$31m fines, 25 years jail for nuclear submarine safety breaches
“This robust and comprehensive approach to regulating Australia’s nuclear-powered submarine program recognises the Albanese government’s commitment to nuclear stewardship and upholding the highest standards for nuclear safety and security,” Mr Marles said.
Andrew Tillett https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/31m-fines-25-years-jail-for-nuclear-submarine-safety-breaches-20231115-p5ek9x
Organisations that breach nuclear safety regulations will be hit with fines of up to $31 million while individuals face up to 25 years jail under AUKUS-related laws to be introduced into parliament on Thursday.
The legislation establishes the regulatory framework overseeing the operations of Australia’s nuclear-powered submarines that will initially be acquired from the US then built in Adelaide.
The Australian Naval Nuclear Power Safety Regulator will also be responsible for facilities in Australia for submarines, including rotational visits of US and UK boats, and designated zones, including Adelaide’s shipyard and Perth’s HMAS Stirling navy base.
The regulator will sit within the Defence portfolio but will be an independent statutory agency, headed by a director-general independent of the Defence Force and not subject to the ADF chain of command or directions from Defence and the Australian Submarine Agency.
The new regulator will have monitoring and investigative powers, including the power to determine legal compliance; whether information is accurate; and the powers necessary to investigate offences.
A licensing regime will be created for nuclear activities and new offences introduced for breaches of nuclear safety duties. The most serious breaches will attract a fine for a body corporate of up to $31 million and 25 years in jail.
A limited power will also be created allowing the defence minister of the day to direct the regulator. The power will be narrow in scope and only be used when the minister was satisfied it was necessary in the interests of national security and to deal with an emergency.
The government argues the existing nuclear safety regime and regulators – the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency and Environment Department – are insufficient for the demands of overseeing nuclear-powered submarines.
“This robust and comprehensive approach to regulating Australia’s nuclear-powered submarine program recognises the Albanese government’s commitment to nuclear stewardship and upholding the highest standards for nuclear safety and security,” Mr Marles said.
“The new regulator will have access to relevant expertise and experience, allowing it to cooperate effectively with other Australian regulators and those of our international partners.
“Today is another important step towards ensuring we employ the highest standards of nuclear safety and protection across the lifecycle of this historic capability.”
The Militarised University: Where Secrecy Goes to Thrive
Across Australia’s universities, the AUKUS military initiative between the US, UK and Australia, primarily focused on developing nuclear powered technology for a new submarine design, has titillated the managerial wonks of the tertiary education sector. In September, the Defence Department announced that 4,000 additional Commonwealth supported places (CSPs) for undergraduate students would be funded as part of its “Nuclear-Powered Submarine Student Pathways” strategy.
Then come the true villains of the peace, the arms manufacturers and companies that make the military-university-industrial complex intimate and obscene.
November 14, 2023, by: Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.com/the-militarised-university-where-secrecy-goes-to-thrive/
For anyone wishing to bury secrets, especially of the unsavoury sort, there is one forum that stands out. Call it a higher education institution. Call it a university. Even better, capitalise it: the University. This is certainly the case in Australia, where education is less a pursuit of knowledge as the acquiring of a commodity, laid out spam for so much return. On that vast island continent, the university, dominated by a largely semi-literate and utterly unaccountable management, is a place where secrets are buried, concealed with a gleeful dedication verging on mania.
In its submission to what will hopefully become the Australian Universities Accord, the Australian Association of University Professors (AAUP) notes the following: “Unfortunately, university managements are increasingly disconnected from and unaccountable to academic values and academic communities. Students, Government and granting bodies, pay universities to deliver services according to academic values, but academics are impeded from working in accordance with academic values by interfering management. Further, the managers themselves do not work in accordance with academic values.”
Those in the defence industry have taken note. By turning such institutions of instruction into supply lines for research and development in armaments, they can be assured of secrecy conditions the envy of most intelligence agencies. Consulting, viewing, gaining access to relevant agreements, documentation and projects for reasons of public discussion is virtually impossible. These are always seen as “commercial” and “in confidence”.
Only the overly fed and watered members of the University Politburo are granted such access. Entry into the arcana of its deliberations is ceremonially tolerated via Academic Board meetings or Senatorial deliberations. Furthermore, academics throughout the university sport a reliable, moral flabbiness that will prevent them from spilling the beans and airing a troubled conscience, even in cases where leaking the documentation might be possible. Middle class, mortgage-laden status anxiety is the usual formula here, one that neuters revolutionary spirits – not that there was much to begin with.
Across Australia’s universities, the AUKUS military initiative between the US, UK and Australia, primarily focused on developing nuclear powered technology for a new submarine design, has titillated the managerial wonks of the tertiary education sector. In September, the Defence Department announced that 4,000 additional Commonwealth supported places (CSPs) for undergraduate students would be funded as part of its “Nuclear-Powered Submarine Student Pathways” strategy.
Institutes have sprung up running short courses to rake in the cash, such as the UWA Defence and Security Institute, which proudly claims to have created the “essential course for those seeking to gain a greater understanding of AUKUS Pillar 1 (nuclear powered submarines) and the impacts for Western Australia and beyond.” A course running for thirteen hours does not seem particularly hefty, but this is a field of glitz over substance.
Then come the true villains of the peace, the arms manufacturers and companies that make the military-university-industrial complex intimate and obscene. One of interest here is Israel’s Elbit Systems. For years, it has hammered out a reputation for manufacturing such lethal products as the Hermes 900 drone, which was first deployed in 2014 against targets in the Gaza Strip. It supplies the lion’s share of drones used by the Israeli Defence Forces for strikes and surveillance (the figure may be as high as 85%).
The company has managed to beef up many an activist’s resumé. Members of the Palestine Action group claim to have scored a victory in securing the permanent closure of two of Elbit’s sites in 2022, including the London head office. “The cracks in Elbit’s warehouse windows,” the organisation trumpeted in August this year, “do not simply represent cosmetic damage but also symbolise the crumbling foundations of Elbit’s relationship with the British State’s so-called defence interests.”
The corporation has also fallen out of favour with a number of investors. HSBC and the French multinational AXA Investment Managers divested from the company in 2018 and 2019 given its role in producing and commercialising cluster munitions and white phosphoros shells. In May 2022, the Australian sovereign wealth fund, Future Fund, excluded Elbit Systems Limited from its investment portfolio for much the same reasons.
