Peter Dutton ramps up nuclear power push and claims Labor down ‘renewable rabbit hole’
Opposition leader to tell Institute of Public Affairs that domestic reactors are natural next step from Aukus pact
Daniel Hurst, 8 July 23
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.
He is likely to find a receptive audience for the message at the IPA, given that the thinktank’s executive director, Scott Hargreaves, has publicly called for the scrapping of all subsidies for renewable energy and also urged political leaders to “hit the pause button on our headlong rush towards reliance on greater renewable energy”.
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”.
Another proposed resolution wants the next LNP state government to “review the education curriculum to ensure that energy supply, including nuclear energy, and impacts of renewable energy are taught factually https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jul/07/peter-dutton-ramps-up-nuclear-power-push-and-claims-labor-down-renewable-rabbit-hole
Vice Admiral Jonathon Mead to be Director-General of New Australian Submarine Agency.
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.
ASA is a statutory agency within the Defence portfolio and will report to the Minister for Defence………………………. https://www.contactairlandandsea.com/2023/07/02/new-australian-submarine-agency-to-manage-nuclear-subs/
Former Labor cabinet minister condemns $368b AUKUS deal
By Mibenge Nsenduluka June 23 2023 https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/8245773/former-labor-cabinet-minister-condemns-368b-aukus-deal/
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.
The Labor Party Victorian state conference and AUKUS
By Greg Bailey, Jun 21, 2023, https://johnmenadue.com/the-alp-victorian-state-conference-and-aukus/
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.
Member of Parliament Ted O’Brien gets it so wrong about nuclear power.
Nuclear not an option, Llew. 19/06/2023, Chris B, https://gympietoday.com.au/opinion/2023/06/19/nuclear-not-an-option-llew/
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.
Anthony Albanese faces AUKUS submarine deal backlash at Victorian Labor state conference.
THE AGE 15/6/23:
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.
Current state Labor president Susie Byers said Victorian Labor had achieved much in the past three years, “not just with election victories, but reforms to our branch that have made the organisation one our members can be proud to belong to”. https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/albanese-faces-aukus-backlash-from-victorian-labor-party-faithful-20230614-p5dgix.html
Australia’s Atomic Survivors want Prime Minister Albanese to sign treaty to ban nuclear weapons.
By Rudi Maxwell, June 14 2023 https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/8232976/survivors-want-pm-to-sign-treaty-to-ban-nuclear-weapons/
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.
Mining giant BHP pushes Albanese Government to remove hurdles to nuclear energy
The West Australian, Tue, 6 June 2023
Mining giant BHP has urged the Federal Government to remove its prohibition on nuclear energy to help meet the energy needs of transitioning to a low-carbon economy.
The company lobbied Treasury — ahead of the May 9 Budget — to make the move as it told the Albanese Government that more must be done to protect energy security, affordability and decarbonisation, The Australian reported…………….. (Subscribers only) https://thewest.com.au/business/mining-giant-bhp-pushes-albanese-government-to-remove-hurdles-to-nuclear-energy-c-10896013
Dutton’s nuclear plan doesn’t add up
Our Government has done the homework and the results are in. Renewables are the cheapest form of power, they are available right now. We have doubled approvals of renewable projects and the sector is already supporting thousands of jobs across the country. And no matter which way you try to add up the numbers that is the truth.
Senator Nita Green, https://cqtoday.com.au/news/2023/06/01/duttons-nuclear-plan-doesnt-add-up/
If Peter Dutton’s nuclear energy plan was a school assignment, he would get an ‘F’ for Fantasy. It’s all about make-believe mathematics and empty promises.
I know being honest with numbers is a strange concept to the Liberal National Party, but if they want to to keep pushing a nuclear plan in regional Queensland they need to be honest about the facts, especially about the costs.
We know that nuclear power is the most expensive form of power. It costs a bucket load. Instead of driving costs down, it would drive costs up.
One small reactor would cost $5 billion to build. Doing the maths on the 80 small reactors that would be needed under the LNPs plan, that would cost $400 billion.
That’s the same as building 1600 Townsville Stadiums. Or put another way, it’s like paying for the NDIS 13 times over in one year. What essential services in regional Queensland would Peter Dutton cut to pay for this plan?
The other thing they don’t mention is the time it would take to get dispatchable power under this plan. Because even if they could find the funds, it will likely be decades before the first nuclear reactor would be operational. Anyone who thinks you could switch on nuclear energy tomorrow is living in la la land.
