Public inquiry lashes AUKUS pact
Kye Halford November 5, 2026, https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/post/public-inquiry-lashes-aukus-pact
An AUKUS inquiry report released by Peter Garrett and former defence chief Admiral Chris Barrie says agreement should be suspended and calls for royal commission.
What we know:
- The inquiry called the $368bn agreement the “worst, riskiest and most costly defence decision ever made by an Australian government” (The Nightly).
- Its report, titled Surrendering Australia: the Aukus Deception, says the presence of powerful nuclear submarines risks military conflict with China, while the deal weakens Australia’s sovereignty (The Guardian).
- The report recommends Australia “recalibrate” its alliance with the US to “emphasise Australia’s national sovereignty and independence” (Politico).
- “Whatever way you want to look at the future in this region, by 2050, China will be the world’s largest power, the world’s greatest power,” Barrie said on Wednesday, adding that “I worry about the contest between the United States and China” (SMH).
- Polling conducted by the United States Studies Centre in May found that while 48% of Australians believe having nuclear-power submarines is a good idea, only 23% agreed the Australian government had properly explained the rationale for AUKUS (Politico).
Read more: The case against AUKUS (The Saturday Paper)
Aukus is ‘worst, riskiest and most costly’ Australian defence decision ever, public inquiry into submarine deal says
Report led by Peter Garrett and former defence chief Adm Chris Barrie says agreement should be suspended and calls for royal commission
Tom McIlroy, 4 November 26, https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/nov/04/aukus-worst-australian-defence-decision-ever-public-inquiry
A public inquiry into the $368bn Aukus nuclear submarine agreement has called the plan “the worst, riskiest and most costly defence decision ever made by an Australian government”, urging its immediate termination.
Former Labor MP and Midnight Oil frontman Peter Garrett, alongside former chief of defence Adm Chris Barrie, led the inquiry dominated by critics of the deal with the UK and US, recommending the suspension of plans for new bases and for a royal commission to be held into the agreement signed by the former Morrison government.
Its report, titled Surrendering Australia: the Aukus Deception, says Australia risks being dragged into military conflict with China because of the presence of powerful nuclear submarines. Aukus badly undermines Australia’s sovereignty and undercuts longstanding commitments to nuclear non-proliferation, it says.
The inquiry report, released on Wednesday, was downloaded nearly 15,000 times within an hour of being published online.
The report calls for a rework of the second pillar of the agreement, which covers technology and defence capability sharing, and for a fundamental recalibration of Australia’s relationship with Beijing.
After hearings around the country and more than 1,000 public submissions, the inquiry highlighted a lack of scrutiny and oversight over the five years since Aukus was announced and called for the auditor general and federal parliament to launch independent reviews.
“Since coming to power, Labor has failed to conduct a thorough review of this most significant of defence agreements,” Garrett told the National Press Club in Canberra.
“Conceived in secret, Aukus has spurned established defence and parliamentary oversight practices.”
He said the Stirling defence precinct in Perth risked becoming a “de facto US base” hosting as many as 2,000 serving American personnel, and that nearby communities including Rockingham and Fremantle would become targets for attack.
“The Aukus submarine plan is not tenable,” Barrie, who served as chief of defence between 1998 and 2002, said.
“It’s time for our government to take the lead on this matter. Scrap the Aukus submarine plan now, and rebuild national security decision-making processes.”
Labor agreed to support the deal for Australia to acquire nuclear submarines, which was negotiated under Morrison, then US president Joe Biden and UK prime minister Boris Johnson. As part of the agreement, Australia is funding upgrades to the US defence industrial base and is due to start receiving secondhand Virginia class nuclear submarines around 2032.
But delays and cost blowouts for production of submarines for the US navy have led to scepticism that Australia will receive the in-service boats.
The UK parliament held a year-long review and, after an inquiry by the Pentagon in 2025, Donald Trump agreed to support Aukus.
But former prime ministers Paul Keating and Malcolm Turnbull, former foreign affairs ministers Gareth Evans and Bob Carr, environmental and security campaigners, and some within Labor believe Aukus is not in Australia’s national interest.
Frustrated by the lack of scrutiny – in part due to bipartisan support for Aukus in federal parliament – unions, not-for-profits and former officeholders launched their own inquiry backed by public donations totalling $220,000.
Labor argues Aukus was considered as part of the government’s defence strategic review.
Government ministers have dismissed the public inquiry as a stitch-up by critics of the agreement. A spokesperson for the defence minister, Richard Marles, said on Wednesday that Aukus is a core pillar of the Albanese government’s national security policy.
“As the national defence strategy 2026 re-confirms, we confront the most challenging strategic circumstances since the second world war, and we do so at a time where Australia’s economic connection with the world has never been greater,” they said.
“We need to support the development of an ADF with a much greater capacity to project so we can defend Australia and contribute to regional security and stability.”
Garrett warned any certainty the US president would eventually agree to send submarines to Australia could not be guaranteed.
“There are no refunds, no enforceable obligations on partner countries, and no recourse if things go wrong,” he said.
The inquiry estimates an additional $180bn will be needed to deal with nuclear waste generated by Aukus, based on evidence to the inquiry. No official cost estimates for waste have been published.
Australia has not identified a permanent storage site for the waste, including the high-level radioactive waste from the reactor core and spent fuel, which will remain toxic for thousands of years.
The government’s preferred measure of the total cost of the deal is 0.15% of GDP over its lifetime.
The first Virginia-class nuclear sub from the US is due to arrive in Australia in 2032, with another arriving every four years, before the Australian-built model is ready for operations. The bespoke SSN Aukus model is due to come online in 2042.
Campaign group Labor Against War welcomed the report.
“With rising cost of living and unemployment, spiralling inflation and interest rates, it is beyond comprehension why the Australian government is throwing billions into the war chests of the US military at a time when the Australian people are crying out for solutions at home,” the group’s patron and a former senator, Doug Cameron, said.
End US Military Basing in Australia
4 November 2026AIMN Editorial, By Denis Hay
Australia should end US military basing and operational access on its soil. It should close joint military and intelligence facilities to US operations, remove American military stores and rotational deployments, and develop a defence force able to protect Australia under independent Australian direction.
That is the editorial position advanced here. It rests on a serious concern: facilities that support American military operations can expose Australians to the consequences of wars our country might otherwise avoid.
The United States does not have to threaten Australia directly for its presence here to create danger. The central question is whether Australians should accept that exposure as the continuing price of the alliance or undertake a planned withdrawal and build a more independent defence policy.
Quick Answer
Australia should negotiate an end to US military basing, joint operational facilities and standing military access, while building the capabilities needed for independent national defence. Hosting American combat support can create exposure to retaliation and make staying out of a US war harder. Governments argue that the alliance provides deterrence, intelligence and advanced technology; withdrawal would require managing the loss or reduction of those benefits. The strongest case for ending the presence combines a clear policy decision with lawful treaty processes, practical replacement of essential capabilities, worker support and environmental responsibility. It does not require claiming that war is inevitable.
What ending US military basing in Australia means
The policy must cover what foreign forces can do here, wherever those activities occur.
The Department of Defence’s force posture overview describes northern base upgrades, expanding cooperation, and plans for prepositioned fuel, munitions and equipment. Prepositioning places supplies where a force may need them before a crisis begins.
Ending this presence would mean withdrawing permission for continuing American deployments and military operations. At jointly operated facilities, including Pine Gap, it would mean ending US military and intelligence operations. At Australian bases, it would mean ending US operational access while retaining facilities Australia needs for its own defence.
Changing the sign on a gate would achieve little if the same foreign military functions continued. A withdrawal policy should address personnel, contractors performing military functions, equipment, communications and operational arrangements.
The government’s description of sovereignty arrangements distinguishes rotational access and joint facilities from foreign bases. Those distinctions matter legally. The proposed policy would end the operational presence across those categories, rather than depend on a particular label.
