Antinuclear

NACC handed naval contracts corruption case back to Defence

Not the first time NACC has asked Defence to investigate itsel

Former senior naval officer to face general court martial in Canberra in September

Michelle Fahy, Jul 29, 2026, https://undueinfluence.substack.com/p/nothing-to-see-here-says-australia

Last week, reports from The Nightly and the ABC revealed details of a case involving a recently retired senior naval officer facing a court martial on eight separate charges relating to naval sustainment contracts at the Henderson shipyard near Perth.

Further details emerged over the weekend that the defence department had initially referred the matter to the National Anti-Corruption Commission but the watchdog handed the case back to Defence. (See non-paywall version.)

A NACC spokesperson said:

As it is now in the public domain, we confirm that the Department of Defence did refer this matter to the Commission in compliance with their mandatory reporting obligations under the National Anti-Corruption Commission Act 2022.

Beyond this, it is not appropriate for us to comment further as this matter is subject to suppression orders.

The NACC would not say whether it was continuing its own separate investigation into the matter.

Defence minister Richard Marles told the ABC he thought the court martial process was “appropriate”, but refused to comment further

Court martial proceedings set for September

The ADF’s chief judge advocate, Major General Michael Cowen KC, has issued a non-publication order suppressing the accused person’s name, saying the person should be referred to only by the pseudonym, “star ranked officer in the Royal Australian Navy, Officer Brown”. ‘Star ranked’ refers to the top ranks of the navy and includes admirals, vice-admirals, rear-admirals and commodores.

A five-day pre-trial hearing was held at HMAS Stirling naval base in Western Australia in June. Another pre-trial hearing is scheduled to start on September 1 at a military facility in Canberra. The court martial is set to commence at the same facility on September 14, running for up to six weeks.

Figures familiar with the allegations told The Nightly last week that due to the seniority of the accused it was initially difficult to find senior officers to take part in the court martial who were not conflicted. Those figures also said the case will examine interactions between the government’s former weapons-buying group – Capability and Sustainment Group (CASG) – and several large companies who completed sustainment projects at Henderson shipyard.

It is unclear exactly when the alleged wrongdoing took place. The Nightly reported that the activity under investigation occurred during the previous Coalition government, before the Albanese government took power in 2022.

Not the first time NACC has asked Defence to investigate itself

In late 2024, Undue Influence reported on another known defence-related corruption matter where, having received a referral from Defence, the NACC sent the matter back to Defence for investigation. That matter related to a billion-dollar munitions factory contract between Defence and the Australian subsidiary of French multinational arms-maker Thales. Defence said it was “unable to substantiate the allegation”. The NACC has made no further statements on the Thales matter and it is unclear whether it remains under investigation.

‘Nothing to see here’ says Australia as third Thales corruption case starts globally https://undueinfluence.substack.com/p/nothing-to-see-here-says-australia

July 30, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets and lies | Leave a comment

“Intolerable pressure”. Inside the Israel lobby campaign to coerce regulators on antisemitism

by Wendy Bacon and Stephanie Tran | Jul 17, 2026 , https://michaelwest.com.au/intolerable-pressure-inside-the-israel-lobby-campaign-to-coerce-regulators-on-antisemitism/

The health regulator AHPRA was “forced into a massive capitulation” to adopt the hardcore IHRA definition of antisemitism. Wendy Bacon and Stephanie Tran investigate.

A Zionist doctor has claimed that AHPRA CEO Justin Untersteiner “was forced into a massive capitulation with IHRA”.

The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Authority (AHPRA) recently introduced the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism which puts healthcare workers at risk for criticising Israel.

The Zionist doctor, Doron Samuell, alleges that he was part of a campaign that “exerted intolerable political pressure” on AHPRA to adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism.

IHRA resisted for two years

AHPRA, which regulates the conduct of 900,000 Australian healthcare workers, had resisted pressure to adopt the IHRA definition for two years. 