Despite this blotched and blotted record, Elbit could still stealthily establish a bridgehead in the university sector down under through its creation, in 2021, of a Centre of Excellence in Human-Machine Teaming and Artificial Intelligence in Port Melbourne. Elbit Systems of Australia (ELSA) had two special clients: the state government of Victoria, which provided some funding via Invest Victoria, and RMIT University’s Centre for Industrial AI Research and Innovation. The two-year partnership with ELSA’s Centre of Excellence was intended to, according to ELSA’s then managing director and retired Major General Paul McLachlan, “research how to use drones to count the number of people in designated evacuation zones, then to co-ordinate and communicate the most efficient evacuation routes to everyone in the zone, as well as monitoring the area to ensure that everyone has been accounted for.”
Despite such seemingly noble goals, the opening ceremony in February 2021 had a distinctly heavy military accent, with senior representatives from the Royal Australian Airforce, DST (Defence Science and Technology) Group and the Capability Acquisition and Sustainment Group (CASG). No one present could deny that technology used in the context of civilian evacuations in the face of natural disaster could just as well be deployed in a military security context. As Antony Loewenstein has observed, “If you partner, as a state or a university, with a company like Elbit, you have blood on your hands because the record of Elbit in Israel-Palestine, on the US-Mexican border and elsewhere is so damned clear.”
Since the Hamas attacks on Israeli soil that took place on October 7, the ELSA-RMIT-Victorian relationship has seemingly altered. A war of horrendous carnage is being waged in the Gaza Strip. Activists claim to have scored a famous victory in securing the university’s hazy termination of any partnership with ELSA. “This is a significant victory for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement in Australia,” claims Hilmi Dabbagh of BDS Australia. “Australian universities have been put on notice that they will be targeted if they partner with any Israeli company or institution complicit in human rights abuses and attacks on Palestinians.”
Such confidence is admirably fresh, if a touch green. It is worth looking at the university statement, which is revealing in ways that have been entirely missed in the enthusiastic pronouncements of the BDS movement. The university claims to “not design, develop or manufacture weapons or munitions in the university or as part of any partnership. With regard to Elbit Systems, RMIT does not have a partnership with Elbit Systems or any of their subsidiaries, including Elbit Systems of Australia (ELSA).” Such wording avoids the language of termination, leaving the question open as to whether it ever had an arrangement to begin with, with its requisite project links. This will, as with much else, be deemed commercial, in confidence, and buried in the bowels of secrecy we have come to expect from the antipodean university sector.
Republicans and Democrats Unite to Push for Assange’s Freedom
Sixteen members of Congress signed a letter to President Biden urging him to drop the case against the WikiLeaks founder.
By Dave DeCamp / Antiwar.com https://scheerpost.com/2023/11/12/republicans-and-democrats-unite-to-push-for-assanges-freedom
Abipartisan group of 16 members of Congress has called on President Biden to drop the case against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, warning of the grave threats to press freedom if he is convicted.
The lawmakers made the call in a letter sent to President Biden on Wednesday. The effort was led by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and James McGovern (D-MA), who began circulating the letter to their colleagues for signatures last month.
“It is the duty of journalists to seek out sources, including documentary evidence, in order to report to the public on the activities of government,” the letter reads, according to a press release from Assange Defense.
“The United States must not pursue an unnecessary prosecution that risks criminalizing common journalistic practices and thus chilling the work of the free press. We urge you to ensure that this case be brought to a close in as timely a manner as possible,” the letter states.
The letter was also signed by Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Greg Casar (D-TX), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Cori Bush (D-MO), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Eric Burlison (R-MO), Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Paul Gosar (R-AZ), Jesús García (D-IL), Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), Matthew Rosendale (R-MT), and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY).
The letter comes as the Biden administration has been under pressure from the Australian government to free Assange, who is an Australian citizen. In September, a delegation of Australian members of parliament from across the political spectrum visited Washington and met with US officials to lobby for Assange. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese brought up the case with President Biden when he visited the White House in October.
Assange faces up to 175 years in prison if extradited to the US and convicted for exposing US war crimes. The charges stem from documents published by WikiLeaks that Assange obtained from his source, former Army Private Chelsea Manning, a standard journalistic practice. Assange has been held in London’s Belmarsh Prison since April 2019 as his legal team is fighting against US efforts to extradite him.
US reactor project fail heats up Australia’s nuclear power debate
ByMike Foley, November 10, 2023 — https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/us-reactor-project-fail-heats-up-australia-s-nuclear-power-debate-20231109-p5eisu.html
A nuclear energy developer championed by the Coalition has canned its most advanced project in the United States, raising questions over the viability of the technology in Australia.
NuScale Power, which was developing small modular reactors at a US government-owned site in Idaho with plans to sell electricity to suppliers across the regional network by 2029, on Thursday said it had abandoned the project due to a lack of customer sign-ups.
The federal opposition, which wants Australia to overturn its longstanding ban on nuclear energy, claims small modular reactors – the next generation of nuclear power plants – are the only viable backup for renewable energy as the country transitions away from fossil fuels.
But Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen said NuScale’s announcement was further proof that small modular reactors were not viable for Australia.
“The opposition’s only energy policy is small modular reactors,” Bowen said. “Today, the most advanced prototype in the US has been cancelled. The [opposition’s] plan for energy security is just more hot air from Peter Dutton.”
NuScale’s small modular reactor design was the first to be approved by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission in January. It was awarded more than $US1 billion ($1.56 billion) in government funding to support its development.
The company said in 2021 it would supply power from its small modular reactor plant for $US58 a megawatt hour. Since then, that figure has more than doubled to $US89 a megawatt hour.
Mason Baker, the chief executive of NuScale’s government-owned partner, Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems, said it was working with the company and the US Department of Energy to wind down the project.
“This decision is very disappointing given the years of pioneering hard work put into the [project],” Baker said.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has said small modular reactors could easily replace Australia’s coal-fired power plants.
“Australians must consider new nuclear technologies as part of the energy mix,” he said in July. “New nuclear technologies can be plugged into existing grids and work immediately.”
