hear every episode of season three.
Sky’s ‘War Cabinet’ manufactures panic and prophecy over proof
By Binoy Kampmark | 21 August 2025, https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/skys-war-cabinet-manufactures-panic-and-prophecy-over-proof,20069
Sky News assembling a cabinet of experts to talk about Australia’s readiness for war is a problem we should be worried about, writes Dr Binoy Kampmark.
TWENTY-FOUR-HOUR NEWS networks have demonstrated that surfeit kills discretion. The search for fillers, distractions and items that will titillate, enrage or simply sedate, is an ongoing process.
Gone are the days when discerning choices were made about what constituted worthy news, an admittedly difficult problem that would always lead to priorities, rankings and judgments that might well be challenged. At the very least, news could be kept to specific time slots during the day, meaning that audiences could, at the very least, be given some form of rationing.
Such an approach culminated in that most famous of occasions on April 18, 1933 when the BBC’s news announcer declared with a minimum of fuss that, “There is no news.” This was followed by piano music playing out the rest of the segment.
On the pretext of coming across as informed and enlightened, such networks have also bought into astrology masquerading as sound comment. The commentators are intended to lend an air of respectability to something that either has not happened or something they have little idea about. Their credentials, however, are advertised like glitzy baubles, intended to arrest the intelligence of the viewing audience long enough to realise they have been had.
Sky News Australia is one such cringing example. The premise of The War Cabinet, which aired on August 11, was clear: those attending it were simply dying for greater militarism and war preparedness on the part of the Australian Government, while those preferring diplomacy would be treated like verminous denialists yearning for some sand to bury their heads in.
The point was less a matter of news than prediction and speculation, an exercise of mass bloviation. To lend a wartime flavour to proceedings, the event was staged in the Cabinet Room of Old Parliament House, which host Chris Uhlmann celebrated as the place Australia’s Prime Minister “John Curtin and his ministers steered the nation through World War II.” Former ministers, defence leaders, and national security experts were gathered “around the Cabinet table to answer a single question: is Australia ready for war?”
The stale view from Alexander Downer, Australia’s longest and, in many ways, most inconspicuous foreign minister, did little to rustle or stir. Liberal democracy, to be preserved in sacred glory, needed Australia to be linked to a “strong global alliance led by the United States”. That such an alliance might itself be the catalyst for war, notably given expectations from Washington about what Australia would do in a conflict with China, was ignored with an almost studious ignorance.
Instead, Downer saw quite the opposite:
“If this alliance holds, if it’s properly cemented, if it is well-led by the Americans… and if we, as members of the alliance, are serious about making a practical contribution to defence through our spending and our equipment, then we will maintain a balance of power in the world.”
His assessment of the current Albanese Government was one of some dottiness.
“I think the government here in Australia has made a major mistake by playing, if you like, politics with this issue of the dangers of the region and losing the balance of power because they don’t want to be seen as too close to President Trump.”
Any press briefing from Defence Minister Richard Marles regarding the anti-China AUKUS pact would ease any anxiety on Downer’s part. Under the Albanese Government, sovereignty has been surrendered to Washington in a way so remarkable it could be regarded as treasonous. While the Royal Australian Navy may never see a single U.S. nuclear-powered submarine, let alone a jointly constructed one, U.S. naval shipyards are rolling in the cash of the Australian taxpayer.
Former Labor Defence Minister, Joel Fitzgibbon, lamented that Australia’s strategic outlook in the Indo-Pacific was “deteriorating rather markedly,” a formulation utterly vague and a mere parroting of just about every other hawkish analyst that sees deterioration everywhere.
Thankfully, we had Strategic Forum CEO Ross Babbage to give some shape to it, which turned out to be that ragged motif of the Yellow Horde to the North readying to strike southwards. The Oriental Barbarians with a tinge of Communist Red were primary reasons for a worsening strategic environment, aided by their generous military expenditure. With almost a note of admiration, Babbage felt that China was readying for war by adjusting its economy and readying its people “for tough times that may come”.
