The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, has ramped up calls for nuclear power in Australia, casting the move as a way to avoid dependence on wind and solar technology from China and a natural next step from the Aukus pact.
Dutton will make the comments on Friday at an event organised by the Institute of Public Affairs, a Liberal-aligned thinktank that has publicly opposed curbs on coal-fired power and has lobbied against the net zero by 2050 policy.
He will use the speech in Sydney to call for a debate about removing the legislative ban on nuclear power in Australia, a step that was not taken during the nine years of Coalition government, in which he was a senior member.
Dutton’s pitch comes just days before the Liberal National party in Queensland holds its state conference, where delegates are expected to propose several pro-nuclear resolutions.
In the speech, Dutton will argue that most of the leading solar panel manufacturers and wind turbine companies are based in China………………………
By contrast, Dutton will say that Australia could source Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) or Micro Modular Reactors (MMRs) from the US, UK, France “and other trusted partners”.
Dutton will point to the bipartisan commitment to building nuclear-powered submarines in Australia under the Aukus deal.
“The submarines are essentially floating SMRs,” he will say.
The sheer amount of money being invested in research and development in the next generation nuclear-powered submarines will surely see military advancements complement the development of civil nuclear power industries around the world.”………………………………..
A report by the Australian Conservation Foundation in October said the next generation of nuclear reactors being advocated by the Coalition would raise electricity prices, slow the uptake of renewables and introduce new risks from nuclear waste.
Last year Bowen ruled out consideration of nuclear power because he said “it is by far the most expensive form of energy”.
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has also mocked the push, saying that after “22 failed plans” the Coalition now wants “to go towards nuclear energy”. He has said in question time that Liberals must nominate “where the plants are going to be”.
But the idea appears popular within parts of the Coalition’s base. Three pro-nuclear resolutions are set to be debated at the Queensland LNP conference this weekend, including one urging a Dutton-led government to provide “baseload energy, such as nuclear as an adjunct to coal”.
(Looking forward to? Life for months on end in a cramped space, no sunlight or fresh air, very little private space, closed atmosphere – all smells recirculated. Limited news, limited communication with family. Water supplies rationed. Stress and boredom. And it’s dangerous.)
The sale of Virginia-class submarines to Australia requires the approval of the US Congress, and significant changes are needed to a complex set of export controls restricting how sensitive technology is transferred.
“………………. Three members of the Royal Australian Navy have graduated from the Nuclear Power School in South Carolina, more commonly known as ‘nuke school’.
Three members of the Royal Australian Navy have graduated from the Nuclear Power School in South Carolina, more commonly known as ‘nuke school’…………
Years out from Australia’s acquisition of nuclear-powered subs, the graduation is an early step towards making AUKUS a reality.
But there are still major hurdles ahead when it comes to the broader workforce challenges presented by the plan……………………….
The Australians will now have to complete another set of practical learning, which will include spending time on retired nuclear-powered subs known as moored training ships.
After that, they’ll receive further training in Connecticut before being assigned to a Virginia-class sub…………………..
AUKUS presents major workforce challenges for Australia
The AUKUS plan, announced in San Diego earlier this year, will see Australia acquire a total of eight nuclear-powered submarines at a cost of up to $368 billion.
US submarines are increasing their visits to Australian ports from this year, and from 2027 HMAS Stirling naval base in Western Australia will host rotations of American and British subs under what’s known as ‘Submarine Rotational Force-West’.
Australia is expected to buy at least three Virginia-class submarines from the US from the early 2030s, before building its own nuclear-powered boats in Adelaide to be known as SSN-AUKUS.
They will be based on a British design using US technology, with the first scheduled to be delivered in the early 2040s…………….
“It’s going to require a massive amount of infrastructure, incredible workforce demand, both in terms of technical skills and numbers.
“It just seems like that’s going to be a pretty heavy lift on the part of Australia to do nuclear ship construction.”…………………………….
Virginia-class submarines carry around 132 people, nearly three times the size of the crew onboard the Collins-class boats Australia has now.