Opposition climate change and energy spokesman Ted O’Brien said in May that NuScale’s designs offered “exceptional flexibility” and would allow a “simple expansion” for Australia’s energy grid.
“North America has done the maths. It has mapped its course to a net-zero future, and it’s one that sensibly includes next-generation, zero-emissions nuclear energy.”
But recent Energy Department modelling found more than 70 small modular reactors, which are forecast to generate 300 megawatts each, would be needed to replace all of Australia’s coal plants at an estimated cost of $387 billion.
O’Brien said on Thursday that Bowen had applied “faulty logic” to NuScale’s announcement and if he applied the same test to renewables, they too would be considered a failure.
“Is Bowen arguing that wind power is dead because the world’s leading supplier, Siemens, is seeking a €15 billion government bailout, or the days of solar are over because plans for the world’s largest solar plant, Sun Cable, have run into trouble,” O’Brien said.
“If Australia is serious about reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 while keeping the lights on and getting prices down, we cannot afford to take any option off the table.”
Pacific Islands Forum – time to reinvigorate the Treaty of Rarotonga, the nuclear weapons-free pact ?
Pacific backs Australian climate policy: Albanese.
St George and Sutherland Shire Leader, Australian Associated Press 9 Nov 23
“…………………………………………………………………………………………………. Joining climate as one of the top issues at the gathering are nuclear concerns, with Pacific leaders showing their resolve to keep the region nuclear-free.
The Pacific is stridently nuclear-free, a legacy of the region’s painful history with testing of nuclear weapons by the United States, United Kingdom and France.
Australia’s AUKUS deal to obtain nuclear-powered submarines raises concern among many, given the sensitivity of nuclear issues.
Leaders in Kiribati, Tuvalu, Solomon Islands and Fiji have previously expressed reservations on different fronts, including the extravagant cost, which exceeds the entire annual GDP of PIF members excepting Australia and New Zealand.
PIF chair and Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown has suggested the time could have come to “reinvigorate” the Treaty of Rarotonga, the nuclear weapons-free pact signed during the Cold War.
Mr Albanese was less forthcoming on whether reform was needed, declining to respond to questions on whether he supported Mr Brown’s calls.
“We support the Treaty of Rarotonga. It is a good document. It has stood the test of time, all of the arrangements that have been in place, we’ve been consistent with that, and it retains our support,” he said.
The legacy of another nuclear incident – the 2011 Fukushima power plant disaster – also hangs over the Pacific.
Japan is releasing treated wastewater from the power plant, insisting it is safe to do so, with an International Atomic Energy Agency report as proof.
Australia and New Zealand accept those guarantees, but a growing number of Pacific nations hold concerns, including Polynesian and Melanesian blocs.
At the PIF summit, Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka is championing another initiative: declaring the Pacific an “ocean of peace”.
That proposal, the nuclear concerns and the Suva Agreement regional unity pact are late inclusions onto the agenda of the leaders retreat. https://www.theleader.com.au/story/8417306/pacific-backs-australian-climate-policy-albanese/
First newly built nuclear-powered submarine under AUKUS likely to be sold in 2038, US admiral reveals
ABC, By defence correspondent Andrew Greene, 9 Nov 23
Australia will be sold its first new American nuclear-powered submarine in 2038, according to a senior US naval officer who has also revealed that initial sales of second-hand Virginia-class boats will likely take place in 2032 and 2035.
Key points:
- US Navy personnel have laid out when they think the first nuclear-powered submarines could be delivered to Australia
- The first newly constructed boat under the AUKUS deal is expected to be sold in 2038
- Second-hand Virginia class submarines could be sold in 2032 and 2035
During a separate media event in Sydney, the visiting commander of the US Pacific fleet also assured Australians that this country will maintain full sovereignty over the American technology when it eventually comes into service here.
Speaking in Washington, the US commander of submarine forces, Vice Admiral Bill Houston, provided a provisional timeline for transferring Virginia-class submarines to Australia under the AUKUS partnership.
According to US publication Breaking Defense, Vice Admiral Houston said planned US sales of “in-service submarines” to Australia are expected in 2032 and 2035, while the 2038 sale will be a newly constructed Block VII version of the Virginia-class.
The newly constructed Block VII submarine will not carry the Virginia Payload Module, the mid-body section equipped on certain boats in the fleet that increases its missile capacity.
Under the AUKUS agreement, the United States will sell at least three, and up to five, Virginia-class submarines in the 2030s, before the United Kingdom will then jointly construct a new SSN-AUKUS submarine fleet with Australia.
Defence Minister Richard Marles has not yet commented on the new details of the proposed “optimal pathway” for nuclear-powered submarines, but earlier this week he expressed optimism the project still enjoyed broad political support in the US.
“There is legislation which is going through the US Congress as we speak, legislation which goes to reducing the export control regime as it applies between Australia and America,” Mr Marles said on Tuesday.
“[It is] legislation which will enable the sale of the Virginias but importantly legislation which will enable the provision of the Australian contribution to the American industrial uplift,” he added.
US officials insist the annual production rate of Virginia-class submarines needs to increase from the current level of 1.2 vessels to well above 2 per year, before transfers to Australia can occur……………………………………………… https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-09/aukus-submarine-sales-timelines-revealed/103083780
Small modular nuclear reactor that was hailed by Coalition as future cancelled due to rising costs
Opposition climate and energy spokesperson had pointed to SMRs as a solution to Australia’s energy needs, but experts raise questions over price tag.
Adam Morton, Guardian, 9 Nov 23
The only small modular nuclear power plant approved in the US – cited by the Australian opposition as evidence of a “burgeoning” global nuclear industry – has been cancelled due to rising costs.
NuScale Power announced on Wednesday that it had dropped plans to build a long-promised “carbon free power project” in Idaho. It blamed the decision on a lack of subscribers for the plant’s electricity.
The Coalition’s energy and climate spokesperson, Ted O’Brien, has cited NuScale’s technology as part of the opposition’s contentious argument that Australia should lift a national ban on nuclear energy and that small modular reactors (SMRs) could be an affordable replacement for its ageing coal-fired power plant
In an opinion piece in the Australian earlier this year, O’Brien said the company’s integrated reactors, starting with the Idaho plant in 2029, offered “exceptional flexibility” and were an example “of a burgeoning nuclear industry for next-generation technology” in the US.