Australia could retain civilian scientific exchanges, trade and diplomatic relations. Decisions about short humanitarian visits would remain separate from granting a foreign military an enduring operating presence.
How the US presence can expose Australians to war
A military campaign relies on support systems. Aircraft need fuel and repairs. Ships need maintenance and supplies. Commanders need communications and intelligence.
Consider a hypothetical US–China war. Canberra declines to deploy Australian combat forces, but facilities here continue supporting American operations. An opponent could consider disabling those facilities useful to its campaign.
The danger arises from their military contribution. It does not depend solely on whether Australia has announced that it is joining the war.
The International Committee of the Red Cross explains that a military objective must contribute effectively to military action and offer a definite military advantage if destroyed or neutralised. Civilian protection, proportionality and precautions remain legal requirements. A military role does not give another country a general legal entitlement to attack Australia or surrounding communities.
Whether an attack would occur depends on the particular conflict, military decisions and risks of escalation. Ending US access would remove one pathway of exposure; it would not eliminate every threat to Australia.
For communities near military facilities, the consequences could extend well beyond the installation itself. Emergency planning must consider possible disruption to transport, communications, health services and essential supplies. Residents deserve a voice in decisions that could increase those risks.
Expansion makes the choice more urgent……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..https://theaimn.net/end-us-military-basing-in-australia/
Submission to AUKUS Public Inquiry- AUKUS a Con, a Rort, a Scam! – Ken McCleod
No 273 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wrFaJ2Sfq62zeCu_CfrqUuV_MSb7VpKz/view
AUKUS is supposedly a trilateral “security partnership” between Australia, the United
Kingdom and the United States of America – however, only one partner, Australia, pays all
the costs! The rationale is to “promote a free and open Indo-Pacific that is secure and
stable” The Indo-Pacific is already “free, open and stable”. Just how the introduction of
nuclear-powered submarines into already peaceful waters will improve the situation, is not
explained nor justified.
AUKUS is trilateral – namely a Scam, a Rort, a Con! The unstated goal is obviously not
“collective security” but to covertly threaten one country – China.
China has committed the “sin” of being independent, successful and economically
powerful, with a strong defence force for its own protection against the enormous forces
of the United States ranged against it. China’s defence capacity is justifiably required,
based on its past treatment during the “100 years of humiliation” perpetrated by the
Western Powers and the invasion of its territory by Japan, before and during WW2.
The old colonial mindset of “the West knows Best” for others, still exists in Australia, the
UK and the US – it is clearly the underlying motivation of AUKUS.
Within the Chinese Constitution there are three “NOs”
- NO political interference in any other country
- NO Foreign bases in China, nor Chinese bases in any other country
- NO military alliances
These are NEVER mentioned by the Australian media.
China has clearly maintained this three “NOs” since 1949. The same cannot be said of
Australia, the UK and the USA.
The “threat” from China rings quite hollow when China has not invaded any other country,
has established no foreign bases and there is no evidence of foreign interference by
China. China has never made any threats toward Australia.
- China is 10 hours flying time from Australia
- China is approx. 7,400 kilometres in sailing miles from
Australia
China has been turned into a “threat” by a well-funded, toxic propaganda campaign,
originating in the USA and meekly followed by both Australia and the UK. In fact, the
USA Congress passed Bill HR 1157, which allocated $(US)1.6 billion to subsidise world
media and civil society sources to produce what is basically negative, anti-China
propaganda. China has no similar campaign against any other country.
A large part of this campaign revolves around the issue of Taiwan. Here, the One China
Principle needs clarification. On 15/12/1978 US President Carter announced by way of a
Joint Communique with the PRC that:
“The United States recognises the Government of the Peoples Republic of China as the
sole legal government of China. The Government of the United States of America
acknowledges the Chinese position that there is but one China and Taiwan is part of
China”.
A Joint Communique has the status of a bilateral treaty which is legally binding.
Both Australia and the UK entered into similar joint communiques with the PRC and are
bound by the same legal principle.
AUKUS is required to counter a “threat” that, in reality, does not exist.
AUKUS has committed only Australia to spend some $(AU)368 billion whilst the UK and
the USA pay zero. In simple terms, that is $(AU)35,251,141 PER DAY for 30 YEARS! A
great deal for UK and USA. Initially Australia was to receive 8 newly-built submarines of
new design, but due to the USA’s inability to build them on schedule, Australia will now
receive 3 second-hand submarines – and no reduction in costs and still no guarantee of
delivery! There will be no refund nor reduction in costs if delivery is not met! No
reduction in costs has been made. One may ask, WHY NOT?
The AUKUS submarines are designed for deep water operations, but Australia’s
coastlines are surrounded by shallow waters. So the “defence of Australia” argument
appears to fail. Any naval “enemies” are assumed to only attack Australia in deep waters!
The old worn out cliche of “freedom of navigation” seems completely out of place, based
on previous and on-going navigation in the Indo-Pacific that has never been threatened,
hindered or interfered with, since the end of World War 2. Shipping to and from China,
principally on Chinese vessels, has never been threatened, stopped nor hindered.
AUKUS should have awakened Australians to the realisation that the USA only ever acts
in its own interest.
Questions relating to AUKUS that need answers are:
- What advice was given to PM Albanese, Defence Minister Marles and Foreign Minister
Wong, that was not given to the the Australian public and Parliament? - Who initiated the AUKUS idea?
- Why is Australia the only country paying, while UK and USA reap huge benefits?
- How can the cost NOT decrease, now that second-hand submarines will be provided
- When will detailed costings be made transparent?
- Were alternative views/proposals sought? If so, what were they?If not, why not?
- Why has housing for American sailors been given priority over Australian homeless?
- Who will control the bases built in Australia
- What role does ex-PM Morrison have in AUKUS
- Who currently employs ex-PM Morrison?
The more it is examined, the more AUKUS resembles a scheme hastily cobbled together
on the back of an envelope, rather that a carefully considered plan to clarify the real
defence needs of Australia and identify the optimum assets required to service them.
The whole nuclear submarine deal should be jettisoned before it undermines Australia’s
defence capability any further.
.
Is Australia Becoming the Forward Base of the American Empire in the Asia-Pacific?
3 November 2026 AIMN Editorial, By Terry Dwyer
Will Australia become part of the American Empire’s strategic pivot to Asia – and, in doing so, place itself in the firing line of a potential conflict with China, our largest trading partner?
It is a question Australians should be asking before it is too late.
Through AUKUS, the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, the US Force Posture Agreement and an ever- expanding programme of joint military exercises, Australia is becoming increasingly integrated into America’s military and strategic operations in the Indo-Pacific. US Marines rotate through Darwin, American military aircraft and naval vessels have increasing access to Australian facilities, and plans are advancing for expanded submarine cooperation, military infrastructure, logistics and the pre-positioning of military supplies.
These arrangements have been presented as necessary for Australia’s defence, but they also raise a serious question: are we strengthening our own national security, or increasingly positioning Australia to serve as a forward operating platform for American strategic objectives in a region where tensions with China have been encouraged?
China is Australia’s largest trading partner. Our economies are deeply interconnected, our prosperity depends heavily on regional stability, and there is no compelling Australian national interest in becoming a battlefield in a war between two major powers. China has never attacked Australia in fact Estimates of total Chinese deaths during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945, or 1931–1945) generally range from 14 to 20 million with total casualties (killed and wounded) exceeding 35 million according to historical and official data.
Most Australians are probably unaware that China was one of Australia’s Allies during World War II. The Chinese people made an extraordinary sacrifice, enduring years of brutal Japanese aggression and tying down enormous numbers of Japanese troops. It is not unreasonable to argue that China’s resistance contributed significantly to Japan’s inability to expand its military ambitions further into the Pacific. Had Japan been able to commit more of its military resources southwards, Australia’s own fate might have been very different. Perhaps Australian historians might otherwise be writing about the Rape of Townsville alongside the Rape of Nanking – one of the most horrific and shamefully neglected atrocities of World War II.