And unlike the Collins, nuclear-powered subs do not need to surface regularly to recharge, meaning they can stay submerged for months at a time…………………………………………
The new subs will be built in South Australia, while Western Australia’s HMAS Stirling is undergoing an $8 billion expansion.
…………………………………………….. Challenges lie ahead to bring AUKUS to fruition
Aside from skills and workforce issues, there are other major challenges that still need to be overcome to bring AUKUS to fruition.
The sale of Virginia-class submarines to Australia requires the approval of the US Congress, and significant changes are needed to a complex set of export controls restricting how sensitive technology is transferred.
Questions also remain over how the US will deliver the promised Virginia-class submarines, given the pressure its own shipyards are under to meet local demand.
Jason Bilney, Chairperson, Barngarla Determination Aboriginal Corporation. 6 July 23
COURT
We have some news regarding the court; the judgement regarding the Kimba case will be delivered on July 18, 2023 at 10.30am at the Commonwealth Law Courts Building in Adelaide.
BARNGARLA ELDER AWARDED
This year’s NAIDOC Theme is a special one ‘For Our Elders’ Barngarla people have many elders who have led the way as leaders and teachers in our community. Enders who fought long and hard for our Native Title rights and also our ongoing battle with the Federal Government against a nuclear waste dump being built in Canberra. This week one of the BDAC Directors Harry Dare was awarded with the Port Augusta NAIDOC Male Elder of the Year, Uncle Harry was recognised for the role he has played in advocating for Barngarla rights, language and land –including his efforts to elevate the voice of Barngarla People over the nuclear waste dump at Kimba. Uncle Harry expressed his thanks to supporters.
PETITION
In other news, we have been blown away by the response to our online petition started by Mahalia Bilney in February. Today we have 13,349 signatures and we hope to see that grow.
The Petition calls on Minister King and Prime Minister Albanese to listen to the Barngarla people and scrap plans to advance the nuclear waste dump at Kimba.
We thank everyone for signing and sharing. Please continue to share the petition and encourage people to support us: https://chng.it/C2zzvDT56K.
Also we have heard that a group of local and EP residents has formed in Whyalla to actively oppose the Kimba plan and the transportation of nuclear waste through the Port of Whyalla.
Aunty Dawn Taylor attended the inaugural meeting to share Barngarla’s concerns.
This continues to be a David and Goliath battle and we will not give up the fight to protect our country.
Please take a minute to watch our message to Canberra here
New Australian Submarine Agency to manage nuclear subs, by Brian Hartigan 2 July 23
The Australian Submarine Agency (ASA) – which will be responsible and accountable for the management and oversight of the nuclear-powered submarine program – has been officially established.
Vice Admiral Jonathan Mead is the new agency’s inaugural Director-General.
Minister for Defence Richard Marles said that as chief of the Nuclear-Powered Submarine Taskforce, Vice Admiral Mead demonstrated his leadership and judgement in supporting the establishment of the pathway to acquire this critical capability through the AUKUS partnership.
“This is a significant day, marking our next step towards the acquisition of conventionally-armed, nuclear-powered submarines, which is the single biggest investment in our defence capability in our history,” Mr Marles said……………………..
ASA currently has more than 350 staff from the Australian Defence Force and Australian Public Service, including many who have transitioned from the Nuclear-Powered Submarine Taskforce and others who have joined recently.
It is expected to almost double to more than 680 staff over the next year, drawing on a diverse skillset required to deliver this significant endeavour.
ASA will be headquartered in Canberra, with personnel located across the country and overseas, in the United States and United Kingdom, working with communities, unions, industry and governments to deliver the nuclear-powered submarine program.
There’s a frenzied rush by the Australian political/media class to both propagandise Australians as quickly as possible into supporting preparations for war with China, and to ram through legislation that facilitates the censorship of online speech.
Australia’s Communications Minister Michelle Rowland is set to release draft legislation imposing hefty fines on social media companies who fail to adequately block “misinformation” and “disinformation” from circulation in Australia, a frightening prospect which will likely have far-reaching consequences for political speech in the nation………………………………..