The climate change minister, Chris Bowen, said SMRs were “the opposition’s only energy policy”.
“The most advanced prototype in the US has been cancelled. The LNP’s plan for energy security is just more hot air from Peter Dutton,” he said………………………………………………………………………………
Industry experts say SMRs are not commercially available, that nuclear energy is more expensive than alternatives and in a best-case scenario could not play a role in Australia for more than a decade, and probably not before 2040. The Australian Energy Market Operator found renewable energy could be providing 96% of the country’s electricity by that time.
The Coalition opposes Labor’s goal of reaching 82% renewable electricity by 2030. It has argued for a slower response to the climate crisis and amplified local concerns about new clean energy and electricity transmission connections.
The projected cost of the NuScale project had blown out from US$3.6bn for 720 megawatts in 2020 to US$9.3bn for 462MW last year. It failed after securing subscriptions for only 20% of the required capital from a Utah-based consortium of electricity companies.
Simon Holmes à Court, a clean energy advocate and commentator and convener of political fundraising body Climate 200, said the estimated capital cost of the Idaho project before it was cancelled was 70% higher than CSIRO projections of what nuclear power plants could cost to build in 2030.
He said this undermined arguments by the Coalition and other nuclear advocates, who had accused the CSIRO of exaggerating the likely cost of nuclear energy.
Holmes à Court said Australia needed a rapid rollout of solar, wind and energy storage. He recently toured nuclear power projects in the US.
“The simple fact is that commercial SMRs don’t exist. There are zero in operation or even contracted for construction outside Russia and China. The cancellation of one of the three leading proposals underscores the speculative nature of this far-off technology,” he said.
“More than two thirds of our coal generators will retire in the next decade due to age. By pushing a unicorn technology the Coalition is posing a threat to the cost and security of Australia’s electricity grid.” https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/nov/09/small-modular-nuclear-reactor-that-was-hailed-by-coalition-as-future-cancelled-due-to-rising-costs
—
Showboating for War: Johnson and Morrison in Israel
November 7, 2023, Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.com/showboating-for-war-johnson-and-morrison-in-israel/
Banished Prime Ministers are an irritation. They clog the airwaves of punditry with their views about how things were and how things should be. But even there, degrees of severity and competence should be observed. The more noble sorts would pursue the goals of peace, even as they bag large wads of cash in stating the obvious. With former Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, and his disgraced counterpart from the UK, Boris Johnson, the cash is being forked out for war.
That Israeli authorities thought it suitable to invite these two men to bolster their war against Hamas shows a degree of deep desperation. Johnson, a serial rule breaker when it came to his own government’s pandemic regulations, was forced to resign as PM by his own Conservative party in June this year. He proved to be persistently and pathologically mendacious, a ragtag mix of contemptuousness and buffoonery.
Only Australia’s own Morrison could have possibly kept up, secretly commandeering, without knowledge of his own Cabinet, up to five different ministries in addition to his own. Despite losing the May 2022 election to Labor’s Anthony Albanese, he remains a sitting federal member, when not avidly think-tanking for anti-China causes and the US imperium.
As Gaza City is being systematically liquidated, pulverised, demolished and destroyed by Israeli firepower, these two men have decided to cheer matters on with their equivalent of pompoms and drums. The Israeli Defence Force needs all the help it can get in destroying any vestige of Palestinian political power in the small settlement, and history lessons are not what interests them. While Johnson is infinitely more informed about history than Morrison, both were united in their cheap showboating exercise.
Their Israeli hosts, assured that they would never be questioned, took the men to Kibbutz Kfar Aza, the place where 100 residents met their fate at the hands of the al-Qassam Brigade, the military wing of Hamas, on October 7. Here was a chance to compress and cleanse history, to give it that ethical clarity Morrison and Johnson always resisted as prime ministers. It was Johnson’s wish that the world would be able to see what had taken place “so people could be under no illusion about the savagery, the sadism, the lack of humanity of Hamas terrorists.”
That word, again: humanity. The humanity exorcised from any assessment of Palestinian worth, sovereignty, liberty. A humanity reserved for a certain type of privileged victimhood, one rarified in the cool atmosphere of exceptionalism known as God’s chosen people drawn from a document part fiction, part history. It follows that the retaliatory steps taken in prosecuting any response will be justified. “Of course,” Johnson emphasises, “it is right for Israel to take the necessary steps… to stop that happening again.”
On Channel 12 news, Johnson stressed the need to keep the moral compass steady and free of any regard for the Palestinians or their cause: “[S]ince that appalling massacre of October 7, you’re seeing a kind of fog descend, a moral fog, and I just want to remind people of the absolute barbarism of what took place and to make it clear that Israel has the right to defend itself.” With emphasis, he stated that, “There can be no moral equivalence between the terrorism of Hamas and the actions of the Israeli Defence Forces.”
When given the chance to talk about pursuing a ceasefire in the name of ecumenical grace, Johnson was curt. Think of those 240 hostages held by Hamas. “[W]hen you have a crime of this scale, and when there’s the possibility of it happening again, I don’t think it’s the business of the world to tell Israel to stop.” Forget international law, humanitarian restraint on the use of force, proportionate response, and conduct might just find itself within the margins of the tolerable.
Morrison, for his part, saw the trip as “an opportunity to understand firsthand what is occurring on the ground, honour those who have been lost, show support for those who have suffered and are now engaged in this terrible conflict and discuss how to move forward.” He also argued against a ceasefire, as this would only “advantage Hamas to be able to strengthen their positions and make this war go on for even longer”.
As for the matter of making sure the attacks of October 7 are never repeated, the point is all too obvious. It will keep happening again with dreary, bloody predictability. If not next year, then the next decade. Or generation. Eliminating Hamas will simply be a bloody pruning exercise verging on genocide, allowing fresh vegetation to thrive. The forest of vengeance will continue to grow; the thousands of children who survive will never forgive the IDF for what they have done and continue to do. Each dead family brings with it a family of converts for the Palestinian cause. Israel’s publicity relations wonks would be best advised to pay Johnson and Morrison and wish them on their merry way.
