Why Nazis still call Australia home
June 6, 2001, Issue 451 https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/why-nazis-still-call-australia-home?fbclid=IwAR0c5JRnrDTxKQy88O6uDOuhIYDPdjsDwn-Dh-sK-4L41HQ3uvHE_mJ_on8
War Criminals Welcome: Australia, A Sanctuary for War Criminals since 1945
By Mark Aarons
Black Inc, 2001
649 pp, $34.95 (pb)
When justice minister Amanda Vanstone said that the alleged Latvian war criminal Konrads Kalejs was “welcome” to stay in Australia, it was a revealing slip of the tongue. Since 1947, when the first Nazi war criminals arrived in Australia, “successive governments have knowingly allowed hundreds of men responsible for the cruel imprisonment, torture, rape and mass execution of tens of thousands of innocent civilians to make Australia home”. This is the damning conclusion of Mark Aarons’ book on how and why Labor and Liberal governments have allowed Nazi killers into Australia and protected them.
When the first European refugees arrived in Australia after the second world war, under the displaced persons migration scheme, their number included dozens of fascist collaborators from central and eastern Europe. Amongst them were officers, like Kalejs, of the Arajs Kommando, the Nazi-controlled Latvian security police, a volunteer police auxiliary which, by mass shootings, mobile gas vans or deportation to concentration camps, wiped out Latvia’s 70,000 Jews and murdered other racial, religious and political targets of the Nazis.
There were also Croatian fascists, whose cruelty is said to have sickened even hardened German Nazis. One of them was Srecko Rover, alleged to be the fanatical officer in charge of a mobile killing unit which massacred Jews, Serbs and, especially, communist-led partisans in the Balkans. Recruited by US intelligence before arriving in Australia in 1950, Rover immediately began a decades-long career as an ASIO agent and organiser of terrorist operations against left-wing migrants and President Josep Bros Tito’s communist Yugoslav government.
How did these killers slip through the screening process which was supposed to weed out war criminals from genuine refugees? Post-war confusion, incompetence, diffidence and corruption by Allied immigration officials in Europe were partly to blame. But more important was the Cold War political climate.
Many anti-socialist conservatives thought the Allies had fought the wrong war (it should have been with Hitler against Stalin). Australia’s attorney-general Bob Menzies in the 1930s was an admirer of the Nazi state as a bulwark against “atheistic Bolshevism”. The Nazi war criminals may have been anti-Semitic mass murderers but they were anti-communists and therefore welcome.
These Nazis found a ready champion in ASIO. Allied intelligence agencies gave the Nazis a clean bill of health in the screening process, allowing them to assume false identities or lie about their past, and frequently recruiting them as agents. ASIO put them to use as spies and covert operatives against the migrant left.
When Australian governments were forced to investigate suspected war criminals, they happily relied on ASIO which was far more interested in putting Nazis on the payroll than investigating their crimes. When the Yugoslav government requested the extradition of Milorad Lukic and Mihailo Rajkovic in 1951 for their fascist war crimes at POW camps, the head of ASIO in Western Australia reported that the two men, ardent anti-communists and supporters of Menzies, “represent a body of Yugoslavs who cause infinitely less trouble to this organisation than the great body of their fellow immigrants”, as well as providing “invaluable assistance to ASIO”, as ASIO boss Charles Spry wrote to the head of the Commonwealth Department of External Affairs.
Post-war Labor and Liberal governments ignored mounting evidence of Nazi arrivals. Refugees, immigration staff, crew members of US Army transport ships and even ASIO’s predecessor, the Commonwealth Investigation Service, reported anti-Semitic incidents, including serious assaults, on the refugee ships and in the migrant reception camps and hostels. The blood group tattoos, or scars from their removal, observed under the left armpit were a giveaway of SS membership. Nazi memorabilia, such as Hitler statues and swastikas, were regularly seized in the migrant camps.
When the import of Nazis turned to the so-called Volkdeutsche, ethnic Germans expelled from Stalinist Europe under the terms of the post-war settlement, many brought with them not only trade skills for major infrastructure projects but Nazi ideology and a past of war crimes committed in support of the invading German armies.
On the Snowy Mountains hydro-electric scheme, for example, an Auschwitz survivor recognised an SS officer who had served at the camp. At the Commonwealth Railways project in Port Augusta, Nazi cells were seen doing drills, giving “Heil Hitler” salutes and assaulting other migrants.
All these reports were angrily dismissed by Arthur Calwell, the ALP immigration minister, as “gross and wicked falsehoods”. His Liberal successor, Harold Holt, denigrated the Jewish community’s charges that Nazis were active in Australia as those of a minority sectional interest.
Both Labor and Liberal governments conducted a systematic cover-up of the import of Nazis to hide their connivance in assisting them into Australia to counter the left.
The Liberals were least shy about openly embracing their new anti-communist buddies. A Hungarian fascist was president of the Hungarian branch of the New Australian Liberal and Country Movement. Following the establishment by Nazi emigres in Australia in 1957 of the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations (ABN), a peak body of ultra-right migrant groups, senior Liberal politicians flocked to support it. Victorian Premier Henry Bolte and prime ministers John Gorton, Billy McMahon and Malcolm Fraser were just a few who shared platforms down the decades with their fascist hosts whom they extolled as noble anti-communist “freedom fighters”.
The first ABN president, a Hungarian mayor who organised and participated in the murder of his town’s 18,000 Jews, was a wanted war criminal, known to ASIO, who nevertheless became a prominent member of the Liberals’ Migrant Advisory Council.