The problem with laws against inaccurate information is of course that somebody needs to be making the determination what information is true and what is false, and those determinations will necessarily be informed by the biases and agendas of the person making them. I can substantiate my claim that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was provoked by NATO powers using an abundance of facts and evidence, for example, but there’s still a sizeable portion of the population which would consider such claims malignant disinformation with or without the supporting data.
When the government involves itself in the regulation of speech, it is necessarily incentivized to regulate speech in a way that benefits itself and its allies. Nobody who supports government regulation of online mis- and disinformation can articulate how such measures can be safeguarded in a surefire way against the abuses and agendas of the powerful.
Under a Totalitarian Regime, your government censors your speech if you say unauthorized things. Under a Free Democracy, your government orders corporations to censor your speech if you say unauthorized things.
At the same time, Australian media have been hammering one remarkably uniform message into public consciousness with increasing aggression lately: there is a war with China coming, Australia will be involved, and Australia must do much more to prepare for this war as quickly as possible.
Australians are remarkably vulnerable to propaganda due to the fact that ownership of our nation’s media is the most concentrated in the western world, with a powerful duopoly of Nine Entertainment and Murdoch’s News Corp controlling most of the Australian press.
Both of these media conglomerates have been involved in the latest excuse to talk about how more military spending and militarisation is needed, this time taking the form of a war machine-funded think tanker publishing a book about how we all need to prepare for war with China.
The “military expert” who warns of the need to prepare for an imminent war with China is a man named Ross Babbage, who as Knott notes is “a non-resident senior fellow at the Centre for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington.” What Knott fails to disclose to his readers is that the Centre for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments is funded by every war profiteer and war machine entity under the sun, the majority coming straight from the US Department of Defense itself.
As we’ve discussed many times previously, it is never, ever okay for the press to cite war machine-funded think tankers for expertise or analysis on matters of war and foreign policy, and it is doubly egregious for them to do so without at least disclosing their massive conflict of interest to their readers. This act of extreme journalistic malpractice has become the norm throughout the mainstream press, because it helps mass media reporters do their actual job: administering propaganda to an unsuspecting public.
All for a news story that (and I cannot stress this enough) is not a news story. A war machine-funded think tanker saying he wants more war is not a news story — it’s just a thing that happens when the war machine is allowed to pay people to be warmongers.
“War Machine-Funded Warmonger Wants More War.” That’s your headline. That’s the one and only headline this non-story could ever deserve, if any.
Propaganda and censorship are the two most important tools of imperial narrative control, and it’s very telling that Australia is ramping them both up as the nation is being transformed into a weapon for the US empire to use against China. Steps are being taken to ensure that the Australian populace will be on board with whatever agendas the empire has planned for us in the coming years, and judging from what we’re seeing right now, it isn’t going to be pretty.
Midnight Oil frontman and former Labor cabinet minister Peter Garrett has again condemned Australia’s security deal with the United States and United Kingdom, calling the $368 billion agreement costly and risky.
Mr Garrett said the decision to purchase a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines was a huge gamble and should not be allowed to proceed, while speaking at a public forum in Melbourne.
“It’s the biggest, it’s the most costly and it’s the riskiest decision ever taken by any Australian government short of governments committing us to war and should not be allowed,” he said on Friday.
He applauded recent backlash from some Labor party members and unions, saying a slew of academic and foreign policy experts also backed the push against AUKUS.
“So we are not alone, a basic and a major objection to AUKUS lies in the aspects of the arrangement which see us reversing our foreign policy and defence posture that’s been generally in place since World War II,” Mr Garrett said.
“We’re going from a focus of direct defence as it is currently constituted to a concentration on forward defence.”
Mr Garrett in March said AUKUS would produce increasing volumes of high-level radioactive waste that would be stored for “tens of thousands of years” in the Australian environment.
It follows stinging remarks by former Labor prime minister Paul Keating earlier this year.
Mr Keating said the new security deal was the worst international decision since conscription during WWI.
Under the deal, which is part of the AUKUS security arrangement, Australia will command a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines within the next three decades.
A number of Labor branches have been agitating for the government to dump its support for nuclear-powered submarines and AUKUS.
But Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said his government remains committed.
“The view of my government is very, very clear and is unwavering in its support for AUKUS, in its support for issues about our national security and about our interests in the defence of this nation,” he told reporters on Thursday.
An attempt by certain Labor affiliated left-wing unions to put a motion critical of AUKUS at the recent ALP Victorian State Conference was deferred by factional bosses even before it was put. That it was deferred tells us as much about the hierarchy ignoring the rank and file of the party as it does about the massive folly that is AUKUS.
On the weekend of 17-18 of June the Victorian branch of the ALP held its state conference attended by over six hundred delegates, the first one since 2019. Previous conferences had been postponed because of COVID, but also because of federal intervention as a response to branch stacking. Tension had already been built up because some left-wing unions had announced they would ask for a vote against AUKUS, being just the latest of other prominent ALP members and past ministers who have come out strongly against it.
The Age, the AFR and the Guardian began reporting on this four days before the conference began, speculating on who would control the factions and what would happen to the AUKUS motion which had the potential to embarrass the Prime Minister. Even before the conference began Mr Albanese had declared that AUKUS would go ahead, rendering any debate pointless given that there is much support for AUKUS in the federal parliamentary ALP. And rank and file members can be ignored–at least in the short term.
Phillip Coorey had already reported on June 14 that two weeks earlier the Queensland branch of the ALP, at its state conference, had “refused to support a motion congratulating the Albanese government “for investing in the AUKUS agreement”.”
Given that there has been considerable disquiet expressed about the AUKUS decision as a threat to Australian sovereignty and a departure from traditional Labor policy to seek rapprochement as opposed to aggression, it is hardly surprising that some elements of the rank and file expressed their anger about the decision to go with AUKUS. And this especially when it had been essentially imposed upon the party from above, and when prominent former ALP luminaries led by Paul Keating and Bob Carr had decisively spoken out against it.
As Phillip Coorey wrote in the AFR on 18/6, “The motion expressed disappointment with, or criticised, all aspects of the AUKUS deal between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, including its quick embrace by Labor in opposition when Scott Morrison announced it. The motion demanded “federal Labor caucus to be more politically diverse and avoid being swept along by the interests and priorities of America’s corporate, political, and military elites”.
Indeed, as Royce Millar and Broede Carmody reported in the Age three days (15/6) before the conference, “AMWU Victorian secretary Tony Mavromatis said he expected his motion would win strong support from the conference floor.” “We will push ahead with our motion, no matter who is at the conference, including prime ministers,” he said. “The AUKUS deal is a terrible arrangement for Australia. It lets down Australian workers, apprentices and trainees and Australian manufacturing. We should not be getting into nuclear.”
In other words, he was expressing the criticisms that have already been made in so many other forums, yet only mutely in most of the main stream media.
Yet in Melbourne the factional leaders got together and voted to defer this motion until the forthcoming Labor National Conference in Brisbane. No doubt there will be sufficient support for the Prime Minister to defeat any such motion going forth, and even if it did go forth would this be enough for the government to withdraw from AUKUS?
If the internal pressure continues building against what is such an obvious foreign affairs folly, one which has so much negative impact on internal spending by the government on social housing, climate change mitigation, education and so forth, will the decision to go with it be reversed? I fear this is unlikely as Mr. Albanese seems to be adopting the practice of his LNP predecessors, never to back down because it will make him look weak in the eyes of the public. Implicitly, this will also be justified by the party hierarchy’s belief that this is what the Australian population wants, irrespective of how little the opposite arguments have been advanced to them.
I wonder if they will design a deep geological repository for high level waste too.
Defence takes nuclear propulsion challenge to schools, By APDR Staff, 21/06/2023
Defence has launched a Nuclear-Powered Submarine Propulsion Challenge in Australian high schools, providing a new generation of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) students the chance to win a trip to HMAS Stirling in Western Australia to see first-hand how submarines work. The introductory-level, nationwide program will provide teachers with learning resources to help students design their own engineering plans for submarine nuclear propulsion……..