Targeting Gaza From US Spy Hub in Australia
Peter Cronau reports on Canberra’s secret support for Israel’s brutal assault on Palestinians in Gaza through NSA intelligence satellites in the U.S. Pine Gap base near Alice Springs.
Peter Cronau, Declassified Australia https://consortiumnews.com/2023/11/03/targeting-gaza-from-us-spy-hub-in-australia/
The Pine Gap U.S. surveillance base located outside of Alice Springs in Australia is collecting an enormous range of communications and electronic intelligence from the brutal Gaza-Israel battlefield — and this data is being provided to the Israel Defence Forces.
Two large Orion geosynchronous signals intelligence satellites, belonging to the U.S. and operated from Pine Gap, are located 36,000 kms above the equator over the Indian Ocean. Frosxxxdxxxxxm there, they look down on the Middle East, Europe and Africa, and gather huge amounts of intelligence data to beam back to the Pine Gap base.xxxxxc
After collecting and analysing the communications and intelligence data for the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), Pine Gap is providing it to the Israel Defence Forces, as it steps up its brutal assault on Palestinians in the Gaza enclave.
Pine Gap facility is monitoring the Gaza Strip and surrounding areas with all its resources, and gathering intelligence assessed to be useful to Israel,” a former Pine Gap employee has told Declassified Australia.
David Rosenberg worked inside Pine Gap as “team leader of weapon signals analysis” for 18 years until 2008. He is a 23-year veteran of the NSA.
“Pine Gap has satellites overhead. Every one of those assets would be on those locations, looking for anything that could help them.”
“Pine Gap facility is monitoring the Gaza Strip and surrounding areas with all its resources, and gathering intelligence assessed to be useful to Israel.”
Rosenberg says the personnel at Pine Gap are tasked with collecting signals such as “command and control” centres in Gaza, with Hamas headquarters often located near hospitals, schools and other civilian structures. “The aim would be to minimise casualties to non-combatants in achieving their objective of destroying Hamas.”
Since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel that killed over 1,400 Israelis, both military and civilian, the Israel Defence Forces has bombed hundreds of targets inside Gaza, killing far more than Hamas militants. An estimated 9,000 people so far have been killed, including most shockingly 3,600 children.
United Nations agencies have deplored the nearly four-week Israeli bombing campaign saying,
“Gaza has become a ‘graveyard’ for children with thousands now killed under Israeli bombardment, while more than a million face dire shortages of essentials and a lifetime of trauma ahead.”
Pine Gap’s Global Role
The sprawling satellite ground station outside Alice Springs, officially titled Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap (JDFPG), has been described as the United States’ second most important surveillance base globally.
About half the 800 personnel working at the Central Australian base are American, with Australian government employees making up fewer than 100 of the increasingly privatised staff.
The base is no mere passive communication collector. Personnel at the Pine Gap base provide vital detailed analysis and reporting on SIGINT (signals intelligence) and ELINT (electronic intelligence) it collects.
As well as surveillance of civilian, commercial and military communications, it provides detailed geolocation intelligence to the U.S. military that can be used to locate with precision targets in the battlefield.
This was first conclusively documented in a secret NSA document, titled “Site Profile,” leaked from the Edward Snowden archive to this writer and first published by ABC Australia in 2017:
“RAINFALL [Pine Gap’s NSA codename] detects, collects, records, processes, analyses and reports on PROFORMA signals collected from tasked target entities.”
These PROFORMA signals are the communications data of radar and weapon systems collected in near real-time — they likely would include remote launch signals for Hamas rockets, as well as any threatened missile launches from Lebanon or Iran.
“Pine Gap detects, collects, records, processes, analyses and reports on PROFORMA signals collected from tasked target entities.
This present war in Gaza is not the first time the dishes of Pine Gap have assisted Israel’s military with intelligence, including the detecting of incoming missiles, according to this previous report.
“During the [1991] Gulf War, Israeli reports praised Australia for relaying Scud missile launch warnings from the Nurrungar joint U.S.-Australian facility in South Australia, a task now assigned to Pine Gap.”
During the early stages of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, the NSA installed a data link to send early warning of any Iraqi missile launches detected directly to Israel’s Air Force headquarters at Tel Nof airbase, south of Tel Aviv.
Israel’s Access to ‘Five Eye’ Jewels
The NSA “maintains a far-reaching technical and analytic relationship with the Israeli SIGINT National Unit (ISNU),” according to documents published by The Intercept in 2014. The documents show the NSA and ISNU are “sharing information on access, intercept, targeting, language, analysis and reporting.”
“This SIGINT relationship has increasingly been the catalyst for a broader intelligence relationship between the United States and Israel.
“The Israeli side enjoys the benefits of expanded geographic access to world-class NSA cryptanalytic and SIGINT engineering expertise.”
It’s thanks to the Pine Gap base, with its satellites so strategically positioned to monitor the Middle East region, along with its targeting and analysis capability, that Israel is able to make use of these benefits.
Another leaked document, a targeting exchange agreement from the U.K.’s surveillance agency, GCHQ, reveals one of the “specific intelligence topics” shared among the NSA, GCHQ and ISNU was “Palestinians.” The document states that “due to the sensitivities” of Israeli involvement that particular program does not include direct targeting of Palestinians themselves.
The NSA considers their intelligence-sharing arrangement as being “beneficial to both NSA’s and ISNU’s mission and intelligence requirements.”
This wide intelligence sharing arrangement potentially opens up to the Israelis the “jewels” of the Five Eye global surveillance system collected by the NSA global surveillance network, including by Australia’s Pine Gap base.
Declassified Australia asked a series of questions of the Australian Defence Department about the role of the Pine Gap base in the Israel-Gaza war, and about the legal protections that may be in place to defend personnel of the base should legal charges of war crimes be laid. No response was received by deadline.
Peter Cronau is an award-winning investigative journalist, writer, and film-maker. His documentaries have appeared on ABC TV’s Four Corners and Radio National’s Background Briefing. He is an editor and cofounder of DECLASSIFIED AUSTRALIA. He is co-editor of the recent book A Secret Australia – Revealed by the WikiLeaks Exposés.
This article is from Declassified Australia.