In the 1970s, the Nazi emigres became entrenched in the NSW branch of the Liberal Party. Heading a powerful, extreme-right, pro-fascist faction (dubbed the “Uglies”) was Leo Urbancic, a senior Nazi propagandist in Slovenia during the war. Such propaganda created a climate that made the mass killing of Jews, communists and Allied soldiers acceptable.
In 1961, when Liberal federal attorney-general Garfield Barwick announced that the government had “closed the chapter” on war criminals in Australia, an amnesty was in effect granted to Nazi murderers. This was presented, with twisted Cold War logic, as a triumph of democracy over “Communism”, the government trumpeting the “right of asylum” as its excuse for rejecting the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries’ requests for the extradition of war criminals. It was one in the eye for the evil Reds. The Labor “opposition”, which did not want to be seen as “soft” on communism, remained silent on the amnesty.
It took 40 years before an Australian government formally recognised the fact that Nazi war criminals were in Australia. In 1986, Labor Prime Minister Bob Hawke, under pressure created by Aarons’ exposure of Nazi war criminals in an ABC radio series, established the Special Investigations Unit to track down Nazis for prosecution in Australia under an amended War Crimes Act.
However, because of the evidence trail having grown cold, the age of key witnesses and accused, and a lack of bureaucratic support, only three of the 800 suspects who were investigated were brought to trial, none successfully (thanks to obstructionist judges and prosecution blunders). Hawke also prevented the SIU from investigating ASIO’s role in protecting and employing Nazi war criminals. Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating pulled the plug on the unit in 1992.
Australia remains the only Western country with a significant Nazi war criminal problem which has no legislation to allow the deportation of suspects for trial in their homelands. The Howard government did pass legislation to deal with war criminals who arrived in Australia after 1997 (50 years behind the times as usual).
Only the Kalejs case has disturbed the complacent political waters, embarrassing the government into rushing through an extradition treaty between Australia and Latvia.
For more than 50 years, the Australian capitalist establishment has opened its doors and closed its eyes to fugitive Nazi mass killers. Aarons’ book is a solid, impressively documented indictment of successive Labor and Liberal governments’, top public servants’ and the spy agencies’ complicity in harbouring Nazis and war criminals.
Today, as thousands of refugees fleeing tyrannies around the world languish in Australian detention centres, they may well be wondering why the red carpet was rolled out for right-wing murderers and what this shows about the true colours of Australia’s “democratic” government.
Accident on nuclear submarine would leave Australia ‘unavoidably’ responsible, says US report.
9 news By Richard Wood • Senior Journalist Oct 4, 2023
Australia would “unavoidably” become responsible for stopping an accident once it sails American-made nuclear powered submarines under the AUKUS deal, a report warns.
The warning comes in a study prepared for US legislators that looks at the potential impacts of the Royal Australian Navy acquiring the submarines.
Australia will spend up to $368 billion by 2055 to build a new fleet of eight nuclear-propelled submarines in Adelaide to enter service in the 2040s under the costliest defence project in the nation’s history.
But any accident on one of the vessels would have potentially huge ramifications, the Congressional Research Service report said.
Any mishap might “call into question for third-party observers the safety of all US Navy nuclear-powered ships”.
It would likely impact support by the American public for operating US Navy nuclear-powered submarines.
Foreign ports might also be put off from hosting the vessels, thus affecting the US Navy’s deterrent ability against potential adversaries such as China and Russia………………..
The federal government confirmed earlier this year that Australia will take delivery of three US Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarines by the early 2030s.
The report comes after a group of Republicans in the US Senate in July expressed their fears that selling nuclear-powered submarines to Australia through the AUKUS arrangement would leave their own navy short.
They demanded more funding for the US military before they said they would support the sale.
But Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles said he was confident the US Congress would pass the AUKUS deal.
France attempts to pressure Australia to stop engaging with UN nuclear weapons ban treaty
https://www.icanw.org/france_pressures_australia_to_stop_engaging_with_un_nuclear_weapons_ban_treaty 2 Oct 23 #nuclear #anti-nuclear #Nuclear-Free #NoNukes
Recent statements by a French diplomat to “the Australian” newspaper criticizing Australia’s decision to observe the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) reveal the panicked efforts by nuclear-armed states to undermine the treaty as support for the ban continues to grow. It also shows a European state with a dark colonial legacy continuing to exert pressure on the Pacific – an area heavily impacted by French nuclear testing – instead of respecting national sovereignty.
On 2 October an article in “the Australian” newspaper cited an unnamed French diplomat claiming that Australia’s support for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons “undermines the primacy of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)” and “is contradictory with Australia’s ambition to reinforce its partnership with NATO.”
Both of these statements are not only hamfisted attempts at pressuring the Australian government away from the TPNW, they are also factually incorrect: The TPNW was carefully crafted to reinforce, complement, and build on the NPT, which obligates its parties – including France – to negotiate further legal measures to achieve nuclear disarmament under Article VI, and NATO members face no legal barrier to joining the treaty, so long as they commit not to engage in or support any nuclear-weapon-related activities. Moreover, several NATO partners are already TPNW parties (Austria, Ireland, Kazakhstan, Malta, Mongolia, New Zealand) or signatories (Algeria, Colombia).
These declarations show France’s mounting concern over the growing support for the TPNW. The statements themselves are no surprise, as France has stridently protested the TPNW ever since it was adopted at the UN in 2017 with the backing of 122 states. France insists it has a legitimate right under the NPT to possess nuclear weapons, while ignoring its commitments to pursue negotiations in good faith for nuclear disarmament under the same treaty. What is new is the fact that this pressure is being exerted publicly, and on a state that is largely seen as an ally on security issues. Previously, France has limited this kind of pressure for formerly colonised states, particularly in Africa.