Nor should we ignore the historical record of the country on which we increasingly depend for our security. The United States has a long history of military invasions, occupations, covert operations, coups and attempts to influence or overthrow foreign governments. The following timeline documents many of those interventions, from Hawaii in 1893 to the more recent conflicts and military operations of the twenty-first century.
This is not an argument that China should be beyond criticism, nor that Australia should abandon all its alliances. It is an argument that Australia’s foreign and defence policies must be determined by Australia’s interests, not automatically aligned with the ambitions of a more powerful ally. Former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, once a strong supporter of the American alliance, came to a stark conclusion in his later years. In his 2014 essay America: Australia’s Dangerous Ally, he wrote:”The relationship with America, which has long been regarded as beneficial, has now become dangerous to Australia’s future.”
Fraser warned that Australia’s dependence on Washington could compromise our sovereignty and leave us exposed in a major Pacific conflict. His warning deserves renewed attention today.
The question Australians should have been asking for many years is, not whether America is our friend. It is whether we can remain friends and allies without surrendering our independent judgement, our sovereignty or our right to decide which wars Australia will fight? To this question many would argue Australia is sleep walking with a false sense of security around both sovereignty, control of foreign policy and our cultural identity.
The US needs reminding that Empires throughout history have believed their power was permanent. Yet even the mightiest eventually discover that their influence has limits, their wars have consequences and their time will come.
As Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote in Ozymandias: “Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
History has a habit of reminding even the most powerful empires that they, too, are not eternal.
US-backed coups, regime changes and interventions: 1893–2026
A historical timeline of American military intervention, covert operations, political interference and support for regime change.
The history of American intervention overseas is long and varied. It includes direct military invasions and occupations, CIA-backed coups, covert operations, financial and political support for opposition movements, and military assistance to governments involved in civil conflicts.
Not every event in this timeline involved the same degree or type of American involvement. In some cases, the United States directly organised or carried out military action. In others, it supported local forces, encouraged political change, or acted after a coup had already occurred. Some cases remain disputed by historians.
The Timeline (this article lists 51 American milittary interventions ………………………………………………………………………………………………
52. Iran, 2026
On 28 February 2026, the United States and Israel launched a major series of strikes against Iran, targeting military infrastructure, nuclear-related facilities, missile capabilities and senior political and military leadership. The attacks killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and triggered Iranian retaliatory strikes across the region. The conflict developed into a wider regional war, with ceasefire efforts and renewed hostilities during 2026.
The longer-term consequences may prove very different from those anticipated by Washington and Tel Aviv. A number of former American military officers and intelligence analysts have publicly questioned whether the campaign has achieved its intended strategic objectives.
Retired US Army Colonel Douglas Macgregor described Iran as the clear winner of the conflict, saying “it was emerging as a great power.” Former CIA officer Larry Johnson argued that Iran now has an exceptionally strong and unified leadership, strengthened by the shared military experience of its senior figures. Retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis went further, writing in Stars and Stripes that America’s war against Iran had already been lost at the strategic level. Retired US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski also questioned the assumptions behind the intervention, arguing that American and Israeli leaders had underestimated the resilience and strength of the Iranian people.
These are significant criticisms from individuals with experience inside the American military and intelligence establishment. Their assessments raise a fundamental question: has the attempt to weaken Iran instead strengthened its resolve, consolidated its leadership and increased its regional influence?
There may also be consequences for America’s own position. Davis has warned that the continuing conflict could erode US military capacity and force an involuntary retreat from other regions. The possibility that this war could ultimately accelerate a substantial reduction in America’s military presence in the Middle East deserves serious consideration. Will the US be forced to leave the region permanently?
Empires throughout history have believed their power was permanent. Rome, Britain and countless others discovered that military might and political dominance do not guarantee immortality. Perhaps the most enduring warning comes from The great British historian Edward Gibbon, in The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776), wrote:
“The decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness. Prosperity ripened the principle of decay; the causes of destruction multiplied with the extent of conquest; and, as soon as time or accident had removed the artificial supports, the stupendous fabric yielded to the pressure of its own weight.”
History has a habit of reminding even the most powerful empires that their time, too, will come.
Resources.…………………………………………………………………………………………..https://theaimn.net/is-australia-becoming-the-forward-base-of-the-american-empire-in-the-asia-pacific/
Submission to the AUKUS Public Inquiry – AUKUS a poorly planned process, hastily agreed on by Labor – Peter Hayes
No.268 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kF0ye1Of2ZBGBX_Wm-VzURxDfAXueUNT/view
I am Peter Hayes, a former RAAF Group Captain, having age-retired in July
2011with 46 years Service, including two terms in HQADF. During the first term, in
1982, I completed the Defence Systems Management Course its purpose being to
deepen participant’s understanding of the Force Capability Development process.
I have also completed RAAF and Joint Service Staff Courses and a Masters in
Defence Studies through the Australian Defence Force Academy (UNSW).
ADF Force Structure and Capability Development is a complex tri-Service process
at the centre of the Defence reforms which began in the period 1971-75 and which
have been evolving since. The process is rooted in a series of major high-level
Defence Committees, namely the Force Structure Committee (FSC) and the
Capability Development Committee (CDC) where the senior leadership of the three
Armed Services engage with the senior civilian leadership of various defence
support functions including intelligence, budget, and systems analysis to identify
the best way to defend Australia.
The process begins with a full spectrum situation awareness drawing on
intelligence assessments from all available sources. That awareness is then paired
with the national defence strategy as the primary influencer for shaping force
structure and capability development. A multi-domain balanced force evolves from
this process. Capital equipment acquisition is an outcome of the Force Capability
Development process.
The manner in which the AUKUS Submarine acquisition was announced, clearly
revealed the absence of a deliberate prior analysis of threat, strategy and
capability development needed to inform the preferred equipment and source.
The Labor Opposition acceptance – within a day or so – of the governing coalition’s
decision and announcement, left no room to validate via the well-tested,
well-defined and reliable Defence Capability and Equipment Acquisition process.
Staged conclusions need not be classified.
How the former coalition government decided such an outcome is mysterious to
everyone – except perhaps to a small coterie of senior US naval submariners
hypothesizing how to conceal nuclear armed submarines in a larger conventional
fleet to deceive and frustrate opponents. Such foreign musings do not belong in
the realm of Australia’s Force structure and capability acquisition deliberations.
This is a matter of vital national importance demanding profoundly detailed
analysis and resolve.
How the ADF would use such a capability is an equally vital element of our national
defence strategy; none of which was analysed prior to the AUKUS announcement.
The fleeting analysis since is unworthy of our national Defence leadership
overseeing the process.
The Australian Parliament, through the Defence leadership responsible for the
Force capability and equipment acquisition processes must be afforded the
opportunity to validate the AUKUS pillar one decision via the established and
trusted process.
There are grave consequences of the AUKUS Pillar 1 decision not being the
outcome of that process. They include:
a. a nuclear-powered submarine capability freaking the regional capability balance
in turn jeopardising Australia’s security.
b. The costs/impacts of AUKUS on Australia’s economy, workforce, industry, and
research sectors, and the opportunity costs for other national priorities not being
fully assessed and analysed.
c. AUKUS nuclear accidents in port or Australian waters cannot be absolutely
averted or contained, nuclear waste can’t be stored safely indefinitely without
quantified environmental and community impacts.
d. The lack of transparency, public consultation, and parliamentary oversight
regarding AUKUS decisions arousing public uncertainty and doubt.
e. technological advancements of AUKUS Pillar 2 may be achievable via other
means
f. the strategic rationale for Australia’s commitment to AUKUS should be assessed
in the context of current geopolitical developments – a full-spectrum situation
analysis based on our own sources and Australian intelligence analysts.
g. Uncertain impacts of AUKUS on the ADF force capability needs.
h. Uncertain cost-effective and achievable alternatives to AUKUS – that may better
enhance Australia’s peace and security.
i. arousing suspicion in Australia’s relations with China, ASEAN, and the Pacific
Islands nations, including commitments under the Treaty of Rarotonga (South
Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty).
j. AUKUS Pillar 1 submarines failing to deliver on time and on budget.