Mapping the revolving door between government and the weapons industry
Undue Influence revolving door database progresses
MICHELLE FAHY, Undue Influence Substack, NOV 4, 2023
Some 80 per cent of the United States’ four star generals and admirals go on to work for US weapons-making companies, it was revealed last month. US arms industry expert William Hartung also noted that with the Pentagon’s budget soaring towards US$1 trillion a year, and security challenges posed by Russia and China front and centre, an independent assessment of the best path ahead for the US was vital.
Yet, he said, “more often than not, special interests override the national interest in decisions on how much to spend on the Pentagon, and how those funds should be allocated”.
Hartung’s revelations were made possible by US research tracking the revolving door between the US government and the weapons industry.
In Australia, the defence budget is also rising. At the same time, transparency and accountability from our politicians and the Defence Department continues to decline.
The US research has reinforced the importance of the Australian revolving door database that I am creating, in collaboration with a research assistant and a technical specialist. This project was made possible by a grant from the Jan de Voogd Peace Fund.
Revolving door a feature in major defence procurement in Australia
My two-part investigative feature, first published by Declassified Australia in July, put the spotlight on the revolving door between the Australian government and the world’s sixth largest arms manufacturer, BAE Systems. It also contributed to a referral to the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC).
The investigation revealed close links between government and industry – information that will be included in the revolving door database – and provided a rare insight into the Australian revolving door in action. It exposed how the government gave former senior BAE insiders influential behind-the-scenes roles before and during a tender process that BAE went on to win. Few of these senior roles were publicly acknowledged by the government.
The procurement of the Hunter class frigates, now at $46 billion (and rising), is Australia’s second largest ever defence acquisition. The Greens’ defence spokesman David Shoebridge made the referral to the NACC.
Database progress to date
The revolving door database has been funded by the Jan de Voogd Peace Fund (administered by the NSW Quakers). The project is being auspiced by the Medical Association for Prevention of War.
The database architecture is now complete following a detailed and complex development process which enables arms company contract data to be extracted from the government’s public databases. The website will aggregate hundreds of contract values into a single annual figure for each major arms corporation, updated daily. With major multinational arms makers having up to 20 or more relevant subsidiaries, it is vital to be able to combine the total value, and this is what the database will do.
The names of people who have occupied 60 senior military, political and defence-related positions back to the year 2000 have been compiled. We will now investigate the existence of subsequent arms-related private sector positions.
How you can help
- Send information on revolving door appointments
Email us at undueinfluence@protonmail.com with information about revolving door appointments that have occurred since 2000 between the defence-related public sector and the arms industry (in either direction). - Fund our ongoing investigative work
While much of my focus in the coming months will be on the revolving door database, I am determined to continue my investigative research and writing as there is much more to be revealed. If you are able to upgrade [on Substack] from a free to a paid subscription to Undue Influence, it would be greatly appreciated. The grant funds are exclusively for work on the database and our regular investigative research and writing continues to rely heavily on reader subscriptions…………………..
https://undueinfluence.substack.com/p/mapping-the-revolving-door-database-progress?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=297295&post_id=138509639&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&utm_medium=email
Defence continues its blanket secrecy on weapons exports
Mapping the revolving door between government and the weapons industry
Undue Influence revolving door database progresses
Undue Influence Substack, MICHELLE FAHY, NOV 4, 2023
Australia has approved 322 military or dual-use permits to Israel over the past six years, according to new figures the government provided last week in response to questions on notice from Greens Senator David Shoebridge. The period covered was January 2017 to March 2023.
Defence has previously admitted that it favours secrecy over transparency and accountability regarding its decisions on weapons exports.
As I reported in 2021, Defence elevates the protection of ‘commercially sensitive’ information and ‘opportunities for Australian companies’ above fundamental democratic principles of transparency and accountability.
The recent reports show that Defence Department secrecy around weapons exports has not improved with the change in government.
Australia is obliged under international law to ensure weapons exports are not used to commit human rights violations, but Defence’s ongoing secrecy means the public has no idea what the Department has approved for export in our name.
“Australia has a legal duty under the UN Arms Trade Treaty, which Australia actively promoted when it was a UN Security Council member, to ensure that weapons are not used to commit human rights violations,” says former United Nations legal expert and Australian government minister Melissa Parke, who now leads the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). “Under the treaty, there must also be fully transparent public reporting about arms exports.”
Senator Shoebridge, the Greens’ defence spokesperson, said Australia had “one of the most secretive and unaccountable weapons export systems in the world”, given that it doesn’t break down the exact items exported.
Furthermore, Defence’s disclosure of the number of permits it has approved is a statistical veneer of limited value. Consider: one permit can cover multiple shipments or shipments to multiple countries. One permit can also cover multiple quantities, types and models of weapons or other items, whether physical or ‘intangible’ (electronic). In addition, as Defence freely admits, not all permits it approves proceed to export and delivery. Knowing the number of approved permits is therefore meaningless.
The ethical consequences of Defence’s policy of protecting the commercial interests of Australian weapons companies can be readily understood given the current war between Israel and Hamas: Australia is likely to have contributed towards the indiscriminate killing of innocent people in Gaza.
“Australia’s actions in approving arms exports to countries that are known to be committing serious violations of human rights, and its failure to be transparent about this, are inconsistent with its obligations under international law,” says Parke. “Having signed up to … these international laws, the Australian government can’t just cherry pick what aspects it’s going to abide by, especially when it … lectures other countries, such as China and Russia, about the importance of the international rule of law.” https://undueinfluence.substack.com/p/mapping-the-revolving-door-database-progress?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=297295&post_id=138509639&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&utm_medium=email
Australian leadership in Indo‑Pacific nuclear diplomacy
JOHN TILEMANN, The Interpreter, 3 Nov 23
With growing state capabilities in the region, “guardrails”
are more important than ever. Canberra can help.
Australia should again take a leadership role in nuclear diplomacy, working with regional neighbours, to reduce nuclear threats in the Indo-Pacific through confidence building and preventive diplomacy measures.
This was the call in an open letter to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese published this week by a cross-party and expert group of prominent Australians in the fields of public policy and nuclear security, urging the government to act to stem the rising tide of global nuclear threats – threats mostly generated today in the Indo-Pacific.
The seriousness of the danger has been acknowledged by regional leaders, including Australia’s prime minister. But it has yet to receive the high-level political attention it demands.