Australia’s growing support for the TPNW
The Australian Labor Party, which has been in power since May 2022, adopted a resolution in 2018 committing it to sign and ratify the TPNW in government. This was moved by Anthony Albanese, who now serves as prime minister and has been a vocal supporter of the TPNW. He said at the time: “Our commitment to sign and ratify the nuclear weapon ban treaty in government is Labor at its best.” Labor reaffirmed this position in 2021 and most recently on 18 August 2023. The government also has confirmed its intention to observe the treaty’s upcoming meeting of states parties in New York (2MSP) and is evaluating whether to sign and ratify the treaty.
This is an encouraging step, but ICAN’s Executive Director, former Labor MP Melissa Parke, has criticised the government’s delay in ratifying the treaty: “It’s not enough to keep promising to sign the treaty without acting. We want to see the Prime Minister put pen to paper, without delay. Labor’s commitment on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation will be hollow if Australia fails to do so.”
Speaking to the revelation that French diplomats are exerting pressure on Australia to consider, she said: “Our two countries have never seen eye to eye on nuclear weapons. France shouldn’t be lecturing Australia on nuclear policy. We can make our own decisions, in our own interests – and for the global common good.”
France’s unresolved nuclear legacy in the Pacific
From 1966 to 1996, France tested 193 nuclear weapons in Maohi Nui/French Polynesia, a Self Governing Territory of France in the Pacific. In 1974, Australia famously took France to the International Court of Justice in a bid to force an end to its atmospheric nuclear testing in the Pacific, as the impacts of nuclear weapons are not contained by national borders. Yet France only ended its Pacific nuclear test explosions once it was confident it had developed non-explosive testing methods sufficiently for new weapons development, and it refuses to acknowledge and address the catastrophic legacy of its nuclear tests to this day.This legacy is also a subject of hot debate at the national level in France. On 28 September, only days before France’s criticisms of Australia, the assembly of French Polynesia unanimously adopted a resolution supporting the TPNW, highlighting the region’s history as the site of numerous French nuclear tests. The resolution underscores the TPNW as a humanitarian disarmament treaty and emphasises the deep concerns of the French Polynesian population regarding this issue. While French Polynesia cannot currently access the assistance and rehabilitation outlined in Articles 6 and 7 of the TPNW due to France’s non-ratification, it sends a resounding message in favour of the treaty to Paris.
Aukus: UK defence giant BAE Systems wins Australian £3.95bn #nuclear submarine contract
BBC News By Peter Hoskins, Business reporter 2 October 23 #antinuclear #nuclear-free #NoNukes
Britain’s biggest defence firm, BAE Systems, has won a £3.95bn ($4.82bn) contract to build a new generation of submarines as the security pact between the US, UK and Australia moves ahead.
In March, the three countries announced details of the so-called Aukus pact to provide Australia with nuclear-powered attack submarines by the late 2030s.
The pact aims to counter China’s ambitions in the Indo-Pacific region.
Beijing has strongly criticised the three countries over the deal.
……………………..”This multi-billion-pound investment in the Aukus submarine programme will help deliver the long-term hunter-killer submarine capabilities the UK needs to maintain our strategic advantage and secure our leading place in a contested global order,” UK Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said as the Conservative party conference got under way in Manchester.
………………….Other major UK defence contractors are also getting a boost from the Aukus deal.
In March, it was confirmed that Rolls-Royce Submarines would provide all the nuclear reactor plants that will power the SSN-Aukus vessels.
In June, Rolls-Royce said it would almost double the size of its Raynesway facility in Derby as a result of the deal. On Sunday, Babcock International, which maintains and supports the UK’s submarines, said it had signed a five-year deal with the Ministry of Defence to work on the SSN-Aukus design.
The Aukus security alliance – which was first announced in September 2021 – has repeatedly drawn criticism from China.
However, the three Western countries say the deal is aimed at shoring up stability in the Indo-Pacific more https://www.bbc.com/news/business-66979798
BAE lands £4bn contract for Aukus attack submarines
Britain has signed contracts worth GBP4 billion to finance a new phase of
the SSN-Aukus next-generation attack submarine project, according to
government officials. The deals, which involve British companies BAE
Systems PLC, Rolls-Royce Holdings PLC and Babcock International Group PLC,
are part of the Aukus military alliance between the US, Australia and the
UK to counter China in the Asia-Pacific region.
London South East 2nd Oct 2023
Pacific island States support the Treaty on Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons – a problem for Australia in joining AUKUS nuclear military alliance
French criticism of nuclear ban treaty highlights Canberra’s dilemma #nuclear #anti-nuclear #nuclear-free #NoNukes
The Interpreter, NIC MACLELLAN, 2 Oct 23
Can Australia rebuild a strategic military partnership with France at
the same time as independence movements claim Pacific support?
On 28 September, the Assembly of French Polynesia unanimously passed a resolution endorsing the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), the nuclear ban treaty that entered into force in 2021. Even though France refuses to sign the treaty, and still controls the defence and foreign policy of French Polynesia, the local legislature in Tahiti with its new pro-independence government sees TPNW as setting a new norm in international law. The resolution encourages “the participation of France as an observer state at the next TPNW Meeting of the States Parties”, to be held in New York in late November. It also calls on the French government to “work towards France’s adherence to this new international norm.”
A key reason for this pointed message to Paris are the TPNW provisions that call for assistance to nuclear survivors and clean-up of contaminated nuclear test sites. The Ma’ohi people are still seeking compensation for the health and environmental effects of 193 French nuclear tests at Moruroa and Fangataufa.