I do not support the proposed AUKUS Pillar 1 submarine acquisition without a prior
validation via the Defence Force Structure and capability acquisition process.
Submission to AUKUS Public Inquiry – AUKUS a poorly-conceived, massively-costly and hugely-risky agreement – DR Eric van Buerden.
No. 257
AUKUS is a poorly-conceived, massively-costly and hugely-risky agreement that
should be cancelled forthwith before it creates even more problems than it already
has. Here are just a few of my major concerns, as a scientist with fifty years of
experience using evidence-based methodologies and an extensive record of
publication in peer-reviewed scientific journals.
First, lengthy delays in the delivery and even start time of AUKUS, have already
been mooted, as dictated by the more-highly-prioritised needs of both the US and
UK provider defence systems. With no set budget or timeline or even guarantee of
delivery, the whole agreement is a travesty of Government’s responsibility to the
Australian tax payer.
By inextricably linking us to the US aggressive stance towards China, AUKUS
jeopardises Australia’s security both economically and militarily. It virtually
ensures we would be a target in the event of any military actions between those
two super powers in the same way that US bases in Arabian states are now being
targeted by Iran.
The chance of nuclear accidents in port or Australian waters will be greatly
increased if we have nuclear submarines being house, serviced and possibly
attacked there. Even storing spent rods is a huge risk that has hardly been
discussed let alone planned in a cautious and respectful way.
The environmental and social implications of an accident are enormous and should
have be deeply considered before even entering such a contract. The impact on
First Nations peoples should also have been discussed in consultation with them as
part of our nation even considering such an agreement.
There has been virtually no transparency or public consultation in the decision
making process for AUKUS which in many ways is the most significant in our
history as a nation. Parliamentary oversight regarding the main AUKUS decisions
should have been totally transparent and multi-partisan.
Even currently-known technological advancements in the field of marine warfare
will very likely make the acquisition of outdated submarines a total waste of
resources. We should be investing in much more cost-effective shore-based
defensive capital such as a shield of air and marine drones, not one or two
out-dated long-range submarines that will have little chance of defending ourmany distantly-spaced coastal cities.
Furthermore, AUKUS has huge implications for regional peace and security,
including Australia’s relations with China, ASEAN, and the Pacific Islands nations,
including commitments under the Treaty of Rarotonga. These should not be
jeopardised by rashly-considered and poorly defined agreements like AUKUS.
On the basis of these main objections, there is in my mind no way that AUKUS
should be continued. I believe it was initiated simply as a political point-scoring
and knee jerk reaction. It carries much greater risks than can possibly be justified
by the touted benefits it would bestow in the extremely unlikely event that it were
ever come to fruition in any truly-functional form.
Submission to AUKUS Public Inquiry – AUKUS perhaps the “greatest moral challenge of our generation” – Antony Hing.
No. 247
We should be removing straws from the nuclear camel’s back, not adding to them.
We should be deepening our friendship, & win-win trade with Chinanot provoking them into seeing us as a nuclear enemy.
INTRODUCTION
AUKUS is quite possibly the new “greatest moral challenge of our generation”.
Australia must abandon AUKUS and make a clear statement to the world:
Nuclear war, nuclear provocation and nuclear intimidation have no place in our
modern society.
Annie Jacobsen (author: Nuclear War – A Scenario) points
out a simple human error of judgement can trigger an automated ‘nuclear
Armageddon’ – in only 72 minutes 5 billion human beings are killed. In the
ensuing Nuclear Winter, there are no survivors left anywhere on the planet.
AUKUS is a nuclear force projection posture aimed squarely at one country: China…………………………………………………………………….
ED. This is a very long and well-written, and well-illustrated submission. But I am short of time to re[produce it here
It can be viewed at https://aukuspublicinquiry.com/#view-submissions
The main theme of Antony Hing’s submission is his concern about militarism leading to nuclear war, and Australia’s need to be in a civil and positive relationship with China.
………………………………….. CONCLUSION
The US should not be regarded as always right – history loudly says otherwise.
Australia should be prepared to lead the way by removing straws from the nuclear
camel’s back not adding to them.
Let’s stop repeating the mistake of unwinnable arms races and wars that lead to
financial, societal and civilizational ruin.
Let’s invest instead, the time and eƯort into forging deep understanding and friendships
with China and our ASEAN neighbours and to ensuring our core societal needs such as
health & aged care, education, aƯordable housing, preparing for climate change,
modernising our infrastructure, protecting the environment, boosting bi-lateral trade,
etc are all better funded and resourced.
China stands for the values of mutual respect, amity, non-interference, win-win
cooperation and peaceful, stable harmony between countries.
AUKUS is redundant in the face of these shared values, values which would assure our
own peaceful long-term prosperity.
Xi Jinping puts it in words no enemy of ours ever could: “confrontation hurts
people, cooperation helps people, let’s join hands for the greater good of
humanity.”
AUKUS has only three outcomes:
● It makes us a legitimate military target.
● It eventually bankrupts us (morally and financially).
● If triggered it leads to the end of life as we know it.
Australia must abandon AUKUS and make a clear statement to the world:
Nuclear war, nuclear provocation and nuclear intimidation have no place in our
modern society.
Australia’s “Antisemitism Envoy” Says The Pro-Palestine Left Are The Real Nazis
Caitlin Johnstone, Oct 30, 2026, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/australias-antisemitism-envoy-says?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=222727090&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Australia’s “antisemitism envoy” Jillian Segal has released a new report claiming that the primary threat to Jews in our country comes from left-wing pro-Palestine activists, which Segal hilariously labels “issue-motivated antisemitism”.
(Genocide. The “issue” is genocide.)
This, obviously, is an admission that Jillian Segal’s whole entire mission in Australia is to encourage government powers to stomp out pro-Palestine activism and protect the information interests of the apartheid state of Israel.
“Modern, progressive antisemitism is the most pervasive manifestation of antisemitism facing Australia today,” Segal’s report asserts. “It is often not a standalone hatred like the other sources. Rather, it serves to justify and legitimise antisemitism, providing it with intellectual and cultural credibility and, ultimately, making it fashionable. It does this by effectively laundering far-left antisemitism and Islamic extremism through a progressive lens, such as social justice and human rights, together with traditional antisemitic tropes, giving fundamentally extremist ideologies an apparently acceptable face.”
In a section titled “Far-left antisemitism or issue-motivated antisemitism,” Segal’s office complains that “Israel is portrayed as a colonial project that is inherently racist,” which she says “allows longstanding antisemitic motifs to be repackaged in the academic language of antiracism, decolonisation, human rights, social justice and intersectionality, often in service of a traditional Marxist revolutionary agenda.”
Here’s an excerpt:
“Over time, the language of human rights and its greatest crimes — apartheid, ethnic cleansing, genocide, etc. — has increasingly been appropriated to portray Israel (and, relevantly, members of the Jewish community who support it) as morally evil, often to the point of being equated to Nazis.
“In contemporary Australia, elements of Australia’s historically fringe radical left have sought to appeal to well-meaning mainstream progressive Australians who may perceive the Palestinian cause as a matter of social justice. This ‘gateway’ issue, of sorts, has been used by far-left activists to magnify their appeal and prominence and to attempt to introduce traditionally moderate Australians to radical and anti-Jewish propaganda that would previously have been of little interest.”
Segal repeatedly warns that antisemites are guilty of the “conflation” of Jewish people with the state of Israel while also repeatedly going out of her way to lump Jews in with support for the Israeli state, complaining of the view that “anyone who identifies as a Zionist is themselves fundamentally wicked, notably including the overwhelming majority of Jewish Australians who, as an inextricable part of their Jewish identity, hold a belief in the right of Israel to exist.”