Eight of the world’s nine nuclear-armed states have strategic stakes in our region. Tensions among these nuclear players continue to rise, and the price of nuclear mistakes, or worse, intentional use of nuclear weapons, could be existential.
The numbers illustrate the danger…………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Long gone are the days of the relative simplicity of the bipolar world of two opposing blocs with a degree of stability arising from the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction. The multi-polar nuclear world of the Indo-Pacific is an even more dangerous place.
And additional nuclear complexity arises from the expectations of states benefiting from “ironclad treaty alliances” that the United States extends to Australia, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and Thailand.
Both South Korea and Japan have expressed concern about the reliability of US strategic assurances, and both could build nuclear weapons quickly should they take that decision. Australia’s nuclear diplomacy must also address those proliferation pressures…………………………………………….
Global instruments to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and to cap nuclear weapon testing have been very successful – but there are big gaps in these regimes in the Indo-Pacific.
Three of the four countries to reject the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, designed to prevent the further spread of nuclear weapons, are in this region: India, Pakistan and North Korea. The formal entry into force of the global ban on nuclear weapon testing is blocked by eight countries in two areas of regional tension – the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific.
Widely supported proposals for a global ban on the production of materials used to make nuclear weapons – highly enriched uranium and plutonium – are also resisted by those in our region still growing their nuclear arsenals.
While remaining hugely important, global mechanisms must be supplemented by regional mechanisms. Even basic tools for crisis management such as hotlines are either unevenly maintained or non-existent.
The ASEAN Regional Forum brings together all relevant Indo-Pacific players but has had limited success in moving beyond information exchange to confidence building measures – and preventive diplomacy remains a distant ambition.
The East Asia Summit also engages all key Indo-Pacific strategic nuclear parties, but it has yet to become a mechanism for addressing security challenges, let alone reducing nuclear threats.
Nevertheless, Australia has a solid record of institution building from APEC through to its strong engagement with the ASEAN-led arrangements that have done much to establish the habits of regional dialogue. ……………………………………………………… more https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/australian-leadership-indo-pacific-nuclear-diplomacy
Australia must lobby US for ‘no first use’ of nuclear weapons, says ex-minister Gareth Evans
Former foreign minister says it is ‘sheer dumb luck’ that arms have not been used in the past 78 years and urges leadership on control measures
Daniel Hurst, Guardian, 1 Nov 23
Labor luminary and former foreign minister, Gareth Evans has urged Australia to lobby the US to promise “no first use” of nuclear weapons, warning that global arms control agreements “are now either dead or on life support”.
Evans says that in the wake of sealing the Aukus nuclear-powered submarine deal, the Albanese government should give “some comfort to ALP members and voters that we are really serious about nuclear arms control”.
Evans told Guardian Australia it was “sheer dumb luck” that the world had avoided a nuclear attack in the 78 years since the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and “it is utterly wishful thinking to believe that this luck can continue in perpetuity”.
Evans joined arms control experts and former senior diplomats in urging the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, to take “a leadership role in addressing the rising nuclear threats in our region”.
Australia should appoint “a high-level envoy to engage our regional partners on an agenda of nuclear confidence building and preventive diplomacy measures”, according to a letter from the Asia-Pacific Leadership Network for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (APLN).
While the group’s letter to Albanese is not specific about policy measures, Evans offered his own view that Australia’s status as a close US ally “gives us a particularly significant potential role” in pushing to reduce nuclear risks.
“The most immediately useful step we could take would be to support the growing international movement for the universal adoption of No First Use doctrine by the nuclear-armed states,” Evans told Guardian Australia…………………………………….
In a stark warning about the security environment, Evans said the risk of nuclear weapons being used through human error, miscalculation or system error was “greater than ever, not least given new developments in AI and cyber-offence capability”.
“Nearly 13,000 nuclear warheads are still in existence, with a combined destructive capability of close to 100,000 Hiroshima- or Nagasaki-sized bombs, and stockpiles, especially in our own Indo-Pacific region … are now growing again,” he said.
“The taboo against their deliberate use is weakening, with Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, talking up this prospect in language not heard since the height of the cold war.”
In addition to seeking universal support for “no first use”, Evans said other potential risk-reduction measures include cutting the number of weapons ready for immediate use……………………………………………….
The APLN letter gained support from high-powered experts including John Carlson, the former head of the Australian Safeguards and Non-Proliferation Office, and Ramesh Thakur, a former UN assistant secretary general.
Other signatories included John Tilemann, a former diplomat and international civil servant with the International Atomic Energy Agency, and Gary Quinlan, a former Australian ambassador to the UN.
The leader of the Greens in the Senate, Larissa Waters, backed the letter with the former Australian Democrats leader Natasha Stott Despoja and the former Labor minister for international development Melissa Parke. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/nov/01/australia-must-lobby-us-for-no-first-use-of-nuclear-weapons-says-ex-minister-gareth-evans #nuclear #antinuclear #nuclearfree #NoNukes
AUKUS nuclear submarine deal triggers accusations over cost and construction
SMH, By Daniel Keane 30 Oct 23
South Australia’s premier remains insistent that the nation’s future nuclear-powered submarines should be constructed in Adelaide, despite a prominent call for the vessels to instead be built by, and purchased from, another AUKUS nation in order to save taxpayers “billions and billions of dollars”.
Key points:
- Alexander Downer has called for all of the nation’s future nuclear subs to be built overseas
- But SA premier Peter Malinauskas says Australia should build them “for national security reasons”
- Mr Downer also said the question of storage of AUKUS nuclear waste needs to be addressed
Former foreign affairs minister Alexander Downer has described the AUKUS project’s $368 billion price tag as “eye-watering”, and said he expects a future federal government to abandon the local construction element of the deal.
“We’re just going to wreck Australia if we keep promising to spend money on any manner of projects and have no idea where the money is going to come from,” Mr Downer told the ABC on Sunday.
“I don’t think the existing federal parliament or the next one is going to make a decision on this, but I think down the years, in the end, the federal government will decide that this is just too expensive, and they will buy the submarines from overseas.
“I’d be almost certain of that.”
Responding to similar comments Mr Downer made in The Weekend Australian, SA premier Peter Malinauskas said it is vital that Australia develops the ability to build the vessels “for national security reasons”, but also because “neither the US nor the UK in the long term have the capacity” to construct Australia’s entire fleet.