Rear Admiral Jonathon Earley, Deputy Chief of Navy said: “The Nuclear-Powered Submarine Propulsion Challenge presents an opportunity for students across Australia to gain a greater appreciation of the STEM principles behind one of the most significant national projects ever undertaken in Australia, as we prepare to deliver nuclear-powered submarines for the Royal Australian Navy……
These students and others like them will be our future submariners, engineers and technicians. The winners will experience a visit to HMAS Stirling in Western Australia, tour a Collins-class submarine, dine with submariners and virtually drive a submarine through Sydney Harbour in the submarine bridge training simulator.” https://asiapacificdefencereporter.com/defence-takes-nuclear-propulsion-challenge-to-schools/
On the 29th of May 2023, our local member demonstrated yet again that he fails to understand the importance and the reasoning behind the Borumba pumped hydro scheme.
Mr O’Brien noted his opposition to the project based on the impact of transmission lines on the environment and members of the local community.
Failing to understand environmental impacts, Mr O’Brien utilised his platform to recommend nuclear power instead!
On cost alone, nuclear power represents over five times the lifetime costs of pumped hydro and solar, as costed by the CSIRO in 2022.
Not to mention the exorbitant costs associated with nuclear waste handling, decommissioning the sites, or that nuclear plants are required to shut down for maintenance periodically.
He also failed to mention that transmission lines would still need to be established at the new site of the reactors.
His increasingly unconstructive and arrogant behaviour during the renewable energy transition boils down to a bad case of ‘not in my backyard’ and political grandstanding.
Mr O’Brien stands yet again in the way of progress for our nation, future jobs and skills for the people of Wide Bay.
Powerful unions want Labor’s rank and file to formally condemn the $368 billion AUKUS submarine deal this weekend, potentially setting up an awkward clash with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese when he addresses Victorian Labor’s first state conference in four years
Both the prime minister and Premier Daniel Andrews will deliver speeches to party faithful at the conference, according to several state and federal government sources.
The conference will be the first since 2019 – before the pandemic, Melbourne’s long lockdowns, and the federal intervention that followed revelations by The Age about branch stacking, especially by former Labor right powerbroker Adem Somyurek.
The 606 delegates will be asked to vote on a motion from manufacturing union the AMWU seen by The Age, slamming Australia’s decision to acquire a nuclear-powered fleet from the United States and the prospect of the Albanese government “dragging Australia into a new Cold War, rather than pursuing the labour movement’s longstanding commitment to a peaceful and independent foreign and defence policy”.
AMWU Victorian secretary Tony Mavromatis said he expected his motion would win strong support from the conference floor.
“We will push ahead with our motion, no matter who is at the conference, including prime ministers,” he said. “The AUKUS deal is a terrible arrangement for Australia. It lets down Australian workers, apprentices and trainees and Australian manufacturing. We should not be getting into nuclear.”
The AUKUS deal was initially agreed to by former prime minister Scott Morrison and later supported by federal Labor.
While Andrews is expected to receive a hero’s welcome after Labor’s resounding November election victory, the conference is the first opportunity for years for Labor’s rank and file to vent over the big issues facing the state, including the housing crisis.
…………… To be held at the Moonee Valley Racecourse, the conference will also be the first public display of factional muscle since the federal intervention.
………… Some party insiders also see the weekend meeting as an important preparation for the federal conference in Brisbane in August, where the AUKUS submarine deal and stage three tax cuts are expected to feature prominently.
Labor’s national executive has administered the branch since branch stacking revelations were aired in June 2020.
The state conference was traditionally the setting for often passionate public rows over policy and factional grievances, especially in the tumultuous 1970s and ’80s. Conferences have been more stage-managed in recent years.
The move follows a complaint to the party’s dispute tribunal by veteran Labor activist Eric Derricott about the factional control over elections at the conference, but will leave the results of the election unknown for some weeks.
After this conference all such elections will be held by secret ballot.
Karina Lester (above) and June Lennon are still affected by the fallout from British nuclear tests on their country 70 years later.