The venal, ever noisy former Home Affairs Department Secretary Mike Pezzullo, who has an unhealthy appetite for warring matters, drew upon figures he could not possibly know, along with everybody else who have tried to read the inscrutable entrails of international relations.
Chances of conflict in the Indo-Pacific by 2027, for instance, was a “10 to 20 per cent” likelihood. Sky News, living down to its subterranean standards, failed to mention that Pezzullo had misused his position as one of Canberra’s most powerful bureaucrats to opine on ministerial appointments via hundreds of private text messages to Liberal Party powerbroker Scott Briggs.
The Australian Public Service Commission found that Pezzullo had, among other things, used his “duty, power, status or authority to seek to gain a benefit or advantage for himself” and “failed to maintain confidentiality of sensitive government information” and “failed to act apolitically in his employment”. His employment was subsequently terminated, and his Order of Australia stripped in September last year. Fine credentials for balanced commentary on the strategic outlook of a state.
Other talking heads were keen to push spine-tingling prospects of wicked regimes forming alliances and making mischief. Oleksandra Molloy, billed as an aviation expert, thought the “emerging axis” between Russia, North Korea and Iran “quite concerning”. Former naval officer and defence pundit Jennifer Parker urged the fattening of the defence budget to “develop a degree of autonomy”.
Retired Australian Army major general Mick Ryan was most unimpressed by the “zero risk” mentality that seemed to pervade “pretty much every bit of Australian society”.
The Department of Defence needed to take greater risks in terms of procurement, innovation and reducing “the amount of time it takes to develop capability”. His fantasy was positively Spartan in its military totalitarianism: an Australian state nurturing “a spirit of innovation that connects military, industry and society”. The cry for conscription must be just around the corner.
Chief war monger and think tanker Peter Jennings aired his all too familiar views on China, which have become pathological.
“It is utterly false for our government to say that somehow they have stabilised the relationship with China. Things may have improved on the trade front, but that is at the expense of ignoring the strategic developments which all of our colleagues around the table have spoken about, which is China is positioning for war.”
And there you had it: an hour of furious fretting and wailing anxiety with all figures in furious agreement, with a resounding boo to diplomacy and a hurrah for astrology.
Dr Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University
Billions in Israel defence contracts put Australia at risk.
by Stephanie Tran | Aug 17, 2025, https://michaelwest.com.au/billions-in-israel-defence-contracts-put-australia-at-risk/
The Australian Government risks breaking international law, splashing billions in public money on Israel weapons deals. A Stephanie Tran analysis.
The Australian government has funnelled $2.5 billion of taxpayer funds to Israeli arms manufacturers over the past two decades via government contracts.
An analysis of Austender data shows that since 2004, the Australian government has signed dozens of deals with Israel’s largest defence companies, making them some of the country’s most significant foreign suppliers of arms.
But this is just the tip of the iceberg. The true sum is certainly much higher, as the government is not required to disclose subcontracting arrangements, such as the $900 million deal between Elbit Systems and South Korean firm Hanwha to supply the Australian Army with armoured vehicles.
The breakdown of the funds is as follows:
- $1.92 billion to Elbit Systems and its subsidiaries Elistra Electronic System Ltd, Universal Avionics Systems, Geospectrum Technologies and Ferranti Technologies
- $307 million to Israel Aerospace Industries and its subsidiaries, Elta Systems and Elta Electronics industry
- $180 million to Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, its subsidiary Pearson Engineering and a joint venture with Australian company Varley Group, “Varley Rafael”
- $10 million to Israel Military Industries, also known as IMI Systems. (Note: IMI Systems was acquired by Elbit Systems in 2018)
- $870,000 to Plassan
- $210,00 to Rada Electronic Industries
Breaking international law
Lara Khider, Senior Lawyer at the Australian Centre for International Justice, said the contracts place Australia at risk of breaching its international legal obligations.
“States have been put on notice that Israel may be committing internationally wrongful acts in relation to its military and other operations in Gaza and through its unlawful occupation of Palestinian territory,” Khider said, citing multiple International Court of Justice (ICJ) rulings in the South Africa v Israel genocide case and its advisory opinion on Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory.