Beyond this, French Polynesia’s critique of nuclear weapons echoes the views of the majority of members of the Pacific Islands Forum. Unlike Australia, nine independent Pacific Island countries and Aotearoa-New Zealand have already signed and ratified the TPNW.
At the recent Australian Labor Party (ALP) National Conference in Brisbane, the party re-confirmed its support for signing the TPNW – under restrictive conditions – and agreed to send an observer to the next Meeting of State Parties. However key ALP leaders are opposed to signing, and nuclear weapons states such as the United States and France, having long derided the treaty, are now ramping up their opposition to it.
A front-page story in The Australian on 2 October cited an unnamed French diplomat who criticised Australia over its tentative moves towards signing TPNW, though the story fails to mention last week’s resolution from the Assembly of French Polynesia…………………………………………….
the Australian government has held a series of meetings with key French ministers to rebuild relations disrupted by AUKUS, including a summit between Defence Minister Richard Marles and French counterpart Sebastien Lecornu in September 2022, and a 2+2 meeting of defence and foreign ministers in January. Marles and Lecornu are organising the South Pacific Defence Ministers meeting in Noumea in December, to the dismay of the FLNKS independence movement, which is in the midst of talks with the French state over a new political status for New Caledonia.
Last year, Marles congratulated Emmanuel Macron on his re-election to the French presidency, proclaiming “France is our neighbour. France is a Pacific country. And as such, France deeply matters to Australia.”
But France is a European colonial power, not a Pacific country. It is recognised by the United Nations as the administering power of non-self-governing territories. It has responsibilities for decolonisation under international law. Australian governments may be reluctant to talk publicly about this, but the issue of self-determination is firmly on the regional agenda, posing difficult choices for all Forum member countries (as shown by recent debates over West Papua, Bougainville, Guam, etc).
Another problem is that, in both Australia and France, the perspectives of leaders from Francophone island communities are usually missing from the public debate about France’s role in Indo-Pacific security. It’s rare to see the media or think tanks cite President Louis Mapou of New Caledonia or newly elected President Moetai Brotherson of French Polynesia. Both will be attending the next Pacific Islands Forum summit in Rarotonga as it discusses regional security – for the first time, leaders from both French territories in the Forum are supporters of independence and sharp anti-nuclear critics.
So, can Australia rebuild a strategic military partnership with France at the same time as its Pacific neighbours are seeking an independent and sovereign state?
As Penny Wong travelled to Noumea last April, becoming the first Australian Foreign Minister to address the Congress of New Caledonia, Mapou was eager to strengthen ties with Canberra around trade, investment and people-to-people engagement. He also diplomatically highlighted key differences around Australia’s close alignment with the United States under the AUKUS partnership:
The independence movement of New Caledonia – of which I’m a member – is in favour of non-alignment. We regularly attend the summits of the Non-Aligned Movement. From the earliest days, we have supported a nuclear free Pacific – that’s even set out in the preamble of the draft Constitution of Kanaky that we submitted to the United Nations in 1986. When Australia decides to align itself with the United States in the framework of AUKUS to acquire nuclear submarines, it raises the question: if it starts here, where will it end? How does this impact the Treaty of Rarotonga and the Boe Declaration on security?
The Albanese government has proclaimed its support for a world without nuclear weapons. But talk is easy. It’s getting harder for the ALP government to balance tensions between its role as an AUKUS partner, a strategic partner with France and the “security partner of choice” for the island nations of the Pacific, which are deeply opposed to nuclear weapons. Why should Australia side with a European colonial power against its closest neighbours? https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/french-criticism-nuclear-ban-treaty-highlights-canberra-s-dilemma
Sydney smashes 1 October heat record as Victoria fights bushfires
Sydney has endured its hottest ever start to October on record as fire
danger warnings were issued across NSW – and as two bushfires threatened
campers and towns in eastern Victoria.
Guardian 1st Oct 2023
Australia does not need a new “nuclear medicine” factory – clean, safe, cyclotrons can do the job.
I read with interest Liam Mannix’s report in yesterday’s edition of The Sydney Morning Herald regarding the new nuclear medicine factory but was surprised that with his scientific knowledge he did not question the need for this facility so aptly described as a factory
27 Sept 23
Mannix would be well aware that the medical profession worldwide is turning away from reactor generated medicine due to its inherently dangerous and risky nature and its extremely high manufacturing costs
The isotopes generated by reactors for medical purposes such as at Lucas Heights are being replaced mainly by cyclotron produced isotopes but also other alternatives which are completely free of any risk to the patients and can be produced by relatively easier and safer means at a greatly reduced cost than at Lucas Heights
The only reason that isotopes produced by nuclear reactors are used for medical purposes is that their manufacture is invariably highly and unrealistically subsidised by government grants as is the case with ANSTO in Australia which is globally a prime example of that largesse .
The rapid growth in the international use of cyclotron isotopes for medical therapies is making the production of isotopes by nuclear reactors (like at Lucas Heights) obsolete
As a result there is now need for a new facility for the continued production of isotopes for medical purposes by ANSTO and in fact the current production at Lucas Heights could be stopped immediately with huge savings in government expenditure and no effect on the provision of medical therapies due to the use of much safer alternatives
ANSTO is claiming that the major part of its existence representing 80% of its undertaking is the current production of nuclear medicine isotopes by using its OPAL reactor at Lucas Heights for that purpose but this appears to be no more than a self perpetuating exercise to justify its survival
It is therefore a completely nonsensical if not deliberately disingenuous statement by Science Minister Ed Husic to claim that the “nuclear medicine precinct (of ANSTO) in Sydney will revolutionise the domestic production of nuclear medicines and improve the lives of thousands of Australians”
New nuclear medicine factory to replace ageing site at Lucas Heights reactor
SMH By Liam Mannix, September 26, 2023 —
Hundreds of millions of dollars will be spent building a new radioactive medicine factory at the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor in Sydney, replacing an ageing and accident-prone facility.