However, on June 17, the health regulator shifted its position unexpectedly and without consultation when CEO Justin Untersteiner issued a joint statement with the Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism, Jillian Segal announcing the adoption of the definition and that Segal’s guidance handbook would be used as a tool in handling complaints. 

Thousands of health care workers, and many organisations including the Australian Nurses and Midwifery Federation, NSW Civil Liberties Council and Medical Association for Prevention of War have called for AHPRA to reverse its decision and continue to rely on its existing framework in dealing with complaints of racism including antisemitism. 

In response, Israel’s Foreign Ministry pressured the Australian government to “confront antisemitism in healthcare” in a post on X on Sunday.

AHPRA subjected to “intolerable pressure” from Israel lobby

The ‘intolerable pressure’ claims were made by “Aba Shesh”, a social media pseudonym linked to the Facebook account used by Dr Doron Samuell, a member of the Australian Zionist Healthcare Alliance (AZHA).

Dr Samuell’s comments were made in response to a post on ‘Jews of Melbourne’ (JOM) Facebook page drawing members’ attention to a Civil Liberties Defence Centre (CLDC) webinar presented by its chairperson, lawyer Nick Hanna. The webinar was an educational briefing for healthcare workers on the implications of AHPRA’s adoption of the IHRA definition . 

A member of the Jews Of Melbourne group predicted there would be

“lots of “antisemitism” at the webinar which members could monitor and report to AHPRA.”

In response, “Aba Shesh” described Untersteiner as an “unthinking bureaucrat” who “repeatedly minimised the problem until his hand was forced”.

Samuell lamented that Untersteiner “said the right things and even visited a shule but AHPRA sat on their hands, receiving vexatious complaints for two years until we exerted intolerable political pressure on them to act.” 

Samuell stated that Untersteiner “was forced into a massive capitulation with IHRA”.

Last year, Samuell claimed he was responsible for the cancellation of a staff forum on Children and War at the Royal Children’s Hospital.

MWM sent detailed questions to Untersteiner and provided him with an opportunity to respond to the comments. Instead of specific answers, AHPRA provided us with a general statement. AHPRA’s full response is below.

MWM also contacted Samuell for comment, he did not provide a response.

Several healthcare professionals who opposed the change said they met with senior AHPRA officials, including Untersteiner, earlier this year to argue against adopting the IHRA definition.

One doctor, who requested anonymity because of concerns of professional repercussions, said senior leadership were presented with medical evidence of the genocide and concerns that the IHRA definition would be used to silence doctors.

“As well as presenting the overwhelming amount of medical evidence of genocide and the silencing of healthcare workers as an apparatus of genocide, we also focused on the concern of the IHRA definition being used to silence doctors who openly support human rights,” they said.

Jerusalem definition preferred

The doctor said they proposed the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism as an alternate definition.

“We provided an alternative definition on antisemitism, the Jerusalem definition, should it be necessary to single out one group for a separate definition on discrimination.”

The doctor said Untersteiner told them he had publicly rejected the IHRA definition and discussed pressure the regulator was facing from Israel lobby groups.

“Untersteiner said he has publicly rejected the IHRA definition but when pressed to provide this in writing later, AHPRA did not,” the doctor said.

“[Untersteiner] also expressed some of the personal stress he was under due to the Zionist groups and in particular from doctors like Doron Samuell. It appeared to be genuine and heartfelt.” 

MWM put those claims to Untersteiner, who declined to comment. 

The doctor expressed concern that AHPRA’s decision to adopt IHRA will encourage vexatious complaints against practitioners, an anxiety shared by thousands of other healthcare workers.

“AHPRA’s statement on the IHRA definition will embolden the Zionists to ramp up their vexatious complaint campaign,” they said.

Path to capitulation 

Samuell told the Facebook group that “with my pressure, the Minister issued a directive for Justin to remedy the situation and gave him 6 months to do it” yet, “when he reported back 7+ months later, he was still refusing to define antisemitism”.