Globally there are delays in building these reactors, and in Australia, we don’t have the specialised workforce or regulatory or safety framework to run them. It just won’t meet the urgent need for power that we have now.
The other thing Peter Dutton won’t say is how many jobs this form of energy would support. And there’s a reason for that. Barely a quarter of the jobs post-construction would be blue-collar jobs. The other three-quarters of the jobs in nuclear would be office jobs offsite – mainly in capital cities or overseas.
Our Government has done the homework and the results are in. Renewables are the cheapest form of power, they are available right now. We have doubled approvals of renewable projects and the sector is already supporting thousands of jobs across the country. And no matter which way you try to add up the numbers that is the truth.
The Albanese Labor Government has already started working to ensure Australia is positioned to become a renewable energy superpower. Our Government doesn’t need to make up a fairytale energy plan because we’re doing it right now.
We are investing in our Powering Australia plan and providing support for Clean Energy Apprenticeships to ensure that we have a skilled workforce for the thousands of jobs the sector would create.
And we are investing $2 billion in this Budget for Hydrogen Headstart, providing revenue support for large-scale renewable hydrogen projects right now.
Ultimately, our country’s energy future shouldn’t be about fake plans or fighting about the facts. It’s too important for all Australians that we get this right and we act with urgency. Australians voted to end the energy wars and get on with the job of reducing emissions and building the industries of the future. That’s what our Government is focused on and that is what we are delivering.
Scott Morrison issues blanket denial on nuclear submarine questions
The former PM answered with an emphatic ‘No’ when asked if he knew of links between powerful lobbyists and the AUKUS deal.
DAVID HARDAKER Crikey, 31 May 23 |
| “Former prime minister Scott Morrison has denied knowing of links between conservative lobbyists the Crosby Textor group (C|T Group) and the giant US company General Dynamics, which builds nuclear-powered submarines.“He has also denied knowing that General Dynamics was the lead constructor for the US Navy’s fleet of nuclear-powered submarines as he pondered cancelling Australia’s contract for conventional submarines in favour of nuclear-powered submarines. And he denied speaking about the nuclear-powered submarine option with his principal private secretary Yaron Finkelstein , who left C|T’s Australian operations to join Morrison’s staff in 2018.”………… https://www.crikey.com.au/2023/05/31/scott-morrison-denial-nuclear-submarine-questions-aukus/?utm_campaign=crikeyworm&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter |
Australian Prime Minister Albanese refuses to meet with Assange’s wife
Oscar Grenfell@Oscar_Grenfell, 22 May 2023, WSWS,
Asked by independent MP Andrew Wilkie why he would not meet with Mrs Assange, Albanese brushed aside the question, declaring: “Who I meet with is determined by the priorities that my office has.”
Over the past month, Albanese has met with a multitude of business tycoons. He attended the wedding of right-wing radio shock jock Kyle Sandilands, alongside a convicted drug dealer and reputed crime boss. Most recently, Albanese fawned over US President Joe Biden in Tokyo on the weekend. Biden is overseeing the attempt to extradite Assange from Britain, and imprison him for 175 years for exposing American war crimes.
Albanese proclaimed in parliament, he was not interested in meeting Assange’s wife, which he said would be akin to a “demonstration” and “grandstanding.” Albanese sought to dress up the refusal by reiterating vague comments that “enough is enough” in relation to the Assange case, and he cannot see that anything is served by the WikiLeaks founder’s continued incarceration.
While Albanese claims he has made this position clear to the US administration, there is no evidence of that, including in extensive correspondence obtained under freedom of information requests between various American and Australian government bodies. Labor continues to give carte blanche to the very administration seeking Assange’s destruction.
The obvious question is: if Albanese won’t even meet with Assange’s wife, a basic act of respect and courtesy that he has extended to thousands of others over the course of his year in office, why would anyone think the prime minister is waging a fight for the imprisoned Australian journalist’s freedom behind closed doors?
As part of her visit to Australia, Stella Assange yesterday addressed the National Press Club in Canberra.
The speech was a powerful plea for Assange’s freedom, an exposure of the draconian conditions under which he is detained in Britain’s maximum-security Belmarsh Prison and a clear outline of the fundamental issues of democratic rights at stake in the attempted prosecution of her husband.
Stella noted a groundswell of support for Assange. She stated: “I would like to thank the overwhelming dedication of the Australian people, who have brought about a sea change in awareness and solidarity for Julian’s plight. This unity in support for my husband is a source of enormous encouragement for our family. It nurtures Julian’s ability to continue on.”