In reality, Israel lobbyists like Segal are the ones who are guilty of conflating all Jews with the actions of Israel. That is what you are doing when you claim that opposition to a genocidal apartheid state is hateful toward Jews.
To help curb the actions of the “issue-motivated” antisemites, Segal recommends the implementation of exclusion zones for protesters, a ban on face coverings for demonstrators, extra review measures for people who are in this country on visas, and extra oversight of public broadcasters the ABC and SBS to ensure fair and balanced coverage of Israeli atrocities.
Segal’s office also recommends incorporating the authoritarian, pro-Israel IHRA working definition of antisemitism into every level of the law, calling for “Facilitation by law enforcement agencies, prosecutors and judicial education bodies of ongoing, appropriate and tailored education to their members regarding antisemitism, its contemporary expressions and the application of the IHRA definition.”
Segal also recommends forcing online platforms to adopt “the IHRA definition into community standards and policies for content moderation,” which would see people banned from social media for such self-evidently correct actions as comparing Israel to Nazi Germany or saying that Zionism is a racist endeavor.
As you might expect, the Australian press are dutifully regurgitating Segal’s left-punching propaganda with zero pushback. The Australian ran the story on the new report with the headline “‘Pervasive progressive hate’: antisemitism envoy’s new blueprint,” while The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald went with “New wave of Australian antisemitism comes from progressive social justice critics, says antisemitism envoy.”
I have said it before and I will say it again: anyone who talks about “left-wing antisemitism” like it’s a real problem which presents a real threat is a lying manipulator and should be treated as such. They are pretending to believe things that no one actually believes in order to promote the interests of a genocidal apartheid state.
At a recent Senate hearing, Jillian Segal was confronted by the leader of the Australian Greens, David Shoebridge, for her false Royal Commission testimony asserting that the Gaza death toll has been “grossly inflated” according to the United Nations. The spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General directly refuted this claim earlier this year, saying, “For us the Ministry of Health in Gaza is a source we, and many others, often cite. Independent validation of subsets of the data has found no significant discrepancies in their numbers.”
Jillian Segal is an immoral, manipulative white South African whose job is to deceive the public in order to facilitate genocide and apartheid. That is the light under which her recommendations should be viewed, and any government which espouses them should be viewed as supportive of the most extensively documented crimes against humanity in the history of the human species.
AUKUS and the dangerous illusion of national security
By David Higginbottom | 29 October 2026, https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/aukus-and-the-dangerous-illusion-of-national-security,21733
The Hormuz crisis shows why Australia cannot fight this century’s war with last century’s weapons, writes David Higginbottom.
ON 4 NOVEMBER at the National Press Club and broadcast live by the ABC, the independent AUKUS Public Inquiry will release its report.
This will not settle the question of Australia’s security policy. It is a civil society inquiry, not a parliamentary committee and its conclusions should be tested rigorously. However, so should the Government’s case for AUKUS. Australians have been asked to accept far-reaching claims about deterrence, sovereignty, jobs, cost and regional security.
Those claims still require a transparent, independent public test of the assumptions on which they rest and of the alternatives Australia has set aside.
That is why the Inquiry has already mattered. It has widened the debate from submarines alone to transparency and democratic accountability, arms expenditure and public priorities, Parliament’s role, relations with China and the wider security choices Australia faces.
The 2026 Hormuz crisis makes that wider discussion urgent. A country can prepare for high-end naval conflict while remaining exposed to the civilian systems through which modern war reaches people.
For most Australians, the first experience of a distant conflict is unlikely to be an enemy warship off the coast. It is more likely to be a higher fuel bill, a delayed shipment, disrupted travel, a shortage of a critical input, pressure on food prices, or an interest rate decision that asks households to absorb an imported shock. This is how security succeeds or fails in a trade-dependent country.
The International Energy Agency says that about one quarter of the world’s seaborne oil trade and almost one fifth of global LNG trade passed through the Strait of Hormuz in 2025. When the 2026 conflict disrupted that route and damaged energy infrastructure, the effects were not confined to the Gulf. Oil and gas flows tightened, refining capacity was lost, freight costs rose and the market for refined products, especially diesel, came under acute pressure.
The shock is still moving through the systems that move goods, people and basic necessities.
The UN Trade and Development assessment makes the chain clear. Higher energy prices bring higher freight, fuel and insurance costs. Fertiliser becomes more expensive, then food. The most vulnerable countries and households have the least capacity to absorb the shock. The International Maritime Organisation records the human dimension: seafarers, crews and port workers were caught in the danger and uncertainty of a trade route that could no longer be assumed safe.
Australia is in that chain. The Government and Industry Fertiliser Supply Working Group reported in June that the conflict had forced Australia and other countries to seek alternative urea supplies in a more competitive global market. The Government’s fuel and fertiliser facility helped secure shipments, but it also acknowledged that recovery would take time and disruption would persist.
The lesson is not that Australia must produce, or hold emergency stores of, every item it consumes. It is that security must include dealing with an emerging conflict before it becomes a wider crisis and before people in the conflict zone bear the immediate cost. It must also include practical preparations for the effects that will otherwise be passed on to Australian farms, freight operators and households.
The IEA’s October Oil Market Report describes how Middle East product disruption has coincided with lower Russian refinery output and exports after Ukrainian drone attacks. The result has been severe pressure on global diesel supplies. This should not reduce Russia’s war against Ukraine to a fuel price story, or diminish the suffering it has caused.
It demonstrates that the consequences of different wars now converge in the same supply chains. A disruption in one theatre erodes the buffers needed to manage a disruption in another.
The point is not that conventional naval power has become irrelevant, or that an adversary could not threaten Australia by sea. That is the strongest version of the AUKUS case and it should be stated fairly.
But the reciprocal point is equally important. A submarine cannot substitute for civilian resilience. It cannot:
- reopen a damaged airport;
- deliver medicines after a cyclone;
- restore insurer confidence in a threatened waterway;
- replace a fertiliser shipment;
- repair a power or water system; or
- prevent supply shock from becoming a cost-of-living crisis.
If national security is measured only by the capacity to fight, Australia may spend extraordinary sums on a capability that performs a narrow task while underinvesting in the systems that keep society functioning under pressure. It may also underinvest in diplomacy and regional cooperation that reduces the likelihood of a crisis developing in the first place.
The Government’s 2026 National Defence Strategy and Integrated Investment Program recognises national resilience and civil preparedness as part of defence. Parliament should now require an annual public account of fuel and critical input security, port and freight continuity, electricity and communications recovery, disaster readiness, cyber resilience and the protection of households from shocks they did nothing to cause. They are the conditions that determine whether a nation can withstand coercion without breaking.
The same annual account should apply a harder public test to AUKUS itself. What exact contingency is the capability designed to address? When will it be available? What must Australia rely on the United States and United Kingdom to provide? What can Australia decide, maintain, repair, adapt and decline to use? What are the costs, workforce and schedule risks?
The UK Parliament’s Defence Committee has identified continuing United States submarine production constraints as a foundational delivery risk — these are questions citizens are entitled to ask before a commitment becomes too large to reconsider.
The 4 November report should prompt a wider public test, not another contest between slogans.
Every major security investment should be judged by the danger it reduces, the time it takes to provide protection, the degree of Australian control, its effect on civilian continuity, its potential to increase or reduce escalation and the alternatives that address the same harm. A capability may pass one part of that test and fail another. That is precisely why Australia needs a portfolio, not a single prestige answer.
Hormuz has shown what that portfolio must protect: safe and lawful trade routes, the confidence of crews and shippers, fuel and fertiliser supplies, energy and communications systems, essential infrastructure, regional trust and the diplomatic capacity to stop crises spreading.
Australia needs the capacity to defend itself. It also needs the political maturity to understand that the purpose of defence is not merely to survive a damaged world. It is to prevent one.