The two First Nations women are part of a delegation of atomic survivors and relatives, which includes veterans, visiting Canberra to call on the government to sign an international treaty to ban nuclear weapons.
“We still see the craters and the scars that were left by those weapons tests, both at Emu Field and also at Maralinga Tjarutja,” Ms Lester, a Yankunytjatjara Anangu woman from north-west South Australia, said.
Greens Senator Jordon Steele-John and Labor MP Josh Wilson co-chair the Parliamentary Friends of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which heard from the delegation on Wednesday.
“It was so powerful to hear the stories of lived experience and direct connection to the impacts of nuclear testing,” Senator Steele-John said.
“That makes it viscerally real and really brings home the urgent need to eliminate nuclear weapons.”
Ms Lester’s father, the late Yami Lester, (above) went blind as a young man after the British tested atomic weapons in Emu Field.
“The scars are still felt on our country,” she said.
“And the scars are still evident on our people.”
The group of Australian atomic survivors and relatives are calling on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
In 1953 the British initiated a program of nuclear testing in Australia at the Montebello Islands, off the coast of WA and in Emu Field in South Australia.
Two years later, the British government announced a larger site for the tests at Maralinga.
In October 1953 when the British detonated the Totem I and II nuclear bombs at Emu Field, Yankunytjatjara, Antikarinya and Pitjantjatjara woman June Lennon was only a few months old.
The mainstream media continues to beat the drums of war while voices of truth and reason are being silenced, writes Dr William Briggs.
JOHN PILGER, in highlighting the manipulation of our media, called on people to ‘speak up’.
The drive to war and the demonisation of China have seen many people speak up and speak out. That same manipulated media has muffled those voices and pushed dissent to the margins. Journals and websites like this one are increasingly becoming almost samizdat publications. The mainstream media has played an important role, not only in silencing dissident voices but in convincing the public that there is little effective opposition.
A glance at the anti-AUKUS website shows that over 1,000 individuals and more than 200 organisations have thus far lent their support for a rational and sane response to the rising threat of war with China and obscene military spending.
There are many important voices among the signatories but their voices are not regularly heard in our media. Their words do not appear in the major daily newspapers, regardless of how well-credentialed they might be. Our former Prime Minister, Paul Keating, has effectively been relegated to the sidelines for voicing a position that does not fit with the official line.
And, while the collective wisdom of so many is ignored, the war-mongers of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) are given free rein.
‘In so many ways, the product of ASPI is critically important, not only in informing the Australian public, but those of us in government who seek to play a role in this space.’
Marles states that the Australian public must be informed. He recognises this to be ‘critically important’ but there is an unhealthy degree of censorship that is impossible to ignore. The information that the public is allowed to see, hear and read is the information that is filtered. There is a strong sense of creeping authoritarianism in all of this………………………………………..
The intellectuals, essayists, poets and novelists that might speak up and speak out remain, either silent or silenced by the mainstream media. It is not that they are not there. It is not that many thousands of ordinary people do not share the view that things are terribly wrong. The media has played and is playing a bad role. It is media in name only. It has abandoned any semblance of independence. It is so hard to speak out if you are kept captive; if ideas are filtered and disinformation passes for truth.
Pilger rightly calls on those with a conscience to speak out. What needs to be remembered is that the marketplace for ideas has shrunk……………………..Truth has become the property of those who control the media.
Pilger has been sidelined. Film-maker David Bradbury, twice nominated for an Academy Award, is now touring his latest documentary, The Road to War, screening it wherever an audience can be found. Even so, its circulation and therefore its audience remains limited.
American vengefulness would see WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange die in prison. Successive Australian governments have behaved equally badly, but the USA calls the shots. Assange’s crime? To report the truth. The truth, however, is not what Richard Marles is thinking of when he talks of the ‘critical importance’ of informing the public.
…………………………John Pilger’s call, for us all to speak up, has never had more urgency. The decades since the end of WWII and the proclamation of the U.S.-inspired rules-based order have seen millions die in American-led wars.
Julian Assange’s fate lies in the hands of an appeal judge who is a close friend of Sir Alan Duncan – the former foreign minister who called Assange a “miserable little worm” in parliament.