In September 2025, health ministers directed APHRA to provide a six monthly report on “Improving the health practitioner response to racism and discrimination, including antisemitism”. AHPRA established a Racism and Discrimination Committee to provide an action plan.

Minister for Health, Mark Butler did not respond to questions on the matter.

In February 2026, Untersteiner was pressured by Senator Andrew Bragg in Senate Estimates to adopt the IHRA definition.

“I’m wondering why you haven’t decided to adopt a clear definition of antisemitism. We’ve just had a religious massacre in Australia where antisemitism was a key driver. So I’m wondering why you haven’t adopted one,” Bragg asked.

In response, Untersteiner said the issue was a “live discussion” however, “the vast majority of practitioners do the right thing and they comply with our codes of conduct” and “in the very few cases where they don’t, we do believe that we’ve got the tools to be able to deal with that effectively.”

The Segal meetings

When pressed further to explain why he had not adopted the IHRA definition, Untersteiner said he had been meeting with Jillian Segal “on a regular basis”.

“I’ve been meeting with the special envoy on a regular basis. I think we’ve been able to work quite well together,” Untersteiner told the Committee.

On 13 April 2026, AHPRA’s Race and Discrimination Committee submitted its report responding to the Ministerial directive. In his posts, Samuell objected to the composition of the committee because it

“included a Jewish person who had been critical of Israel.”

The report stated that “the National Code of Conduct sets out clear expectations that registered health practitioners will deliver care that is culturally safe and free from discriminatory behaviours.” There was an action plan for strengthening AHPRA’s anti-racism approach but no mention of the IHRA definition.

On April 24, Special Envoy Segal released the Understanding Antisemitism in Australia handbook.

On May 1, the Health Ministers accepted AHPRA’s report and it was published on AHPRA’s website. 

APHRA’s usual practice is to publish communiques on its Board meetings shortly after they occur. Communiques have not been published for the May and June meetings. 

Call for Untersteiner sacking

AHPRA declined to supply us with copies of those communiques so it is unclear whether the Board approved the use of the IHRA definition in these meetings.

On May 6, Samuell expressed his frustration with AHPRA in a podcast episode published by “The Israel Connexion”. 

During the interview, Samuell said that AZHA had called for Untersteiner’s sacking in its submission to the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion.  

“AHPRA has dropped the ball. Now we’re making a submission to the Royal Commission, calling on the Health Minister to sack Justin Untersteiner for the role that he has played in this,” he said.

“Antagonistic to Israel”

“We’ve outlined in our submission a large number of failures. For example, there are governance problems in AHPRA. There are board members in AHPRA who are on the public record as being antagonistic to Israel.” Samuell said.

“I know from their own staff, many of whom have been in private communications with me, that they are not taking this matter seriously at all. They’ve breached their social contract with us. [Untersteiner] is not the person that can fix this situation.”

Samuell told Israel Connexion that AZHA has encouraged “practitioners and patients in the health sector to make submissions to the Royal Commission into Antisemitism through [AZHA] website” and is “synthesising the submissions into a discussion paper for the Royal Commission” by applying the IHRA definition.

The result is a “whole of sector submission” developed by applying “social theories about what is going on and what should happen to remedy it.”

MWM is not asserting that any of the public allegations against AHPRA are true. In the absence of responses from AHRPA or Samuell on these matters, we are reporting them in the interests of transparency.

Zionist Healthcare Alliance attacks on AHPRA

Samuell is one of several Zionist health workers who represent the Australian Zionist Healthcare Alliance (AZHA). 

The AZHA was launched in October last year. It describes itself as “Australia’s first dedicated Zionist healthcare advocacy organisation” 

AZHA’s most vocal member is public affairs officer Sharon Stoliar who helped found AZHA last year. 

Ten days after the IHRA definition announcement, on June 27, Stoliar was featured in a major report by The Australian titled “How did hospitals become the front line in the antisemitic onslaught?”.