“On this basis, States have an obligation to cease aid and assistance to Israel in relation to the commission of these acts. Otherwise, States may be deemed complicit in internationally wrongful conduct.”
She said the ICJ was unequivocal that all states must avoid trade or economic dealings that entrench Israel’s unlawful presence in occupied Palestinian territory and refrain from aiding or assisting its maintenance. Under the Arms Trade Treaty, to which Australia is a signatory, governments are required to block weapons transfers if there is an overriding risk they would be used to commit serious violations of the Geneva Conventions.
The Australian Centre for International Justice has called for a two-way arms embargo “as a bare minimum” to ensure Australia does not contribute directly or indirectly to violations of international law in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Department of Defence did not respond – does it ever?
The Department of Defence did not respond to a request for comment regarding whether it would cancel its existing contracts and refrain from entering into new contracts for the procurement of arms from Israeli defence companies in light of the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Greg Barns SC, a spokesman for the Australian Lawyers Alliance, said continuing the contracts undermines Australia’s moral and legal credibility.
“Australia has an obligation to comply with all of the international agreements, treaties and covenants to which it is a signatory. That any Australian government would allow the supply of defence equipment to a country committing war crimes and genocide is morally reprehensible and a clear breach of international law,” Barns said. “This reduces Australia’s standing globally in terms of adherence to the rule of law.”
Australia’s F-35 exports a “facilitation of war crimes”: US expert.
Following Sydney’s huge protest against Israel’s killing and starvation of Palestinians in Gaza, the federal government has doubled down on its misinformation about Australia’s arms exports to Israel
Undue Influence, Michelle Fahy and Elizabeth Minter, Aug 17, 2025
The Labor government’s word games continue as it tries to persuade an increasingly sceptical public that Australia’s hands are clean when it comes to complicity in Israel’s genocidal war against the Palestinian people.
An expert on US arms exports has given short shrift to the Albanese government’s misleading mantras, telling ABC radio last weekend that Australia was facilitating war crimes by exporting F-35 parts and components to Israel.
When asked how he would describe the Australian military’s recent direct supply of F-35 parts to Israel, former US State Department official Joshua Paul said: “It’s directly a facilitation of war crimes. There’s no question about it, to my mind.”
Mr Paul made international headlines in 2023 as the first US official to resign publicly in protest over the Biden administration’s policy of expediting weaponry to Israel for its current war on Gaza, stating that America knew the weapons were to be used to commit human rights violations. Mr Paul was director of congressional and public affairs at the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, a US State Department agency that works closely with the Pentagon on weapons transfers.
Defence Minister Marles squirms under scrutiny
Also last weekend, on ABC TV’s Insiders, Defence Minister Richard Marles criticised what he labelled “misinformation” about Australia’s arms exports to Israel. Yet he refused to answer basic questions on the topic, resorting repeatedly to the government’s discredited mantra that Australia is not supplying weapons to Israel.
Mr Marles also passed the buck for his role in personally approving Australia’s continued export of F-35 parts and components, deflecting responsibility for the F-35 global supply chain onto prime manufacturer, Lockheed Martin.
Without providing any justification, Mr Marles claimed that Australia’s F-35 exports presented a “very different question” and were a “separate issue” from other arms exports.
Australia’s F-35 exports cannot be separated out from the overarching question of Australia’s arms exports to Israel during its genocidal war on Gaza.
The Defence Department has stated that more than 75 Australian companies have contributed to the F-35 global supply chain, which has been working overtime – at “breakneck speed” – for almost two years to increase spare part supply rates to ensure Israel’s F-35s remain operational.
In her June report, From economy of occupation to economy of genocide, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, named Lockheed Martin and the members of its F-35 supply chain as enhancing Israel’s ability to sustain its genocide of Palestinian people.
Mr Marles’ claims are also at odds with a significant UN statement last year: ‘States and companies must end arms transfers to Israel immediately or risk responsibility for human rights violations’, which named 11 multinationals, including Lockheed Martin and BAE Systems. These companies, by sending weapons, parts, components, and ammunition to Israeli forces, risk being complicit in serious violations of international human rights and international humanitarian laws, the statement said.