She added: “The reality is that to regain his freedom, Julian needs the support of his home country. This is a political case, and it needs a political solution.”
In discussing her presence in Australia, and also what she speaks about with her husband, Stella stressed Assange’s connection to Australia. He had been raised in the country, and had shared his extensive memories, from surfing in Byron Bay, to beekeeping in Melbourne’s Dandenong Ranges and riding a horse in the New South Wales Northern Rivers.
“That’s how I imagine Julian when he is free,” she said………………………..
Stella outlined the draconian security procedures required for her and her two children to visit their father. They had to pass innumerable checkpoints, searches and scans for their visits. The children had only ever seen their father in the inhospitable prison visiting room. For the elder of the two, now six years old, “Prisons feature in his dreams and his nightmares.”
Turning to the case, Stella stated: “A 175 year sentence is a living death sentence. A prospect so desperate that the English court found that it would drive him to take his own life, rather than live forever in hell. We must do everything we can to ensure that Julian never, ever, sets foot in a US prison. Extradition in this case is a matter of life and death.”
She explained: “For most people, Julian is a symbol. A symbol of staggering injustice, because he is in prison on trumped up charges for exposing the crimes of others. A symbol because he faces a bewildering 175 year sentence for publishing the truth. A symbol of a sophisticated form of state violence dressed up in complexity and indirection that not even Franz Kafka could have imagined.
“For the press and the public, Julian’s case is the most brutal attack on press freedom that the Western world has seen in the last 70 years. A foreign government is using the political offences in its statute books to indict a foreign national abroad, because of what he or she published in a different country.
“Accurate, damning publications exposing their war crimes. If sovereignty is to mean anything, if jurisdiction is a proper legal and political reality, the case against Julian cannot be understood as anything other than an absurdity.”
Despite the dire threat to press freedom, the address was largely subjected to a media boycott. Only a handful of nationally-recognised journalists attended. Several prominent publications sent junior staff, fresh out of university, armed only with arrogance and obnoxious questions based on the slanders that have been used to attack Assange.
The shameful display underscored the fact that broad sections of the official media function as nothing more than state propagandists. While they are cheering on each new step in Australia’s integration into the US preparations for war with China, this corrupted layer is hostile to a genuine journalist who exposed war crimes………………………………………. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/05/23/gavm-m23.html?fbclid=IwAR180uIICBGtiZ8Fb3gyk6bwi2YScNh7OxnAQDK0979TWB0XNzNFuUBpSso
Government gutted as PwC, Big 4 pick up $1.4b a year for giving advice
I did read where Australia’s Defence Minister Richard Marles was actually thanking PWC for their advice in the AUKUS deal to purchase nuclear submarines. But unfortunately now I cannot find that anywhere on the Internet
by Michael West | May 22, 2023 | What’s the scam? https://michaelwest.com.au/government-gutted-as-pwc-big-4-pick-up-1-4b-a-year-for-giving-advice/
The Centre for Public Integrity has published analysis of political donations and government contract work for Big 4 firms EY, KPMG, Deloitte and PwC. What’s the scam?
The scam is legalised corruption on an industrial scale, a $1.4b a year scale. In Booming Business for Big Four Comes At a High Cost, the Centre has issued a tight bit of analysis but nothing we haven’t been rabbiting on about for years: rising donations, surging income from the outsourcing of government.
The Centre labels the return of billions in consulting work in return for millions in donations the “Return on Investment”. Say no more … except that one thing missing is here that the Big4 are partnerships, opaque structures which means they have no responsibility to disclose anything about their financials.
The government could insist they incorporate. It could whack a withholding tax on them which could withhold tax in the event of mischief, it could stop them buying lawyers to use ‘legal professional privilege’ to stonewall the Tax Office in litigation. And much more. It could act decisively on the PwC scandal. Has the Commonwealth DPP been briefed as to charges for the dozens of partners involved in selling Commonwealth secrets to multinational tax avoiders?
Albanese urged to take stand against nuclear weapons during G7 summit in Hiroshima
International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons wants Labor to send a ‘message to the region’ and sign and ratify a treaty to impose a ban on atomic weapons
Guardian Daniel Hurst 19 May 23
Anthony Albanese is being urged to take a firm stand against nuclear weapons when he attends the G7 summit in Hiroshima this weekend.