AUKUS has escaped proper scrutiny for five years. That is about to change.
Doug Cameron, Former Federal Senator for New South Wales, October 26, 2026
The independent public inquiry into AUKUS will report on 4 November after examining the project’s implications for Australia’s security, economy, sovereignty and international standing.
Five years on from the announcement of AUKUS, a project founded on subterfuge and evasion, the public inquiry into AUKUS will launch its report at the National Press Club in Canberra on 4 November. This inquiry has gone where both the Coalition and the ALP have failed to go. It has revealed the depth and breadth of this project for Australia’s national security, economy and international credibility.
I am proud to have been part of the Inquiry Secretariat providing support to our eminent and talented team of inquiry commissioners. In my view it is now clear that AUKUS is about militarising Australia in the interests of the US, ensuring the grifters in defence and the arms industry are well fed. It is an act of self-harm and madness on the part of the Australian government.
The secrecy that lies at the heart of this $368 billion fiasco was maintained by federal or state governments that refused to appear before the public inquiry to make the case for the biggest transfer of sovereign wealth in Australia’s history. That is some kind of contempt for the Australian community.
To recap, if this project goes well it will result in the cost of $368 billion, plus over $120 billion to manage the weapons-grade nuclear waste. It will put at least four Australian cities in the cross-hairs in the event of a conflict between the US – now an international wrecking ball – and our largest trading partner, China.
That’s if these nuclear submarines ever materialise. AUKUS is looking increasingly like a distraction from the main game, which is about turning Australia into a compliant base for the US military.
Meanwhile the Australian government continues to dodge any accountability and simply responds to criticisms by muttering about protecting sea lanes and our alliance with the US. Meanwhile AUKUS critics have been variously accused of communism, appeasement and failing to understand ‘changed circumstances’.
The government’s determination to avoid any scrutiny reached absurd proportions when delegates to the ALP National Conference were denied the opportunity to debate AUKUS (and Palestine) at the national conference.
So, I was shocked to see that while federal and state governments are unwilling to have an honest conversation with the people funding this project, us, they were very forthcoming in the submissions the federal and South Australian governments gave to the UK Parliament through the UK defence committee inquiry.
Forelock tugging to the ‘mother country’ while denying Australians the right to government accountability on AUKUS is reprehensible, undemocratic and politically dumb.
Despite these submissions putting an unjustified gloss on AUKUS, and our almost pleading submissions, the UK defence committee has given our parliamentarians a masterclass in scrutiny, honesty and accountability.
Among the findings of this UK inquiry are that the alliances that have underpinned global security for decades can no longer be taken for granted; that even the UK public has little confidence in the project; that the investment pipeline is already faltering; and that the development of new SSN facilities in Adelaide and Perth could pose a risk to workforce retention at the UK’s equivalent facilities in Barrow-in-Furness and Plymouth.
The town critical to the delivery of the SSN-AUKUS, Barrow-in-Furness, is in dire need of total regeneration, with major issues of poverty, crime, alcohol and drug abuse and unemployment. Convincing the highly skilled workforce to move there is considered a huge challenge to the project. The report found this will require additional funding from central government to provide the investment in housing, healthcare, transport and education which the town urgently needs.
The AUKUS deal demands the UK increase port visits and later rotate an Astute-class submarine out of Australia to maintain credibility within AUKUS. But the UK report notes that the arrival of HMS Anson in Western Australia, while welcome, pushed the Astute class beyond its limits.
Nor did Pillar 2 escape criticism, with the report finding that progress to date has been disappointing and inadequate. It now faces an uphill battle to restore credibility. In the short term, the UK government must press for swift agreement within the trilateral on priority projects which provide tangible benefit to the “war fighter”, and their subsequent delivery at pace. It concludes the UK’s approach to Pillar 2 has so far been disjointed.
This was a report on the UK’s side of the agreement. This is the country we have committed over $4.5 billion to, and they are still struggling with almost every element of the project.
The scale of the problems in the UK further demonstrates that AUKUS is a defence, economic and social disaster for Australia. It is driven by naïve politicians, lobbyists, arms industry think tanks and a revolving door of retired politicians, public servants and military personnel.
Jargon such as “progressive patriotism”, “steady progress, all on track, historic opportunities, creating jobs”, beggars belief when compared with the faltering UK and US submarine industries that are destined to fail to deliver.
It is time for the Australian community to tell the Albanese government to stop treating all of us as mugs; enough is enough with this madness.
Social licence for AUKUS lacking as Public Inquiry report and recommendations due
28 October 2026AIMN Editorial, https://theaimn.net/social-licence-for-aukus-lacking-as-public-inquiry-report-and-recommendations-due/
The Public Inquiry into AUKUS
Social licence for AUKUS lacking as Public Inquiry report and recommendations due
The Lead Commissioner of Australia’s independent, crowdfunded Public Inquiry into AUKUS has warned the Federal Government about growing community unease about the project, ahead of the release of the Inquiry’s report and recommendations next week in Canberra.
Lead Commissioner Peter Garrett said today that the Inquiry hearings showed successive Governments had comprehensively failed to make the case for the AUKUS submarine pact, and that the sheer scale and cost of the project meant it risked becoming a threat to social cohesion in Australia over time.
“In the absence of any social license for this deal I fear Australians struggling through the current cost-of-living crisis will come to see the AUKUS expenditure going to the US and the UK in a very poor light.
“People aren’t mugs. As well as helping fund overseas shipyard construction these submarines will generate high level nuclear waste, which remains Australia’s responsibility. Once people understand this highly dangerous material needs to be stored somewhere safely, at great expense and for a very long time, they are bound to seek answers that have simply not been provided through the AUKUS process.
“Where is the Government’s plan for this massive waste management undertaking? It would be negligent not to have a plan, but up to now the community has been kept in the dark.
“That is unsustainable.”
A substantial number of Australians – including a former Prime Minister, former Foreign Affairs and Defence Ministers, senior academics and military experts, community groups and citizens – have presented to the Inquiry across 10 day-long hearings in 8 cities around Australia since it launched in the middle of the year.
Nearly 10,000 people watched the proceedings, either attending in person or via the live-stream. Over 1,000 written submissions were received.
$220,000 was raised by crowdfunding, from individual donors and from civil society organisations, in order to hold the inquiry.
The Commissioners have now drafted a comprehensive report which will be presented at the National Press Club next Wednesday November 4.
Friends of the Earth Adelaide – Submission on Australian Radioactive Waste Management Framework
Philip White October 23, 2026
Friends of the Earth Adelaide has lodged a submission on the government’s new draft Australian Radioactive Waste Management Framework (ARWMF). The draft would update the current Framework, which was published in 2018.
The new draft ARWMF has some improvements compared to the existing Framework, notably a recognition that “the most effective way to manage radioactive waste is to avoid generating it”, an acknowledgement that “Australia’s nuclear history has significantly impacted Indigenous Australians”, and a reference to the “United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), including participation in decision-making and the objective of free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) for measures and projects that affect Indigenous peoples’ lands, territories, resources and culture.”
Our concern is that, in the absence of clear commitments to upholding these principles, these references may amount to little more than lip-service.
We made the following 10 recommendations:
1. A commitment should be made in the ARWMF to report regularly on what steps have been taken to avoid generating radioactive waste and what radioactive waste has thus been avoided.
2. The government should avoid generating unnecessary radioactive waste by cancelling the AUKUS project and not accepting waste from foreign owned nuclear-powered vessels visiting Australian ports and spent nuclear fuel generated by US Virginia class submarines.
3. ARWMF should explicitly exclude acceptance into Australia of foreign radioactive waste.
4. If the government does not cancel AUKUS, it should clearly inform the public what it plans to do with the radioactive waste.
5. The government should immediately drop its Federal Court appeal against Rex Patrick’s freedom of information win in the Administrative Review Tribunal.