UK-based BAE Systems is one of Lockheed Martin’s three major partners in the F-35 supply chain. Its Australian subsidiary is also involved in supplying parts and components.
Australia’s export of F-35 parts and components into the supply chain is essential to the assembly of new aircraft and the maintenance and operation of the global fleet, including Israel’s F-35s.
Australia is the sole global source of some F-35 parts and components including, for example, the high-tech mechanism that opens and closes the weapons bay doors, enabling Israel to drop bombs on Gaza.
Despite this, foreign minister Penny Wong repeated in the Senate last month the ludicrous assertion she and Richard Marles first aired last year that the Australian-made parts and components in the world’s most lethal fighter jet are “non-lethal”. (Watch SBS News clip.)………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Could Australia make a difference?
Undue Influence last year reported comments by the head of the US-based F-35 joint program office, Lieutenant General Michael Schmidt, that the just-in-time F-35 global supply situation was “too risky”.
Despite claims from Mr Marles and Ms Wong that Australia has no power to make any impact on Israel’s military activities in Gaza, Josh Paul’s insights reinforce the fact that Australia could make a difference, should it have the courage to do so.
Australia could announce it will cease its export of F-35 parts and components unless or until the other member nations of the F-35 consortium agree to cease exporting to Israel. https://undueinfluence.substack.com/p/australias-f-35-exports-a-facilitation?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=297295&post_id=171175147&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Government-funded nuclear is fine for Dan Tehan, but not renewables or climate initiatives
Rachel Williamson, ReNeweconomy, Aug 14, 2025
From the party that promised seven taxpayer funded nuclear reactors, now comes a call to enforce pure free-market economics on all things renewable and climate related, at least according to new shadow energy minister Dan Tehan.
Tehan’s speech to the Carbon Market Institute’s emissions summit in Melbourne on Thursday was a pitch for renewable energy and climate initiatives to be turned over to competitive markets.
But mentions of the Coalition’s former plans for state-funded nuclear power plants, or the removal of the $14.5 billion in annual fossil fuel subsidies were conspicuously absent.
And while Tehan was keen to adopt Ross Garnaut’s contention that Australia will struggle to achieve its 82 per cent renewable energy target by 2030, he did not also reference in his markets-led speech Garnaut’s contention that oligopolistic gas participants are using their market power to drive up prices.
Playing to his role as a free market champion, Tehan opened his talk with a gentle neg at the audience about why he thinks the entire premise of the conference founder is wrong.
“I called it the so-called carbon market, for a reason,” he told the crowd, saying markets are defined by transparency.
“Australians deserve clarity about costs, trade-offs and pathways in our energy transition. At the moment, this has been hidden, and we need to know why.”
In a speech that repeatedly referenced the cost blowout of the VNI West transmission line, called for CSIRO to “release its code, data and assumptions in full” for the GenCost report, and demanded to know how much the beneficiaries of electric vehicle incentives are earning, Tehan’s pitch was that governments are too involved in the economy-wide changes currently underway to reduce emissions. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Currently, the Coalition still can’t agree on what kind of energy they’d like in Australia.
Two weeks ago, Barnaby Joyce and Matt Canavan from the Nationals were again calling for more coal fired power stations to be built, and last week Liberal frontbencher Andrew Hastie came out against a too-quick transition from fossil fuels,
Energy is one of the five issues Liberal leader Sussan Ley has put up for negotiation.
Tehan listed eight different areas where the federal government should bring in more market-based measures rather than an approach marked by “ideology, energy constraint and emissions reduction through a high cost de-industrialisation”……………………………………………https://reneweconomy.com.au/government-funded-nuclear-is-fine-for-dan-tehan-but-not-renewables-or-climate-initiatives/
‘Disarm now’: Anti-nuke advocate’s message to world leaders at Pine Gap protest.