The prime minister has been invited to attend the summit in Hiroshima, which along with Nagasaki was devastated by the US atomic bombing in the closing stages of the second world war.
Albanese is due to arrive in the city on Friday afternoon and will join the mayor of Hiroshima for a visit to the Peace Memorial Park, including the ruins of the former industrial promotion hall now known as the A-bomb dome.
A Nobel prize-winning group, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (Ican), has written to Albanese to urge him to make good on Labor’s promise to join a new treaty to impose an outright ban on nuclear weapons.
The party platform said a Labor government would sign and ratify the treaty, after taking account of factors including the need to work to achieve universal international support.
Ican cited Albanese’s speech championing the treaty in 2018 when he denounced nuclear weapons as “the most destructive, inhumane and indiscriminate weapons ever created”.
“At the 2018 National Labor Conference, you showed what strong leadership on this issue looks like,” said the letter from the co-chairs of Ican Australia, Dr Margaret Beavis and Associate Prof Marianne Hanson.
“You now have the unique responsibility to show the world once again what leadership on this critical issue looks like.
“We urge you to take the opportunity to advance Australia’s position on this treaty when you visit Hiroshima.”
The letter argued the acquisition of nuclear-propelled, conventionally armed submarines under Aukus “sharpens the need for a binding and permanent commitment that Australia will not possess, host or assist with the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons now or in the future”.
The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) is a relatively new treaty that imposes a blanket ban on developing, testing, stockpiling, using or threatening to use nuclear weapons – or helping other countries to carry out such activities.
The TPNW now has 92 signatories, 68 of which have formally ratified it. But it is opposed by the United States and other nuclear weapons states, which argue it is out of step with international security realities.
The former Morrison government said the treaty’s terms were inconsistent with Australia’s obligations under the US alliance.
In November, the US embassy in Canberra warned that the TPNW “would not allow for US extended deterrence relationships, which are still necessary for international peace and security”.
Talei Mangioni, 29, who is a PhD candidate at the Australian National University’s School of Culture, History and Language, addressed a youth summit in Hiroshima late last month. She hopes Albanese makes progress on the issue.
The Ican Australia board member said she was touched to hear directly from hibakusha (survivor) Keiko Ogura about the “invisible scars” of the 1945 bombing and about visits to Japan by Pacific activists in the 1980s.
“At the moment Australia is really out of step with the rest of the region,” said Mangioni, who is of Fijian and Italian descent and whose research focuses on the Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific Movement.
“Most Pacific countries have either signed or ratified the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. If he were to commit to the TPNW, I think it would send a great message to the region. The nuclear test legacy is a very serious issue in the Pacific and also for Aboriginal communities in Australia.”
During the Albanese government’s first year in office, Australia has taken some cautious steps to engage with the TPNW, including sending a backbencher as an observer to the first meeting of the parties in Vienna last June.
Australia followed that up by shifting its position at a UN committee in October to “abstain” after five years of actively opposing the treaty under the Coalition.
But Albanese and senior ministers have avoided giving a clear timetable for joining the TPNW……………………………… https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/may/19/albanese-urged-to-take-stand-against-nuclear-weapons-during-g7-summit-in-hiroshima
Coalition clown show on nuclear on full display in Senate inquiry
A Senate nuclear power inquiry held its only public hearing on Monday. For the most part it was an opportunity for Coalition Senators to express their furious agreement with misinformation fed to them by pro-nuclear witnesses.
Jim Green 17 May 2023 2023, https://reneweconomy.com.au/coalition-clown-show-on-nuclear-on-full-display-in-senate-inquiry/
And it was an opportunity for culture warriors Matt Canavan and NSW Senator Hollie Hughes (Shadow Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) to compete with each other to see who could get the most column-inches in the Murdoch tabloids and the most air-time on Murdoch’s Sky TV.
Canavan said he is getting fitted out for a koala suit to protest the loss of habitat due to wind farms. His laptop was adorned with a ‘Proudly powered by Aussie coal’ sticker even though he was in the ACT, which is proudly 100 per cent net renewable powered.
Hughes insisted that federal legislation banning nuclear power is “ridiculous” and “embarrassing”. That would be the legislation introduced by John Howard’s Coalition government and left untouched by the Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison Coalition governments.
The Murdoch media dutifully parroted pro-nuclear nonsense from Monday’s hearing. But to his credit, News Corp’s national weekend political editor James Campbell noted that those “who seem keenest on nuclear energy as a solution to our climate change problems tend in many cases to be exactly the same people who up until five minutes ago were confidently telling us we didn’t need to worry about climate change at all.”