The new manufacturing centre will produce the radioactive drugs doctors use to image the heart, lungs, kidney and brain for diagnosing and tracing diseases such as cancer. The current facility has been plagued by safety breaches, including in 2017 when a worker suffered radiation burns.
The federal government has been tight-lipped on costs ahead of a competitive tender process, but equivalent facilities in other countries have often come with price tags exceeding $400 million. The factory is expected to open in the mid-2030s…………
The facility will replace Lucas Heights’ trouble-plagued Building 23, built in 1959 as a research laboratory and later repurposed to make nuclear medicine.
Building 23 recorded seven “events with safety implications” in 2017 and 2018.
The worst of these occurred in 2017, when a worker dropped a vial of radioactive Molybdenum-99, covering their hands in the liquid.
Despite wearing two pairs of gloves, the worker suffered radiation burns and blistering.
ANSTO, which operates Lucas Heights, initially estimated the worker had been exposed to a mild dose of radiation. But an investigation by the radiation safety regulator determined the dose could have been 40 times higher than the legal annual radiation exposure limit.
The Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency was so concerned, it issued a direction notice to ANSTO demanding an independent review of radiation safety in 2018, noting seven separate safety incidents within two years…………..
Like the current facility, the new one will assemble and test nuclear medical products, particularly Molybdenum-99, or Mo-99.
ANSTO is a major supplier of Mo-99, a radioactive substance that naturally decays to form Technetium-99m (Tc-99m), the workhorse of nuclear medicine. The organisation supplies about 12,000 doses a week, shipping them to facilities across Australia and the region.
Tc-99m can be used as a radioactive dye. Doctors inject it, allow it to accumulate in target organs or tissues, and then image the radiation it releases using special cameras. Tc-99m is particularly useful because it exposes patients to only a low dose of radiation.
To make Mo-99, plates of uranium are inserted into the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor, known as OPAL, which stands for open-pool Australian lightwater reactor……………………………………………………..more https://www.smh.com.au/national/new-nuclear-medicine-factory-to-replace-ageing-site-at-lucas-heights-reactor-20230925-p5e7g8.html
Uranium clean-up way over budget, running late… sounds like true nuclear power
The company cleaning up the Ranger uranium mine in Kakadu says the project is running badly over budget and already late.
Crikey GLENN DYER AND BERNARD KEANE, SEP 28, 2023
Peter Dutton and the radioactive gang of nuclear spruikers in the media seem to think that if only they call for a “mature debate” long enough, small nuclear reactors (SMRs) will just pop into being.
But like any energy source, nuclear power comes with a host of practical challenges that don’t seem to feature in the op-eds and speeches about how SMRs are just around the corner.
Take, for example, the plight of Energy Resources of Australia (ERA) — the almost wholly owned subsidiary of Rio Tinto that operated the Ranger uranium mine in Kakadu in the Northern Territory from 1980 until 2021, when it was closed and rehabilitation work started………………………..(Subscribers only) more https://www.crikey.com.au/2023/09/28/uranium-mine-clean-up-over-budget-running/
Nuclear power on Surf Coast “incomprehensible”, says Greens MP
Surf Coast Times, September 28, 2023 BY James Taylor
GREENS MP and former City of Greater Geelong councillor Sarah Mansfield has pushed back against Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s support for nuclear power at old mine sites, saying it would be “incomprehensible” to build a reactor at the former Anglesea mine.
During a visit to Ocean Grove last week, Mr Dutton said he wanted a “mature discussion” about nuclear energy in Australia, and touted the benefits of small modular reactor (SMR) technology as a viable solution to decarbonising the economy.
Alcoa’s Anglesea coal mine and power station supplied power to the former Point Henry smelter and closed in August 2015.
Asked if a nuclear reactor would be a hard sell for people in Geelong, the Bellarine and the Surf Coast, Mr Dutton replied: “Well, is there a coal mine that’s operating here at the moment that’s coming to end of life?”…………………………………………………………………………………….
Ms Mansfield, who became a Member for Western Victoria at the 2022 state election, said in a letter to this newspaper that she was “deeply concerned” by Mr Dutton’s comments.
“His arguments promote dangerous misinformation about nuclear technology.
“Moreover, the suggestion that these reactors could be placed at old mine sites (such as the Anglesea Alcoa site) is incomprehensible.”
She said nuclear power was not safe, clean, or renewable.
“The health risks associated with uranium mining and nuclear reactors are well established. Imagine the devastation to our beautiful coast and communities if there was a nuclear accident? Then the waste – where will it go? Australia already struggles to deal with medical industry nuclear waste.
“And to claim it is zero emissions is simply wrong. No energy source is completely emissions-free when you consider whole of life emissions (e.g. transport, materials, construction) – and nuclear produces greater emissions than renewables like solar and wind.
“It’s hard to believe the Coalition is serious about this proposal. They know that coal and gas are on the way out, but they’re blocking renewables and have come up with a nuclear fantasy that no reasonable economist or energy expert is willing to back.”