Following the breakdown of a nuclear treaty, an antinuclear advocate wants world leaders to hear a message she’s made from the doors of a top secret Territory spy base.
12 Aug 25,https://www.ntnews.com.au/journalists/gera-kazakov
An antinuclear ambassador for a Nobel prize winning group has delivered a message to world leaders at the edge of a Red Centre spy base, days after Russia pulled out of an arms treaty following an American missile test in the Top End.
ICAN ambassador Karina Lester was one of a dozen demonstrators who gathered at the edge of the Pine Gap Joint Defence Facility restricted area on Sunday, where she told world leaders to “disarm now” when speaking with this masthead.
“Get rid of your weapons. Lets fund and focus on world peace, not arm up and test missiles,” she said.
Ms Lester’s visit to the border of the Pine Gap restricted zone on Hatt Rd comes a day after she gave a speech at the sixth Yami Lester memorial event in Alice Springs – an event named after her father.
Mr Lester, a Yankunytjatjara elder who died in 2017, was blinded by the British nuclear tests in northern South Australia in the 1950s.
He was blinded as a child, and spent his life advocating against nuclear weapons – a mantle his daughter has taken up with ICAN, who won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2017 for their antinuclear advocacy.
The group got to the edge of the Pine Gap restricted at about 4.30pm Sunday, where they were again met with a police blockade at where the restricted zone begins.
Two unmarked Toyota LandCruisers followed the convoy to their meeting place, and a police drone was also observed overhead.
The group heard from speakers who opposed the US-run base, with members of the crowd holding signs reading “Yankee go home” while others held Palestinian flags.
At the conclusion of the demonstration, the group gathered for a photo and chanted “land back, close Pine Gap” while various media outlets filmed and photographed them.
Federal NSW Greens senator David Shoebridge was also billed to be at the Pine Gap demonstration on Sunday, but pulled out due to covid, this masthead understands.
The Greens defence and foreign affairs spokesman said the political party has opposed the US-run base “for decades” but did not comment on why he was unable to come on Sunday when asked by this masthead.
The lethal legacy of Aukus nuclear submarines will remain for millennia – and there’s no plan to deal with it
Ben Doherty, 10 Aug 25, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/10/the-lethal-legacy-of-aukus-nuclear-submarines-will-remain-for-millennia-and-theres-no-plan-to-deal-with-it
“None of the leaders who announced Aukus are in power any more,” he tells the Guardian. “One hundred thousand years from now, who knows what the world looks like, but Australia, whatever is here then, will still be dealing with the consequences of that high-level waste.”
Australia’s future nuclear submarines will produce highly radioactive waste, and allies in the UK and the US still don’t have a safe place to store their own.
In the cold deep waters of Rosyth Harbour lie the dormant hulks of Britain’s decommissioned nuclear submarines.
One of the shells lashed to the dock here is HMS Dreadnought, Britain’s first nuclear-powered submarine. It was commissioned in 1963, retired in 1980, and has spent decades longer tied to a harbour than it ever did in service. The spent nuclear fuel removed from its reactor remains in temporary storage.
For decades the UK has sought a solution to the nuclear waste its fleet of submarines generates. After decades of fruitless search there are “ongoing discussions” but still no place for radioactive waste to be permanently stored.
Similarly, in the US – the naval superpower which controls a vast landmass and which has run nuclear submarines since the 1950s – there is still no permanent storage for its submarines’ nuclear waste.
More than a hundred decommissioned radioactive reactors sit in an open-air pit in Washington state, on a former plutonium production site the state’s government describes as “one of the most contaminated nuclear sites in the world”.
This is what becomes of nuclear-powered submarines at the end of their comparatively short life.
A nuclear-powered submarine can expect a working life of three decades: the spent fuel of a submarine powered by highly enriched uranium can remain dangerously radioactive for millennia. Finland is building an underground waste repository to be sealed for 100,000 years.
For Australia’s proposed nuclear-powered submarine fleet there is, at present, nowhere for that radioactive spent fuel to go. As a non-nuclear country – and a party to the non-proliferation treaty – Australia has no history of, and no capacity for, managing high-level nuclear waste.