The report accused AHPRA of ignoring an “unprecedented explosion of antisemitism” and said Australian health care workers were amplifying anti-Jewish hate speech” and deliberating neglecting or harming Jewish patients. 

Royal Commission hearsay

Stoliar told The Australian that she hoped to give evidence at the Royal Commission.

Stoliar is quoted describing an incident in which a woman in a Sydney hospital was “left to lie in a pool of blood with no pain relief” while her baby screamed in its cot alongside hers. 

She has also claimed that an antisemitic health care workers caused a Jewish person to have a ‘forced abortion’. 

No evidence is provided to support these hearsay claims which Stoliar has repeated in an interview with Israel’s Channel 12. 

The Australian article has taken on a life of its own being regurgitated in various forms in Australian and Israeli media. The Channel 12 broadcast was reposted on Facebook and Instagram by the Zionist Federation of Australia. Collectively these posts have triggered a large amount of hate against Australia health workers and precipitated the Israeli Ministry for Foreign Affairs tweet this week. 

AHPRA’s response

Rather than responding to our questions, AHPRA supplied MWM with a statement similar to one it has sent to thousands of healthcare workers who signed letters expressing opposition to its adoption of the IHRA definition. 

AHPRA appears keen to allay the concerns of its registered health care workers. It emphasises that ”there is no place for racism or discrimination in healthcare”, and that it will deal with complaints on an individual basis. An AHPRA spokesperson provided the following explanation for the sudden change:

Ahpra had initially not adopted the IHRA definition, as we felt there was insufficient clarity between legitimate commentary and debate regarding the policies and actions of the state of Israel and its elected leaders, and antisemitism. However, the Special Envoy on Antisemitism’s handbook is designed to support use of the definition by distinguishing ‘between antisemitism and legitimate political debate, including on the topic of Israel’.

It is on that basis that Ahpra will use the IHRA definition as a reference tool where relevant, supported by the ASECA handbook, when considering regulatory responses. As a reference tool, the definition is not legally binding. There are no changes to the National Codes or the guidance that supports them.

AHPRA’s explanation is surprising. The handbook itself exacerbates concerns with the IHRA definition. For example, Segal’s examples suggest that it is antisemitic to say that Israel is a ‘racist project’ or that Israel is ‘committing genocide’, views that are widely held by numerous international law experts and humanitarian organisations. 

The Genocide continues

Daily, the genocide continues. Israel has murdered thousands of healthcare workers in Gaza and devastated its healthcare system. 

Last week the UN Commission of Inquiry on Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel demanded that Israel release Gaza paediatrician Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya who has been imprisoned without charge and tortured by Israel for over 18 months. 

Australian health care workers are mobilising and have formed a new national coalition. Yesterday, the Australian Healthcare Alliance 4 Palestine, encompassing hundreds of thousands of registered doctors, nurses and dentists, wrote a letter to AHPRA asking it to “provide full transparency regarding the governance, consultation and decision-making processes” that led to the decision to adopt the IHRA definition.

The Alliance said that health practitioners have “an ethical responsibility to advocate for our patients, our colleagues and the healthcare system” and called on AHPRA to rescind its decision. 

Wendy Bacon

Wendy Bacon is an investigative journalist who was the Professor of Journalism at UTS. She worked for Fairfax, Channel Nine and SBS and has published in The Guardian, New Matilda, City Hub and Overland. She has a long history in promoting independent and alternative journalism.

She is a long-term supporter of a peaceful BDS and the Greens.

Stephanie Tran

Stephanie is a journalist with a background in both law and journalism. She has worked at The Guardian and as a paralegal, where she assisted Crikey’s defence team in the high-profile defamation case brought by Lachlan Murdoch. Her reporting has been recognised nationally, earning her the 2021 Democracy’s Watchdogs Award for Student Investigative Reporting and a nomination for the 2021 Walkley Student Journalist of the Year Award.