Labor has rubbished the Coalition’s proposal, with Energy and Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen saying modelling from his department found replacing Australia’s coal-fired power stations with SMRs would cost $387 billion. https://timesnewsgroup.com.au/surfcoasttimes/news/nuclear-power-on-surf-coast-incomprehensible-says-greens-mp/
Mission to Free Assange: Australian Parliamentarians in Washington
Australia remains the prized forward base of US ambitions in the Indo-Pacific, the spear pointed against China and any other rival who dares challenge its stubborn hegemony. The AUKUS pact, featuring the futile, decorative nuclear submarines …………also makes that point all too clear.
September 24, 2023, Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.com/mission-to-free-assange-australian-parliamentarians-in-washington/
It was a short stint, involving a six-member delegation of Australian parliamentarians lobbying members of the US Congress and various relevant officials on one issue: the release of Julian Assange. If extradited to the US from the United Kingdom to face 18 charges, 17 framed with reference to the oppressive, extinguishing Espionage Act of 1917, the Australian founder of WikiLeaks risks a 175-year prison term.
Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce, Labor MP Tony Zappia, Greens Senators David Shoebridge and Peter Whish-Wilson, Liberal Senator Alex Antic and the independent member for Kooyong, Dr. Monique Ryan, are to be viewed with respect, their pluckiness admired. They came cresting on the wave of a letter published on page 9 of the Washington Post, expressing the views of over 60 Australian parliamentarians. “As Australian Parliamentarians, we are resolutely of the view that the prosecution and incarceration of the Australian citizen Julian Assange must end.”
This is a good if presumptuous start. Australia remains the prized forward base of US ambitions in the Indo-Pacific, the spear pointed against China and any other rival who dares challenge its stubborn hegemony. The AUKUS pact, featuring the futile, decorative nuclear submarines that will be rich scrapping for the Royal Australian Navy whenever they arrive, also makes that point all too clear. For the US strategist, Australia is fiefdom, property, real estate, terrain, its citizenry best treated as docile subjects represented by even more docile governments. Assange, and his publishing agenda, act as savage critiques of such assumptions.
The following views in Washington DC have been expressed by the delegates in what might be described as a mission to educate. From Senator Shoebridge, the continued detention of Assange proved to be “an ongoing irritant in the bilateral relationship” between Canberra and Washington. “If this matter is not resolved and Julian is not brought home, it will be damaging to the bilateral relationship.”
Senator Whish-Wilson focused on the activities of Assange himself. “The extradition of Julian Assange as a foreign journalist conducting activities on foreign soil is unprecedented.” To create such a “dangerous precedent” laid “a very slippery slope for any democracy to go down.”
Liberal Senator Alex Antic emphasised the spike in concern in the Australian population about wishing for Assange’s return to Australia (some nine out of 10 wishing for such an outcome). “We’ve seen 67 members of the Australian parliament share that message in a joint letter, which we’ve delivered across the spectrum.” An impressed Antic remarked that this had “never happened before. I think we’re seeing an incredible groundswell, and we want to see Julian at home as soon as possible.”
On September 20, in front of the Department of Justice, Zappia told reporters that, “we’ve had several meetings and we’re not going to go into details of those meetings. But I can say that they’ve all been useful meetings.” Not much to go on, though the Labor MP went on to state that the delegation, as representatives of the Australian people had “put our case very clearly about the fact that Julian Assange pursuit and detention and charges should be dropped and should come to an end.”
A point where the delegates feel that a rich quarry can be mined and trundled away for political consumption is the value of the US-Australian alliance. As Ryan reasoned, “This side of the AUKUS partnership feels really strongly about this and so what we expect the prime minister [Anthony Albanese] to do is that he will carry the same message to President Biden when he comes to Washington.”
The publisher’s brother, Gabriel Shipton, also suggests that the indictment is “a wedge in the Australia-US relationship, which is a very important relationship at the moment, particularly with everything that’s going on with the US and China and the sort of strategic pivot that is happening.” Assange, for his part, is bound to find this excruciatingly ironic, given his lengthy battles against the US imperium and the numbing servility of its client states.
Various members of Congress have granted an audience to the six parliamentarians. Enthusiasm was in abundance from two Kentucky Congressmen: Republican Senator Rand Paul and Republican House Representative Thomas Massie. After meeting the Australian delegation, Massie declared that it was his “strong belief [Assange] should be free to return home.”
Georgian Republican House member Marjorie Taylor Greene expressed her sense of honour at having met the delegates “to discuss the inhumane detention” of Assange “for the crime of committing journalism,” insisting that the charges be dropped and a pardon granted. “America should be a beacon of free speech and shouldn’t be following in an authoritarian regime’s footsteps.” Greene has shown herself to be a conspiracy devotee of the most pungent type, but there was little to fault her regarding these sentiments.
Minnesota Democrat Congresswoman Ilhan Omar also met the parliamentarians, discussing, according to a press release from her office, “the Assange prosecution and its significance as an issue in the bilateral relationship between the United States and Australia, as well as the implications for freedom of the press both at home and abroad.” She also reiterated her view, one expressed in an April 2023 letter to the Department of Justice co-signed with six other members of Congress, that the charges against Assange be dropped.
These opinions, consistent and venerably solid, have rarely swayed the mad hatters at the Justice Department who continue to operate within the same church consensus regarding Assange as an aberration and threat to US security. And they can rely, ultimately, on the calculus of attrition that assumes allies of Washington will eventually belt up, even if they grumble. There will always be those who pretend to question, such as the passive, meek Australian Foreign Minister, Penny Wong. “We have raised this many times,” Wong responded to a query while in New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly. “Secretary [of State Antony] Blinken and I both spoke about the fact that we had a discussion about the views that the United States has and the views that Australia has.”