But Australia is not alone: there is no operational site anywhere on Earth for the permanent storage of high-level nuclear waste.
‘Australia shall be responsible … ’
Documents released under freedom of information laws show that, beginning in the 2050s, each of Australia’s decommissioned Aukus submarines will generate both intermediate- and high-level radioactive waste: a reactor compartment and components “roughly the size of a four-wheel drive”; and spent nuclear fuel “roughly the size of a small hatchback”.
The Australian Submarine Agency says the exact amount of high-level waste Australia will be responsible for is “classified”.
Because Australia’s submarines will run on highly enriched uranium (as opposed to low enriched uranium – which can power a submarine but cannot be used in a warhead) the waste left behind is not only toxic for millennia, it is a significant proliferation risk: highly enriched uranium can be used to make weapons.
The eight nuclear-powered submarines proposed for Australia’s navy will require roughly four tonnes of highly enriched uranium to fuel their sealed reactor units: enough for about 160 nuclear warheads on some estimates.
The spent fuel will require military-grade security to safeguard it.
The problems raised by Australia’s critics of Aukus are legion: the agreement’s $368bn cost; the lopsided nature of the pact in favour of the US; sclerotic rates of shipbuilding in the US and the UK, raising concerns that Australia’s nuclear submarines might never arrive; the loss of Australian sovereignty over those boats if they do arrive; the potential obsolescence of submarine warfare; and whether Aukus could make Australia a target in an Indo-Pacific conflict.
All are grave concerns for a middle power whose security is now more tightly bound by Aukus to an increasingly unreliable “great and powerful friend”.
But the most intractable concern is what will happen to the nuclear waste.
It is a problem that will outlive the concept of Australia as a nation-state, that will extend millennia beyond the comprehension of anybody reading these words, that will still be a problem when Australia no longer exists.
And it cannot be exported.
The Aukus agreement expressly states that dealing with the submarines’ nuclear waste is solely Australia’s responsibility.
“Australia shall be responsible for the management, disposition, storage, and disposal of any spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste … including radioactive waste generated through submarine operations, maintenance, decommissioning, and disposal,” Article IV, subclause D of the treaty states.
As well, should anything go wrong, at any point, with Australia’s nuclear submarines, the risk is all on Australia.
Australia shall indemnify … the United States and the United Kingdom against any liability, loss, costs, damage or injury … resulting from Nuclear Risks connected with the design, manufacture, assembly, transfer, or utilization of any Material or Equipment, including Naval Nuclear Propulsion Plants,” subclause E states.
“‘Nuclear Risks’,” the treaty states, “means those risks attributable to the radioactive, toxic, explosive, or other hazardous properties of material.”
‘Decide and defend’
An emeritus professor at Griffith University’s school of environment and science, Ian Lowe, tells Guardian Australia that the government’s regime for storing low-level nuclear waste is a “shambles”. He says the government’s “decide and defend” model for choosing a permanent waste storage site has consistently failed.
“You currently have radioactive waste from Lucas Heights, from Fishermans Bend, and from nuclear medicine and research all around Australia, just stored in cupboards and filing cabinets and temporary sheds,” Lowe says.
“The commonwealth government has made three attempts to establish a national facility – it’s a repository if you’re in favour of it, it’s a waste dump if you’re opposed – and on every occasion there’s been local opposition, particularly opposition from Indigenous landowners, and on each of those three occasions … the proposal has collapsed.”
Most of Australia’s low-level and intermediate nuclear waste – much of it short-lived medical waste – is stored at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation facility in Lucas Heights in outer Sydney. Lowe says the nuclear safety regulator, ARPANSA, does a commendable job in protecting the public but the facility was never intended to be permanent.
Australia has been searching for a permanent site for nuclear waste for nearly three decades.
Its approach – derided by Lowe as “decide and defend”: where government chooses a place to put radioactive waste and then defends the decision against community opposition – has failed in Woomera, in central South Australia, in the late 1990s, then Muckaty station in the Northern Territory, then on farmland near Kimba, again in SA.