Lord Chief Justice Ian Burnett, the judge that will soon decide Julian Assange’s fate, is a close personal friend of Sir Alan Duncan, who as foreign minister arranged Assange’s eviction from the Ecuadorian embassy.
The two have known each other since their student days at Oxford in the 1970s, when Duncan called Burnett “the Judge”. Burnett and his wife attended Duncan’s birthday dinner at a members-only London club in 2017, when Burnett was a judge at the court of appeal.
Now the most powerful judge in England and Wales, Burnett will soon rule on Assange’s extradition case. The founder of WikiLeaks faces life imprisonment in the US. ……………………………….
Duncan served as foreign minister for Europe and the Americas from 2016-19. He was the key official in the UK government campaign to force Assange from the embassy.
As minister, Duncan did not hide his opposition to Julian Assange, calling him a “miserable little worm” in parliament in March 2018.
In his diaries, Duncan refers to the “supposed human rights of Julian Assange”. He admits to arranging a Daily Mailhit piece on Assange that was published the day after the journalist’s arrest in April 2019.
Duncan watched UK police pulling the WikiLeaks publisher from the Ecuadorian embassy via a live-feed in the Operations Room at the top of the Foreign Office.
He later admitted he was “trying to keep the smirk off [his] face”, and hosted drinks at his parliamentary office for the team involved in the eviction.
Duncan then flew to Ecuador to meet President Lenín Moreno in order to “say thank you” for handing over Assange. Duncan reported he gave Moreno “a beautiful porcelain plate from the Buckingham Palace gift shop.”
AUKUS dinner guests at the Cosmos Club, Washington: US Secretary for Navy, Carlos Del Toro; Republican Congressman Rob Wittman; Labor MP Meryl Swanson; Australian ambassador, Kevin Rudd; Liberal senator James Paterson; ex-Minister for Defence, lobbyist Christopher Pyne. (Photo: Pyne & Partners)
Declassified Australia reveals the feast for lobbyists, US defence contractors and hangers-on which is the AUKUS $370bn submarines deal, Kelly Tranter reports.
The defence lobbying firm Pyne & Partners – chaired by the former Australian Defence Minister Christopher Pyne – co-hosted an AUKUS reception and dinner in Washington at the swanky Cosmos Club on Embassy Row, with Northrop Grumman Corporation, on 3 April 2023.
Northrop Grumman is one of the largest defence companies in the world, and is the parent company to spin-off Huntington Ingalls, the US’s largest naval shipbuilder and one of the builders of the Virginia-class submarines destined to come to Australia.
The meeting was ‘private’ even though it concerned Australian defence contracts and arrangements and was attended by the Australian Ambassador and two Australian MPs, and senior US defence officials. Without public disclosure of what happened at the gathering, the Australian public once again is left in the dark.
However, Declassified Australia has been able to prise open the locked shutters on the private event to shine in some needed light. With hundreds of billions of dollars at stake through the AUKUS submarine deal, what calibre of people could be expected to attend such an event and what could possibly be their interest?
Documents produced pursuant to Freedom of Information (FOI) laws, by this writer, confirm that Australia’s Ambassador to the USA, Kevin Rudd, was invited to provide a speech, the contents of which journalists had previously reported to be ‘off the record’.
Declassified Australia has obtained the Ambassador’s briefing notes – though somewhat redacted due to national security considerations, ‘for the security of the Commonwealth’ and to avoid ‘damage to the defence, or international relations, of the Commonwealth’.
Rudd’s address was scheduled to follow those of the US Secretary for Navy, Carlos Del Toro, and Congressional Representative Rob Wittman. Rudd was allowed a period of five minutes for his remarks, ‘in between the main course and dessert’.
Congressman Wittman was among a bipartisan group of members of the US House of Representatives who in January sent a letter to President Joe Biden expressing support for the AUKUS deal. He unsurprisingly welcomed the huge AUKUS submarine spend as ‘a unique opportunity to leverage the support and resources possible under AUKUS to grow our industrial base to support both US and Australian submarine construction’.