Hughes said last year that climate change is a “luxury issue”, that she opposed stronger emissions reduction targets, and that: “We could shut everything down tomorrow and all go live in trees.” As the Murdoch press noted, this was coming from the Coalition’s second most senior climate change spokesperson.
Public opinion
It was clear from Monday’s hearing that Coalition culture warriors are suffering under the delusion that nuclear power is popular, based on polls with loaded questions and/or tiny sample sizes.
The culture warriors are unaware of, or indifferent to, polls which find that support for nuclear power plummets if the question is posed as a local issue. A 2019 poll found that 28 percent of respondents “would be comfortable living close to a nuclear power plant” while 60 percent would not.
Another 2019 poll found that 19 percent of respondents would agree to a nuclear power plant being built in their area, 58 percent would be opposed and a further 23 percent would be “anxious”.
Inexplicably, Canavan said you “could call nuclear the great unifier”. In fact, the Howard government thought that promoting nuclear would be a great way to divide Labor and to divide the environment movement. It did neither, but it divided the Coalition with at least 22 Coalition candidates publicly distancing themselves from the government’s pro-nuclear policy during the 2007 election campaign.
More recently, Coalition members involved in a 2019 nuclear inquiry had to deal with submissions opposing nuclear power by the SA and Tasmanian Liberal/Coalition governments and the Queensland Liberal-National Party. Labor and environment groups were united in their opposition to nuclear power.
Each new generation of Coalition culture warriors needs to learn afresh that nuclear divides the Coalition, not Labor or the environment movement.
Small modular reactors
Attacking CSIRO for its GenCost nuclear cost estimates was a recurring theme at Monday’s hearing. CSIRO was accused of “cherry picking”, “misleading” the public, research which “doesn’t have much bearing on the real world”, and a “very incomplete process”.
Hughes said it is “misleading and deceptive” for CSIRO to cost small modular reactors (SMRs) but not large reactors. CSIRO doesn’t cost large reactors because the 2019 Coalition-led inquiry recommended retaining legislation banning large reactors. Ted O’Brien — chair of the 2019 inquiry and now the Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy — said “Australia should say a definite ‘no’ to old nuclear technologies”.
The Coalition culture warriors weren’t the least bit concerned about the difficulty of costing technologies which have no meaningful existence. Only two SMRs exist, one each in China and Russia, and those reactors don’t fit the SMR definition of serial factory construction of reactor modules.
The culture warriors were insistent that CSIRO should give much greater weight to ‘expert’ cost estimates, by which they mean vendor estimates. So let’s have a look at the track record of vendor estimates. The cost of China’s SMR was 2-3 times higher than early estimates. The cost of Russia’s SMR increased six-fold. The cost of the still-incomplete SMR in Argentina is more than 20 times higher than early estimates.
For large reactors, cost estimates for the only reactors under construction in the US have increased 12-fold. Cost estimates for the only reactors under construction in the UK have increased 8-fold. Cost estimates for the only reactor under construction in France have increased 6-fold. The current cost estimates for reactors under construction in those three countries range from A$25 billion to A$30 billion per reactor.
Yet the Coalition culture warriors think that vendor estimates should be taken as gospel and should underpin public policy making in Australia. CSIRO’s Paul Graham responded drily to the barrage of abuse: “We regard vendor estimates as the lowest quality data.
NuScale
One witness told the Senate committee that US company NuScale estimates a cost of $4,200 per kilowatt for its SMR. In fact, NuScale’s latest estimate is A$30,000 per kilowatt (A$14 billion for a 462 megawatt plant). Despite lavish government subsidies amounting to A$6.3 billion, NuScale is struggling to secure private-sector finance to get the project off the ground.
NuScale’s history can be traced to the turn of the century but it hasn’t even begun construction of a single reactor. Likewise, Argentina’s SMR project can be traced back to the last millennium but it hasn’t completed construction of a single reactor.
In 1990, the Coalition’s energy spokesperson claimed that “new-generation reactors … are now coming into use”. A third of a century later, and we’re still waiting.
James Voss, Managing Director of Ultra Safe Nuclear Australia Pty Ltd, falsely claimed at Monday’s Senate hearing that the company is building SMRs in North America (“our first two plants that we’re building now”). The company still needs licensing approvals and funding before it begins construction.