The federal court ruled against the Kimba plan in 2023, after a challenge from the traditional owners, the Barngarla people, who had been excluded from consultation.
Lowe, the author of Long Half-Life: The Nuclear Industry in Australia, says the complexities and risks of storing high-level nuclear waste from a submarine are factors greater than the low- and intermediate-level waste Australia now manages.
“The waste from nuclear submarines is much nastier and much more intractable,” he says. “And because they use weapons-grade highly enriched uranium there is the greater security issue of needing to make sure that not only do you need to protect against that waste irradiating people and the environment, you must also ensure that malevolent actors, who have in mind a malicious use of highly enriched uranium, can’t get their hands on it.”
Australia’s decision to use highly enriched uranium to power its submarines, as opposed to low enriched uranium (reactors would need refuelling each decade), is a “classic case of kicking the can down the road and creating a problem for future generations”, Lowe argues.
“In the short term, it’s better to have highly enriched uranium and a sealed reactor that you never need to maintain during the life of the submarine. But at the end of the life of the submarine, you have a much more serious problem.”
The high-level nuclear waste from Australia’s submarines will be hazardous for “hundreds of thousands of years,” Lowe says.
“There are arguments about whether it’s 300,000 or 500,000 or 700,000 years, but we’re talking a period at least as long as humans have existed as an identifiably separate species. The time horizon for political decision makers is typically four or five years: the time horizon of what we’re talking about is four or five hundred thousand years, so there’s an obvious disconnect.”
Inside ‘Trench 94’
The US and the UK have run nuclear-powered (and nuclear-armed) submarines for decades.
In the UK, 23 nuclear submarines have been decommissioned, none have been dismantled, 10 remained nuclear-fuelled. Most are sitting in water in docks in Scotland and on England’s south-west coast.
The first submarine to be disposed of – the cold war-era HMS Swiftsure was retired from service in 1992 – will be finally dismantled in 2026. Keeping decommissioned nuclear subs afloat and secure costs the UK upwards of £30m a year.
There is still no site for permanent storage of their radioactive waste: there has been “progress and ongoing discussions”, the defence minister, Lord Coaker, told the House of Lords last year, but still no site.
The UK has about 700,000 cubic metres of toxic waste, roughly the volume of 6,000 doubledecker buses. Much of it is stored at Sellafield in Cumbria, a site described by the Office for Nuclear Regulation says as “one of the most complex and hazardous nuclear sites in the world”.
In the US, contaminated reactors from more than 100 retired submarines are stored in “Trench 94” – a massive open pit at the Hanford nuclear site in Washington state. Spent nuclear fuel is also sent to the Idaho National Laboratory and sites in South Carolina and Colorado. Hanford is designed to last 300 years but the site has a chequered history of pollution and radiation leaks. Washington state describes it as “one of the most contaminated nuclear sites in the world”.
Finland is the first country to devise a permanent solution. It is building an underground facility 450 metres below ground, buried in the bedrock of the island of Olkiluoto.
The Onkalo – Finnish for cave or cavity – facility has taken more than 40 years to build (the site was chosen by government in 1983) and has cost €1bn. It is now undergoing trials.
‘A Trojan horse’
In March 2023 Australia’s defence minister, Richard Marles, said high-level nuclear waste would be stored on “defence land, current or future”, raising the prospect that a site could be identified and then declared “defence land”. A process for establishing a site would be publicly revealed “within 12 months”, he said. That process has not been announced nor a site identified.
Australia will require a site for high-level nuclear waste from the “early 2050s”, according to the Australian Submarine Agency. Senate estimates heard last year that there have been no costings committed for the storage of spent fuel. And preparing a site for storing high-level radioactive waste for millennia will take decades.
Guardian Australia sent a series of questions to Marles’ office about the delayed process for selecting a site. A spokesperson for the Australian Submarine Agency responded, saying: “The government is committed to the highest levels of nuclear stewardship, including the safe and secure disposal of waste.