6. The government should inform the public about the status of Defence Minister Marles’ promise that “there will be a process that we will determine within the next 12 months for how the [high-level radioactive waste] site will be identified”.
7. The ARWMF should include a specific commitment to honour and uphold the FPIC principles. It should also indicate how it intends to go about fulfilling that commitment.
8. The National Radioactive Waste Management Act 2012 should be amended to withdraw the over-rides of the Native Title Act 1993 and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984 and to mandate that UNDRIP and the FPIC principles are followed. The over-ride of State and Territory laws should also be removed.
9. Any involvement of the private sector should be made conditional on three key principles: (1) the polluter pays principle, (2) final responsibility rests with the government, regardless of who produced the waste, and (3) the highest level of transparency.
10. ARWMF should explicitly reject misleading or incrementalist approaches that seek to establish an initial foothold, then expand the scale and/or type of waste beyond what was initially proposed.
Click here to read the full submission.
Israelis mislead Royal Commission into Antisemitism
by Wendy Bacon | Oct 19, 2026 , https://michaelwest.com.au/israelis-mislead-royal-commission-into-antisemitism/
investigates the Israel lobbyists, PR people and astroturfers behind the Combat Antisemitism Movement targeting local councils and the Royal Commission.
The Commonwealth and NSW governments are supporting a national local government conference organised by the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM), whose Israel-based CEO was head of the IDF’s social media unit.
The IDF is widely accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide by international bodies such as the United Nations, human rights organisations, and legal investigators.
The key goal of CAM, which operates in 40 countries, is to enforce the IHRA definition of antisemitism across all fields and levels of government;
“a definition which restricts criticism of Israel.”
CAM’s global headquarters are in Kansas, with CEO Sacha Roytman running the show from Tel Aviv. Chairman of its Board of Advisors, Natan Sharansky, was Deputy Prime Minister of Israel.
In a submission to the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, Roytman accused this publication of attacks on the CAM Summit and its organisers, among other unsubstantiated claims and imputations of antisemitism.
The submission went on to claim that “the publications that attacked the event” did not contact CAM beforehand.
This is false. In line with standard journalistic procedure, MWM tried to contact CAM on multiple occasions and sent questions prior to publication of the story to its chief executive, Sacha Roytman, which received no response. Here are the questions:
MWM also tried to contact CAM organiser Justine Williams by LinkedIn and another organiser by phone on more than one occasion.
Further, we also endeavoured to contact chairman of the board of advisers, David Gonski, who is co-chairing this year’s conference. Having been directed to UNSW Media for a response, we sent questions to UNSW Media and UNSW Media did not respond.
The lead author of CAM’s submission to the Royal Commission is Sacha Roytman – a Belgian communications expert who made Aliyah to Israel in 2004.
The second author is Israeli Yigal Nissel, who is currently CAM’s executive director in Australia. In 2015, he was sent to Australia as an ’emissary’ for the Jewish National Fund (JNF Australia). He returned to Israel and has been working for the Israeli Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and Antisemitism’s Mosaic Project until he returned to Australia to work for CAM.
Planning for the last Australian CAM conference became public in January 2025 when the then Deputy CEO of CAM, Yigal Nissel, published a story, “From Paradise to Peril,” in the Jerusalem Post, stating,
“Thousands of [Australian] extremists, spanning the radical left, the far right, and parts of the Muslim community, seized on the conflict in the Middle East as a pretext to unleash their latent antisemitism.”
As reported here last year, Nissel, who was based in Israel, announced that a CAM conference of hundreds of Mayors would address the problem. Previously, Nissel was the Israeli ‘emissary’ to the Australian branch of the Jewish National Fund (JNF).
Envoy Jillian Segal to co-host
The conference will kick off with messages of support from the Commonwealth and NSW governments. The first speaker is Alex Ryvchin, Co-CEO of the Executive Council of Australia Jewry (ECAJ), who labelled thousands of Australians who marched for Palestine last weekend as “obsessive, extreme and hateful”.
The conference follows the initial CAM Local Mayors’ Summit held on the Gold Coast last September. This year’s event will be held in Sydney on November 26 and 27 at a location that has not been publicised.
It will be co-hosted by the Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism Jillian Segal and delivered in partnership with Waverley Council.
This week Segal addressed a meeting of the global network of Special Envoys supported by the World Jewish Congress calling for the enforcement of her National Plan at an international legal. CAM is a “trusted US State Department partner” within the Special Envoy network.
Pro-Israel conference sponsors include ECAJ, the Dor Foundation and the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, which last week received a grant of $100,000 from the NSW government to contribute to the conference.
Sheina Gutnick, whose father died in the Bondi massacre, was appointed CAM’s public affairs officer in March and since then has been the public face of CAM. She told the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion that she has been the victim of many antisemitic attacks since then.
Labor backing council campaign
Recently, she has been collecting supportive videos from Councillors and MPs, including the federal Minister for Local Government Kirsty McBain, who urged CAM to “take back Bondi”. McBain is not attending the conference.
Two Labor Mayors, the Inner West’s Darcy Byrne and Bayside’s Christina Curry, are speaking at the conference. Lord Mayor Clover Moore will not attend, which is scarcely surprising given that CAM organised a rally at which Moore was attacked as a terrorist sympathiser because she joined last year’s March for Humanity.
The City of Sydney told MWM that the Labor Deputy Mayor Ollie Arkins will attend. While it presents a bipartisan image, CAM is being driven, both internationally and in Australia, by some influential conservative Zionists with a right wing agenda.
The players behind CAM
CAM Australia claims that its activities are funded by its Australian partners but MWM has been unable to find any business name, company or charity which accounts for its finances. There is a Board of CAM Australia which is chaired by the hugely influential businessman David Gonski.
We sent questions to CAM including asking which entity the Board governed but got no acknowledgement or reply.
Gonski is close to Jillian Segal and heads the Special Envoy’s Education task-force. He was recruited to CAM by Yigal Nissel who was moved to CAM from his job at the Israeli Ministry for Diaspora Affairs and Antisemitism and sent to Australia to help organise CAM’s first conference. He was dispatched back to Australia this year to head CAM in Australia.
Alex Polson is CAM’s senior advisor. He was originally a national officer of the Australasian Union of Jewish students. After that for eight years he was an advisor to Liberal Ministers and MPs.
PRs, astroturfers and lobbyists
In early 2024, Polson established his boutique advisory and investment company DBK. DBK registered the name Better Councils and Polson was the key Liberal organiser of the major parties’ ‘Put the Greens’ Last’ astroturfing campaign for ‘Better Councils’, and its successor for the Federal election ‘Better Australia’. (ALP member Sophie Calland was the Labor end of Better Australia.)
Bipartisan Better Australia raised at least $1.3 million (with no donors disclosed) much of which must have been spent on its slick electoral materials. For this, Better Australia partnered with strategic communications company Agenda C.
Agenda C was established by strategist Carrington Brigham in 2019. Earlier, Brigham developed his skills working under Yaron Finkelstein at Crosby Textor, known for its role in conservative electoral wins in Australia and the United Kingdom.
Finkelstein was a founding member of NSW Liberal friends of Israel and played a powerful role in the Morrison government as the PM’s personal private secretary. After the Coalition defeat in 2024, Finkelstein worked for NSW Premier Dominic Perrotet and then founded Society Advisory Pty Ltd, which has been granted a $200,000 contract to advise Special Envoy Jillilan Segal until April 2027.
Trickery claims
Polson and Brigham worked together on the Better Australia campaign. Finkelstein attended a meeting where campaign materials and a detailed campaign strategy were discussed with Labor party members of Better Australia. Everyone listed as present was a committed pro-Israel Zionist – but the campaign messages were
‘Don’t be Tricked by Teals’ and ‘Put the Greens Last’.
Agenda C claimed its campaign successfully defended four major seats and won back another four.