Voss claimed that the there should be no taxpayer subsidies to facilitate the introduction of SMRs to Australia — but the company would not have made the progress it has in North America without taxpayer subsidies and other forms of government support, and it will grind to a halt without further subsidies and support.
The British government in the mid-2000s insisted that new nuclear plants would not be subsidised. But the UK National Audit Office estimates that taxpayer subsidies for Hinkley Point — the only reactor construction project in the UK — could amount to £30 billion (A$52.5 billion) while other credible estimates put the figure as high as £48.3 billion (A$84.5 billion).
Minerals Council of Australia chief executive Tania Constable told the Senate committee there is no difference between SMRs and nuclear-powered submarine reactors. If that were the case the US and the UK — Australia’s AUKUS partners — would have plenty of SMRs given that they have nuclear-powered submarines. They have none.
History repeating itself
Historically, Coalition leaders have backed off nuclear power in the lead-up to elections. The Howard government wrapped up the Switkowski nuclear inquiry in unseemly haste in late-2006, and tried to avoid the issue in the 2007 election year.
The Morrison government didn’t even bother to respond to the December 2019 Coalition-led nuclear inquiry. Nor did the government act on the inquiry’s recommendation to amend legislation to allow for the construction of “new and emerging” nuclear power technologies.
When announcing the AUKUS agreement, Morrison insisted that nuclear powered submarines wouldn’t lead to a domestic nuclear industry in Australia.
But under Peter Dutton, who was spruiking SMRs in his budget reply speech, the Coalition has gone so far down the nuclear rabbit-hole that it will have little choice but to promise to repeal legislation banning nuclear power if it wins the next election.
The Coalition will lose the election, ditch the nuclear policy and probably ditch the leader as well – 2007 all over again.
Then the next batch of Coalition warriors will come up with the bright idea of dividing Labor and the environment movement by promoting nuclear power. Rinse and repeat.
Dr Jim Green is the national nuclear campaigner with Friends of the Earth Australia and lead author of a detailed submission to the Senate inquiry.
Labor, Greens & Defence Experts call for AUKUS Parliamentary Inquiry
A range of high-profile politicians, former military leaders and academic experts have signed an open letter calling for a Parliamentary Inquiry into the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine deal, appearing in full-page ads today in the Australian Financial Review.
The letter is signed by Senior Former Defence personnel, a former Labor Premier, two former Labor frontbenchers, and other politicians and high-profile individuals.
Experts warn that significant questions about AUKUS deal remain unanswered and require parliamentary scrutiny in the national interest.
Key Points:
- Signatories include Former Labor WA Premier the Hon. Carmen Lawrence AO, former Labor Minister the Hon. Peter Garrett AM, Former Shadow Minister Doug Cameron and Former Labor MP the Hon. Melissa Parke
- Senior Defence signatories include Former Chief of the Air Force Air Marshall Ray Funnell AC, and Former Dep. Commander of the UN Peacekeeping Operation in East Timor Major General Michael Smith AO.
- Greens signatories include Senator Penny Allman-Payne, Senator David Shoebridge and Senator Jordan Steele-John
- Signatories include former MPs Tony Windsor AM and Dr. Rob Oakeshott
- Military, political, and academic experts and leaders have called for a parliamentary inquiry into AUKUS, citing a range of concerns including:
- The $268-$368 billion cost to the budget
- The proposed approximate four-decade timeframe for delivery
- The lack of workforce and skills to operate nuclear powered hardware.
- Sovereignty and strategic policy concerns for Australia
- Australia’s nuclear waste and NPT obligations
“For a policy of this magnitude and strategic significance, the AUKUS deal for nuclear-powered submarines has been politically rushed. It requires appropriate scrutiny in the national interest,” said Allan Behm, Director of the Australia Institute’s International & Security Affairs Program.
“At $268-368b this is one of the most expensive spending commitments ever made in Defence, with huge implications for our sovereignty that rightly require appropriate Parliamentary oversight.
“Experts and leaders across military, political and academic spheres hold substantial concerns which remain unanswered. Questions about our sovereignty, Australia’s obligations under the NPT, our ability to manage nuclear waste and our workforce gaps in operating nuclear-powered submarines are all outstanding.
“It’s only appropriate that the Australian people and the Parliament are given the opportunity to have their questions answered.”
1 This month
Help Aunty Sue Protect Her Land and Sacred Sites From Destructive Rocket Testing.
.
Australians deserve the truth
about
AUKUS – https://aukuspublicinquiry.com/
PETITION – To: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Australian Labor Government
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