“As the Government has said, the disposal of high-level radioactive waste won’t be required until the 2050s, when Australia’s first nuclear-powered submarine is expected to be decommissioned.”
The spokesperson confirmed that Australia would be responsible for all of the spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste generated from the Aukus submarines: it would not have responsibility for intermediate- or high-level radioactive waste – including spent fuel – from the US, UK or any other country. No permanent storage site had been identified for low-level radioactive waste, which would include waste from foreign submarines.
The government has consistently said it will engage extensively with industry, nuclear experts and affected communities to build a social licence for a permanent storage site.
But Dave Sweeney of the Australian Conservation Foundation says he has seen little evidence of genuine effort to build social licence.
The leaders who signed the Aukus deal – and those who continue to support it – have failed to comprehend the consequences beyond their political careers, he says.
“None of the leaders who announced Aukus are in power any more,” he tells the Guardian. “One hundred thousand years from now, who knows what the world looks like, but Australia, whatever is here then, will still be dealing with the consequences of that high-level waste.”
Sweeney says the “opacity” of the decision-making around the Aukus agreement itself is compounded by fears that the deal could be only the beginning of a nuclear industry expansion in Australia.
“We see this as a Trojan horse to expanding, facilitating, empowering the nuclear industry, emboldening the nuclear industry everywhere,” he says. “It is creepy, controversial, costly, contaminating, and leading to vastly decreased security and options for regional and global peace.”
Beyond the astronomical cost of the submarine deal, its the true burden would be borne by innumerable future generations.
“We are talking thousands and thousands of years: it is an invisible pervasive pollutant and contaminant and the only thing that gets rid of it is time. And with the whole Aukus deal, that’s what we’re running out of.”
New report on British nuclear submarines should raise alarm bells across Australia.
Friends of the Earth Australia, 11 Aug 25, https://newshub.medianet.com.au/2025/08/new-report-on-british-nuclear-submarines-should-raise-alarm-bells-across-australia/113276/
A detailed new report on the British nuclear submarine experience should ring alarm bells across Australia. The report has been written for Friends of the Earth Australia by British scientist Tim Deere-Jones, who has a B.Sc. degree in Maritime Studies and has operated a Marine Pollution Research Consultancy since the 1980s.
Mr. Deere-Jones said:
“The British experience with nuclear submarines reveals a litany of safety risks, cost blowouts and delays. It can confidently be predicted that these problems will beset the AUKUS submarine programme.”
“Operational risks include radiological pollution of marine and coastal environments and wildlife; risks of radioactivity doses to coastal populations; and the serious risk of dangerous collisions between civilian vessels and nuclear submarines, especially in the approaches to busy naval and civilian sea ways and fishing grounds.
“Ominously, the problems seem to be worsening.”
Dr. Jim Green, national nuclear campaigner with Friends of the Earth Australia, said:
“The report reveals disturbing patterns of unacceptable safety risks, an appalling lack of transparency, cost-blowouts and delays.
“None of the issues raised in Tim Deere-Jones’ report have been adequately addressed in the Australian context. Indeed a federal EPBC Act assessment absurdly precluded nuclear accident impact assessments as ‘out of scope’. If those vital issues are addressed at all, it will be by a new, non-independent military regulator ‒ a blatant, deliberate breach of the fundamental principle of regulatory independence.
“The Australian government must immediately initiate a thorough, independent review of the AUKUS submarine project and this report should be an important input into that inquiry.”
The report, ‘The British experience with nuclear-powered submarines: lessons for Australia’, is online at https://nuclear.foe.org.au/nuclear-subs/ or direct download https://nuclear.foe.org.au/wp-content/uploads/Deere-Jones-nuclear-submarine-report-final-August-2025.pdf
1 This month
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/235274195556
21 April Webinar: No Nuclear Weapons in Australia
Start: 2026-04-21 18:00:00 UTC Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney (GMT+10:00)
End: 2026-04-21 19:30:00 UTC Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney (GMT+10:00)
Event Type: Virtual
A virtual link will be communicated before the event.
Host Contact Info: australia@icanw.org
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
Antinuclear 