Not that this mattered a jot. In July, Blinken stomped on Wong’s views in a disingenuous, libellous assessment about Assange, reminding his counterpart that the publisher had been “charged with very serious criminal conduct in the United States in connection with his alleged role in one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of our country.” The libel duly followed, with the claim that Assange “risked very serious harm to our national security, to the benefit of our adversaries, and put named sources at grave risk – grave risk – of physical harm, and grave risk of detention.” That gross falsification of history went unaddressed by Wong.
Thus far, Blinken has waived away the concerns of the Albanese government on Assange’s fate as passing irritants at a spring garden party. However small their purchase, six Australian parliamentarians have chosen to press the issue further. At the very least, they have gone to the centre of the imperium to add a bit of ballast to the effort.
Let’s Label #USPropaganda – Call it out. Our crews at Boeing and disrupting General Mick Ryan/
Age Peace 21 Sept 23
Wage Peace friends have been out disrupting the US propaganda machine.
Last week our friends interrupted this public lecture. General Mick Ryan is there at the lectern. He’s an ex-ADF General – now a #USPropagandist – and he’s about to tell people about why we must prepare for war by buying more US weapons.
ALP stalwart Paul Lucas moves in. But even 30 minutes later we were still there telling an alternative story about what is going on!
| –Last week our friends interrupted this public lecture. General Mick Ryan is there at the lectern. He’s an ex-ADF General – now a #USPropagandist – and he’s about to tell people about why we must prepare for war by buying more US weapons. ALP stalwart Paul Lucas moves in. But even 30 minutes later we were still there telling an alternative story about what is going on!Watch on YouTube as we disrupt his latest propaganda engagement. #BewareBoeingsWars Boeing is a weapons companyOur friends also attended Boeing slowly walking up to their suburban location in Brisbane. We prevented the weapons dealers arriving for work. Beware Boeing’s wars we warned. Boeing is a weapons company. With BAE, Thales, and General Dynamics, Boeing is pushing for war while taking the big bucks from Australians. #EarthCareNotWarfare |
The push for nuclear energy in Australia is driven by delay and denial, not evidence.
Adam Morton 21 Sept 23 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/sep/21/nuclear-energy-australia-smokescreen-climate-denialism-coalition
Unsubstantiated claims of nuclear energy’s worth distracts from the urgency to act now on climate crisis
he vague, ideological push for nuclear energy backed by the Coalition and News Corp and given legitimacy this week on the ABC’s Q+A should be treated as what it is: the latest step in a decades-long campaign of delay and denial on the climate crisis.
Nuclear energy likely has a role to play in the global shift to zero-emissions energy in places that already use it or that have few other options. As with other technology, its role may grow or recede over time as the world moves. This stuff is going to change.
But no case has been made to support claims it has a place in the rapid transition under way in Australia. The reason for this is pretty straightforward: the technology that is being spruiked – small modular reactors (SMRs) – doesn’t exist. Not meaningfully.
That alone tells you that, with few exceptions, the current wave of nuclear boosterism is at its heart an anti-renewable energy campaign.
It is based on an arrogant and – despite the reams of column inches given over to it – unsubstantiated rejection of the detailed evidence from the Australian Energy Market Operator (and plenty of others) that solar, wind, hydro, batteries and other “firming” support can provide a reliable, affordable, low-emissions electricity supply.
Coincidentally or otherwise, many prominent members of the pro-nuclear and anti-renewable energy campaign dismiss climate science. Some do it directly. Others do it indirectly by arguing there is no urgency to act.
The primary sources of this climate rejection are the federal Coalition, the Australian newspaper and the misinformation sewer of Sky News After Dark. The Australian is happy to run unquestioning news stories claiming multibillion-dollar “black holes” in renewable energy plans based on flawed analyses by former mining executives, but then devote pages to tut-tutting over an estimate by Chris Bowen’s energy department that says nuclear energy would be – shock horror – really expensive.
This is, of course, a newspaper that gives more space to contrarian campaigns by individual scientists who claim that the Great Barrier Reef is not under threat and the Bureau of Meteorology’s temperature records cannot be trusted than it does to the overwhelming weight of thousands of peer-reviewed science papers. Considered and balanced scepticism is healthy. The Australian’s coverage of these issues has the rigour of an old bloke shouting in the corner of a pub as last drinks are served.
The Coalition’s position on nuclear energy is a little more slippery. In its limited defence, we’re only 16 months on from the last election and it’s reasonable that it doesn’t yet have a developed energy policy. But the language it uses is not that of a party gently exploring an idea. Peter Dutton has asserted that Australia could build nuclear plants, which are banned here, on existing coal-fired plants.
The Coalition considered, and rejected, abolishing the nuclear ban while it was in power for nearly nine years. Then, the party stuck with its status quo on climate, including hyping a subsidised “gas-fired recovery” that never happened. Now, Dutton and Ted O’Brien, the energy and climate spokesperson, speak of nuclear as the obvious solution and mock those who back the rollout of renewable energy and transmission lines.
Bowen’s back-of-envelope claim is that it could cost $387bn to replace every Australian coal plant with nuclear SMRs – a step that, at this stage, the Coalition has not proposed. O’Brien’s response was to cite the nuclear-heavy Canadian province of Ontario as an example of a power grid that is much cleaner and cheaper than here.
This was a red herring. The Ontario system runs on old, large-scale nuclear technology that nobody is proposing for Australia. It has a different cost profile, has been heavily subsidised and a new plant has not been completed for 30 years.
A true comparison would involve looking at the cost of SMRs today and considering what it would cost to start an industry in Australia.