In January he also was suggesting sending a jointly operated US submarine to Australia, saying, “I think it would be dual-crewed. I think too, that the command of the submarine would be a dual command”. These remarks, of course, raise sovereign control issues.
Another claim to fame of Representative Wittman was being named in a September 2022 analysis by The New York Times as one of at least 97 members of Congress who bought or sold stock, bonds or other financial assets that intersected with their congressional work or reported similar transactions by their spouse or a dependent child.
Rob the insider trader
Although the Times noted that U.S. lawmakers are not banned from investing in any company, including those that could be affected by their decisions, the report confirmed that Congressman Wittman traded shares of three defence contractors while he was a member of the House Armed Services Committee, which incidentally included the AUKUS event co-sponsor, Northrop Grumman
The Congressman’s response to the media revelation was to say: “I have consistently believed members of Congress should not improperly benefit from their role, and I support measures to avoid conflicts of interest.” He went on to say, “This is why I relinquish all control of my investment decisions to my financial adviser to use third-party investment managers who implement trades at their own discretion without my consultation or input,” which, he noted, is allowed under House ethics rules.
The new FOI documents confirm that Congressman Wittman is currently the Vice Chair of the US House Committee on Armed Services, Chair of the Tactical Air and Land Forces Committee and Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee, is on the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the US and the Chinese Communist Party (sic), and is on the Energy and Mineral Resources Subcommittee of the US Congress.
The FOI documents reference that, ‘Rep Rob Wittman was first elected to serve the first congressional district of Virginia in December 2007. His district is adjacent to Naval Base Norfolk as well as the major shipbuilding facilities in Newport News, Virginia – including one of the shipyards that builds Virginia-class attack submarines (Huntington Ingalls). Many of his constituents are employed either by the shipyards themselves, or by the supporting industry in the region.’
So it’s all just hunky-dory that through his investment advisor he can invest to profit from the success of defence contractors.
As to Secretary of the Navy, The Hon Carlos Del Toro, the FOI document suggests under the sub-heading, ‘Industrial collaboration’, that Ambassador Rudd was specifically tasked to ‘seek Toro’s ongoing support and endorsement’, and to recognise that ‘we continue to work with the US government agencies to overcome barriers to industrial base, supply chain and technology collaboration’.
China’s military modernisation program and its operation of nuclear-powered submarines, including both nuclear and conventionally armed, are mentioned in Ambassador Rudd’s ‘briefing notes’ obtained under FOI, along with this acknowledgement:
‘We do not oppose any nation’s right to invest in and develop defence capabilities. However, a lack of transparency around military capabilities can fuel insecurity.’
Transparency debacle
The stated concern about lack of transparency is at odds with the Australian government’s own lack of transparency to Australian citizens in relation to the entire AUKUS deal. They have yet to make signed copy of the agreement publicly available.
As to the effect of AUKUS on Australia’s defence sovereignty, Rudd’s briefing notes confirm Australia’s generous desire to ‘ease pressure on the US supply chains’ and provide the US submarines with their long-desired Indian Ocean naval base:
‘Australia will build new maintenance and repair capabilities that will directly benefit US submarines rotating through HMAS Stirling [naval base near Perth]’.
The language of the FOI document – ‘aligning national priorities’, ‘collective strength’, ‘mutual strategic benefit’, ‘deeper cooperation’ – all seems to be geared towards a fully integrated strategic and industrial base with little room for Australia’s sovereign defence issues.
And what does it say when a private Australian defence lobbyist funds eight-day international trips for the attendance of two Australian ‘non-Defence’ politicians to a private Washington event it is co-hosting with one of the largest defence companies in the world? And what does it say when the lobbyist invites a US guest speaker who trades in defence company stocks while holding political defence offices? And what does it say when input by senior US military officials and by our own ambassador to the US, until this FOI application, we’re not even permitted to see?
Transparency and integrity of decision-making in relation to AUKUS ought not be shrouded in lavish invitation-only discussions where private interests eye-off the billions in potential profits — and where Australia’s future is on the table.
This story was first published by Declassified Australia
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Antinuclear 