Brigham celebrated when his friend Tim Wilson narrowly defeated Teal Zoe Daniel in Goldstein after his campaign branded her as untrustworthy.
With the success of Better Australia behind them, Alex Polson and his DBK consultancy again linked up with Brigham and Agenda C for the CAM’s first conference. Polson and Brigham both signed the media release for the conference, along with a PR person in the US.
Agenda C aimed to deliver a “fully integrated, multi-channel strategy that positioned the summit as a credible, necessary platform for national leadership.”
Agenda C and CAM continue to work together, partnering on exclusive polling for The Sunday Telegraph about levels of fear in Australia, which was featured in a piece promoting the CAM conference.
CAM’s political agenda
The 2026 conference program promotes CAM as being all about interfaith, inclusive and sharing cultural approaches. Everyone is expected to commit to goals in the final session.
There are no speakers from Jewish, Palestinian or other human rights organisations that favour broad anti-racism strategies and do not accept that anti-Zionism is a form of antisemitism (unlike CAM).
CAM’s actual political agenda is clarified in its submission to the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, which was published on the Commission’s website in mid-September.
The CAM submission has four authors – the first is CEO Roytman and the second is CAM’s Australia CEO Nissel. Nowhere is it mentioned that Roytman is in Israel or that Nissel is on leave from an organisation that partners with the Israeli state. The other authors are Polson and Gutnick.
Despite their ‘grassroots’ talk, CAM’s agenda is a top down one.
CAM wants the Royal Commission to recommend training police to enforce IHRA as it is doing in several US states where CAM trains police in “evolving forms of antisemitism”.
It favours passing laws which prohibit posting online material viewed by CAM as antisemitic. It wants a National Local Government Partnership Against Antisemitism and for Social Cohesion, delivered through Australian Local Government Association LGAs built on CAM’s Action Plan’s four pillars.
Even by Zionist standards, CAM’s version of IHRA is wide. A symbols document that they distributed to conference attendees last year is attached to their submission. It takes in everyday symbols like ‘keffiyehs’ and ‘watermelons’ and a broad range of pro Palestinian slogans.
In the submission CAM attacks union and activist campaigners who wrote letters (including one to Darcy Byrne signed by 700 people) urging a boycott of last year’s conference.
They accuse them of intimidation, harassment and antisemitism – for example by referring to a Zionist Lobby or Israeli propaganda. It asks the Royal Commission to conclude that the albeit peaceful action of critics demonstrates the need for a Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion.
Peace protestors to blame
CAM blames peaceful protesters for costing them thousands of dollars and forcing them to bring in a counter-terrorism squad.
One of these protesters was Jewish anti-Zionist Veronica Sherman. Sherman told MWM that she was one of about five people who “travelled independently from around Australia to protest outside the conference …
“nothing about us could be described as intimidating.”
“Even the cops told me how surprised they were at how few protestors there were because they had been told there would be hundreds if not thousands. Which explained why there was such a heavy police presence. Including helicopters,” she said.
Protesting is a “basic Australian and democratic right. It’s important that Australians know that the Zionists don’t represent all Jews which is one of the reasons I flew up to hold a banner peacefully outside the venue”.
Pressure and complaints
Recently Polson exercised his democratic right to write on behalf of CAM to the organiser of an event at the University of Tasmania at which Nick Hanna, co-founder of the Civil Defence Legal Centre and lawyer at Hanna Legal was delivering the keynote address.
CAM claimed that Hanna had produced an antisemitic video and asked the University to reconsider its invitation. The University rejected CAM’s argument and said the event would go ahead. Hobart Synagogue, which is supporting the CAM conference, then wrote a letter complaining that while Hanna sounds ‘calm and reasonable’ he is ‘extremely dangerous’ for its Jewish community.
In releasing his video about this behind the scenes pressure, Hanna says it showed that people can resist pressure and win.
Polson has high hopes for the November conference, hoping that it will “scale a national movement already underway”.
But MWM hears applications to attend the conference, which this year costs $600 without accommodation, are slow – and a new campaign to discourage councillors from attending has just begun.
Detailed questions for this story were put to CAM, Polson and Waverley Council but we received no reply or acknowledgement.
Wendy Bacon
Wendy Bacon is an investigative journalist who was the Professor of Journalism at UTS. She worked for Fairfax, Channel Nine and SBS and has published in The Guardian, New Matilda, City Hub and Overland. She has a long history in promoting independent and alternative journalism.
She is a long-term supporter of a peaceful BDS and the Greens.
Nuclear needs to build up to 8,000 SMRs just to catch up with wind and solar. By 2035, they might have 5
Giles Parkinson, ReNewEconomy, May 27, 2026
Australia’s almost indistinguishable far right political parties – the Liberals, Nationals and One Nation – are pushing the nuclear barrow once again, not for climate reasons but because of the “anything but wind and solar” ideology demanded by their fossil-fuelled benefactors.
So it came as a timely reminder on Wednesday, when one of the world’s leading green energy analysts, Michael Liebreich, underlined just how useless nuclear energy is for dealing with climate change, and how far the small nuclear reactors championed by many are from competing with surging wind and solar.
Liebreich is the founder of Bloomberg New Energy Finance and his address to the Energy Efficiency Council’s National Conference also touched on the perils of net zero targets (because it puts the focus on what’s really hard rather than what’s readily achievable), and the overwhelming push for electrification for “just about everything.”
But it was the nuclear hype that he was also keen to puncture, if only to underline the sheer scale and dominance of wind and solar, and its rapidly growing share of “useable” energy, as opposed to “primary energy” that ignores the massive inefficiencies of fossil fuels.
SMR are still not being built but they are championed by some of the world’s richest people, the AI and social media “tech bros” who are looking for ample energy sources to power their massive data centre needs (while contracting tens of gigawatts of wind and solar in the meantime).
“They (the tech bros) love nuclear, and they’re going to be very angry when they discover what everybody discovers, which is nuclear is kind of expensive and long and complicated,” Liebreich said.
“But even if they succeed, it’s not going to be a climate solution,” he said. And the reason is that simply to match the output of wind and solar in the 2024 calendar year, the industry would need 1,250 of the 470 MW SMRs that are being developed by Rolls Royce, or up to 8,000 of the much smaller SMRs pushed by the likes of Oklo.
“If they build five by 2035 that will be a big win,” Liebreich said. “And so, as a climate solution, by the time you did build 2000 Westinghouse SMRs, where do you think wind and solar is going to be?
“It’s obviously going to have grown. That green curve is not stopping, it is taking off, and you can see it’s taking off even in the countries that are really trying to build nuclear.”
The nuclear push is usually associated in Australia by calls to abandon net zero targets, with the main argument being – without evidence – that it is trashing the economy.
Net zero has been criticised by others supportive of strong action. Andrew Forrest, aiming for real zero at Fortescue’s giant iron ore mines by 2030, says net zero is an excuse to do not much and use offsets instead of cutting emissions, others say a 2050 target is used by an excuse to do not much anytime soon.
Liebreich’s criticism is that it makes everything sound too hard. “By focusing on zero, immediately your eye is drawn to doing the difficult bits, and the difficult bits are expensive, and we just don’t have to have those discussions right now…………………………………. https://reneweconomy.com.au/nuclear-needs-to-build-up-to-8000-smrs-just-to-catch-up-with-wind-and-solar-now-by-2035-they-might-have-5/
1 This month
Read the Public Inquiry Report, the Commissioners’ report, Surrendering Australia: The AUKUS Deception is available to download for free at aukuspublicinquiry.com. Or just watch the replay of the National Press Club Luncheon.
4 November – Will AUKUS keep us safe – at what cost?
the Commissioners of the AUKUS Public Inquiry present their findings at the National Press Club of Australia in Canberra. iview.abc.net.au/show/national-press-club-address
Submissions to the federal government’s new draft framework close on the 13th November 2026.
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AUKUS – https://aukuspublicinquiry.com/
PETITION – To: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Australian Labor Government
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
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