The CSIRO, which has looked at the evidence, concluded this is near impossible due to a lack of robust data. It says there are only two known SMRs in operation – one in Russia (on a barge) and one in China. Both suffered the cost blowouts and delays that have become common with nuclear projects.
According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, there are more than 80 other SMR designs in development, only some of which would be used for electricity generation if successful. But it says their economic competitiveness is “still to be proven in practice”.
The CSIRO, which has looked at the evidence, concluded this is near impossible due to a lack of robust data. It says there are only two known SMRs in operation – one in Russia (on a barge) and one in China. Both suffered the cost blowouts and delays that have become common with nuclear projects.
According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, there are more than 80 other SMR designs in development, only some of which would be used for electricity generation if successful. But it says their economic competitiveness is “still to be proven in practice”.
But the idea Australia should wait for an unproven technology to possibly arrive when it already has extraordinary clean energy resources at its disposal defies all logic.
There is a genuine opportunity cost here. Time focused on the nuclear sideshow is playing into the delay game. I’m giving it succour just by writing this column.
Meanwhile, the world is in the grip of the hottest year on record. The fire season is under way in mid-September. Antarctic sea ice is at a record low level. Credible bodies such as the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering now argue the country should be aiming to be net zero by 2035 – a date by which, if things go really well, just a small handful of SMRs may be in operation.
The transition away from fossil fuels is genuinely challenging. There are huge policy and social licence issues that need to be navigated so the rollout of renewable energy can accelerate. Emissions from transport, major industry and agriculture are not coming down. We barely talk about what adapting to the changes under way will mean.
But solutions are available. Imagine what might be possible if the political energy dedicated to the nuclear energy furphy went into developing those.
Modelling shows estimated cost of Peter Dutton’s nuclear energy plan
Each reactor’s estimated capital cost is $18,167/kW in 2030 compared with large-scale solar at $1058/kW and onshore wind at $1989/kW. When broken down, the modelling suggests each individual taxpayer would be burdened with a “whopping $25,000 cost impost” for such a transition
.Australian taxpayers would be slugged with a $387bn bill if Peter Dutton’s current plan to transition to nuclear was actioned.
Ellen Ransley, news.com.au, 18 Sept 23
Replacing Australia’s retiring coal-fired power stations with the Coalition’s suggested nuclear energy model would cost taxpayers up to $387bn, new modelling suggests.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, backed particularly by junior Coalition partners the Nationals, has previously suggested that Australia could “convert or repurpose coal-fired plants and use the transmission connections which already exist on those sites”.
Mr Dutton has also said nuclear is the “lowest cost form” of low carbon electricity, but has not explicitly outlined how much such a transition would cost.
New analysis done by the energy department shows the projected cost, which assumes replacing all of the output from closing coal-fired plants with small modular reactors, would be costly.
Energy and Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen said Mr Dutton and the opposition “need to explain why” Australians would be slugged with a $387bn burden for their nuclear energy plan that “flies in the face of economics and reason”.
But the Greens have called on the government to stop the distraction and explain to Australians why they are forging ahead with new coal and gas projects when the country is in the grips of a “climate crisis”.
“Australia is forecast to have its worst summer since the Black Summer, and yet Labor is approving more coal and gas. Peter Dutton’s nuclear push is a distraction from Labor’s continual approval of new coal and gas projects,” party leader Adam Bandt said.
“We should not allow ourselves to be distracted by Peter Dutton’s push for nuclear when Labor keeps opening new coal and gas projects in the middle of a climate crisis.”
A minimum of 71 small modular reactors – providing 300MW each – would be needed if the policy were to fully replace the 21.3GW output of the country’s retiring coal fleet.
Each reactor’s estimated capital cost is $18,167/kW in 2030 compared with large-scale solar at $1058/kW and onshore wind at $1989/kW. When broken down, the modelling suggests each individual taxpayer would be burdened with a “whopping $25,000 cost impost” for such a transition.
The opposition want to trump the benefits of non-commercial SMR technology, without owning up to the cost and how they intend to pay for it,” Mr Bowen said.
“After nine years of energy policy chaos, rather than finally embracing a clean, cheap, safe and secure renewable future, all the Coalition can promise is a multi-billion dollar nuclear flavoured energy policy.”
In total, the $387bn plan costs about 20 times what the Albanese government’s Rewiring the Nation fund is projected to cost.
The government says that fund will help achieve 82 per cent renewable energy by 2030, by unlocking over 26GW of new renewable generation capacity, and over 30GW of transmission capacity.
When Mr Dutton made his pitch for a nuclear transition in July, he suggested the Liddell Power Station could be a possible site for a small nuclear reactor…………………………………..more https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/mining/modelling-shows-estimated-cost-of-peter-duttons-nuclear-energy-plan/news-story/39f543faf65d77c53f33ec8d10175d02
1 This month
PETITION – To: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Australian Labor Government
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/235274195556
19 May – Webinar- Webinar: No Nuclear Weapons in Australia
Start: 2026-05-19 18:00:00 UTC Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney (GMT+10:00)
End: 2026-05-19 19:30:00 UTC Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney (GMT+10:00)
20 May – Webinar – The dangerous world of AUKUS, US, military occupation and suppression of dissent
National Webinar, 20th May, 2026, 6.30pm AEST. Confronting laws restricting/suppressing protest speech and action
Speakers: Former Sen. Rex Patrick, Lawyer Nick Hanna ,Arthur Rorris ,Jorgen Doyle, Sen David Shoebbridge,
Facilitator Kelley Tranter.
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
Antinuclear 