“They are struggling to meet their own demand,” Mr Malinauskas said.
Under the current terms of the AUKUS pact, Australia will get three US-made Virginia-class submarines while it builds up to eight nuclear-powered submarines of its own.
Mr Malinauskas accused Mr Downer of “misunderstanding” the intentions and expected outcomes of AUKUS…………………………………………………………..
But Mr Downer has rejected the premier’s comments, and in turn accused Mr Malinauskas of failing to understand the economics of AUKUS.
“I have a challenge to the premier — to explain where all this money is going to come from, and why does the premier think it’s better we spend eye-watering amounts of money on building nuclear submarines in Adelaide rather than investing … in other parts of our economy?” Mr Downer said……………………
“Peter Malinauskas and [SA opposition leader] David Speirs will be well and truly retired by the time this project comes about.
“It’s easy for them to make any manner of promises about times in the future, which will be way beyond their political life span — we can all make promises about the Second Coming.”
Mr Downer also said the question of storage of nuclear waste from the subs had not been satisfactorily addressed.
“There’s some elements of the Labor Party who have reservations, or are opposed to, nuclear-powered submarines and any association with nuclear power, and so I part company with them on that,” he said.
“But you’re going to have to store the waste somewhere. I’m not sure where that will be stored.” https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-29/sa-premier-defends-aukus-after-alexander-downer-questions-cost/103036822
The Independent and Peaceful Australia Network (IPAN) steps up drive to keep U.S. military expansion out of Australia
By Bevan Ramsden | 26 October 2023 https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/ipan-steps-up-drive-to-keep-us-military-expansion-out-of-australia,18020
The Independent and Peaceful Australia Network (IPAN) has produced a petition opposing the Force Posture Agreement (FPA) which is enabling U.S. militarisation of Australia in preparation for the U.S. to support/launch war from the Australian continent against China.
The e-petition to Parliament is an instrument for peace calling for the termination of the FPA.
It can be signed HERE.
The devastation of war, currently in Ukraine and in Palestine, confronts us on TV on a daily basis. All peace-loving people cry out for a ceasefire on both war fronts to enable, hopefully under United Nations auspices, conferences of all affected parties to find solutions that meet the security needs of all parties and free non-combatants from the horrors of war.
But concern about these wars should not blind us to the preparations for war occurring on our own continent under the auspices of the United States and with the enthusiastic complicity of successive Australian governments.
When defence matters are discussed, much is made of the U.S.-Australia alliance. But when the U.S. militarisation of Australia is considered, the alliance pales into insignificance compared to the U.S.-Australia FPA. It emerged as a concept from former President Barack Obama’s “Pivot to Asia” of the U.S. armed forces, in which he announced the stationing of U.S. marines in Darwin each year to train for war with our Defence Force.
The “Pivot” was a strategy designed to “contain” China and maintain U.S. hegemony in the Asia/Pacific area. President Obama’s concept was enthusiastically received by all politicians of both major parties.
Subsequently, the Gillard and Abbott Governments, in conjunction with their U.S. defence counterparts, produced a greatly expanded concept, the FPA, providing “an operational posture” for U.S. forces in Australia, a gateway for U.S. militarisation of Australia. It was signed by the Abbott Government and the United States Government in 2014.
The FPA:
- facilitates the stationing in Darwin, for six months each year, of up to 2,500 U.S. Marines; they are trained and equipped for immediate deployment and while in Australia, train for war in exercises with the Australian Defence Force. They are not under the control of the Australian Government. They are under the control of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command;
- facilitates unimpeded access to Australia’s airfields and airport facilities for U.S. fighter planes and bombers including the stationing of up to six B-52 bombers at RAAF Base Tindall. B-52 bombers were used to devastate Vietnam in that war and some are capable of carrying nuclear weapons;
- facilitates unimpeded access to Australia’s seaports for U.S. naval vessels including their nuclear submarines at HMAS Stirling in WA;
- facilitates the establishment of storage facilities for aircraft fuel, spare parts and munitions under U.S. military control. This includes huge fuel storage facilities at East Arm, Darwin and logistics facilities for storage of equipment, munitions and spare parts at Bandiana in Victoria;
- opened the door for the embedding of U.S. military intelligence operatives within the Australian defence intelligence organisation now called the Combined Intelligence Centre — Australia; and
- under the FPA, a U.S. command centre has been established in Darwin to control U.S. aircraft operations and another command centre in Darwin to control U.S. marine operations.
In short, the U.S. could launch and control military operations from Australia.
I have stressed the words “unimpeded access” because they are the words used in the Agreement.
Article IV of the FPA states:
…United States Forces and United States Contractors shall have unimpeded access to and use of Agreed Facilities and Areas for activities undertaken in connection with this Agreement.
Australia hereby grants to the United States operational control of Agreed Facilities and Areas…
Part 4 of Article VII states:
‘As mutually determined by the Parties, aircraft, vehicles, and vessels operated by or for United States Forces shall have access to aerial ports and seaports of Australia and other locations, for the delivery to, storage and maintenance in, and removal from the territory of Australia of United States Forces’ prepositioned materiel.’
Activities under Article IV include:
‘…training, transit, support, and related activities; refuelling of aircraft; bunkering of vessels; temporary maintenance of vehicles, vessels, and aircraft; temporary accommodation of personnel; communications; prepositioning of equipment, supplies, and materiel; deploying forces and material; and such other activities as the Parties may agree.’
Summing up, the FPA, with the enthusiastic support of the Australian Government, is facilitating increased U.S. militarisation of Australia to support U.S. military operations in the Indo-Pacific from which it could launch or support a war against China. This has been done with the agreement of both major political parties.
The FPA lasts 25 years from the date of signing but has a clause facilitating termination if either party gives one year’s notice.
IPAN is campaigning to have this FPA terminated. This would be a strong step in the direction of keeping Australia out of another U.S. war. And this time, one which would have a catastrophic impact on the Australian people.
If you wish to join this campaign, IPAN has a parliamentary e-petition which is open until 15 November 2023 for signature and it can be accessed by using your mobile phone and this QR code. [on original] #nuclear #antinuclear #NoNukes
1 This month
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
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