July 27, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets and lies | Leave a comment

Close that Facility: The 2026 Pine Gap Protests

Dr Binoy Kampmark, 21 July 2026, https://theaimn.net/close-that-facility-the-2026-pine-gap-protests/ 

It remains a prickly reminder that Australia remains an embarrassed vassal of power, annexed to the security interests of another state basking in imperial and fast diminishing splendour. Pine Gap, known more technically as the Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap (JDFPG), is a largely US-operated effort in Alice Springs, Central Australia. As the late scholar of strategic studies Desmond Ball pithily remarked in 1988, it is “an espionage operation.

Euphemisms should not be allowed to obscure this essential point.” It grew out of a desire on the part of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 1965 to establish a remote Australian-sited ground control station intended for signals intelligence satellites. Land belonging to the Central Arrernte people was accordingly excised the following year for the site. The decision, in typically rough fashion, was made without consultation and discussion with local residents or elders, a secret place that became what Trevor Paglen would describe as a “blank space on the map … erased from the public record.”

The facility staffs some 800 personnel from the US National Security Agency (NSA), CIA, the US National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) and such Australian agencies as the Australian Signals Directorate and Australian Federal Police. Over the years, the base has become increasingly corporatised with a heavy American accent: Raytheon, Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics, IBM and Hewlett Packard. A mere 10% of the constituted personnel are said to be Australian government employees.

The base periodically attracts its keen and principled protesters, aghast at the base’s role in furnishing targeting data for US and allied drone and missile strikes across the Middle East and Africa. This year, the Close Pine Gap-Sacred Land Back convergence featured three days (July 18-20) of activities, with hundreds of participants gathered in Alice Springs to demand the closure of the facility through a series of workshops, panels and woven “threads of anti-militarism and decolonial movements.”

On July 20, a rally of 300 individuals gathered close to the front of the spy base, the largest since 1987, sporting signs and flags and chanting the stock phrases: “shut it down”, “close Pine Gap”, and “always was, always will be Aboriginal land.” New South Wales Greens Senator David Shoebridge was present, expressing his concern about a “foreign military base set up for the interests of a foreign military” in the service of “right wing politics” and disrespectful of international law. The base was also a potential target for any adversaries the US might be willing to antagonise, thereby bringing “danger into the heart of our country.”

Arrernte Apmereke-artweye traditional custodians Felicity, Wyonna and Jacquita Hayes offer sound if disturbing logic, as reported by the Australian Associated Press: Pine Gap sits on a sacred site that not only profanes tradition but acts as vehicle for the waging of foreign wars and the conduct of genocide. “We don’t want to be feeling guilty all the time when bad things are happening overseas to little ones.  We’re not the ones controlling that facility, but we feel guilty that it’s coming to our land.”

The custodians wished for the facility to be closed “so the generation coming can be safe. We want to be compensated so we can get houses at Whitegate community.” It is also with some astonishment that the residents of Whitegate, to this day, are deprived of rudimentary services, including decent housing and running water. The water has to be brought in by truck. There is no sewerage.

Richard Tanter of the Nautilus Institute, one of Pine Gap’s most astute and flawlessly detailed critics, proved ever reliable in remarking that, “Unless the Australian direct and indirect military relationship to Israeli activities in the Gaza Strip are closely reviewed … it is not possible for the Australian government to assure parliament and the Australian public that Australia is no complicit in acts of genocide.” The good professor has been able to shed much light on the facility’s broader purposes and is dismissive of critics who fault claims that the site is being used to feed such military efforts as those of Israel. (He can point to at least three satellites having the Gaza Strip within their reach.) In October 1973, for instance, satellite intelligence from Pine Gap was passed on to Israel during the Yom Kippur War, a contribution that aided Israel’s breakthrough of the Egyptian lines.

This is of little concern to the clubland militarists in Canberra and such think tanks as the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. Former intelligence officer Patrick White, writing for ASPI’s The Strategist, laments the diminished secrecy and security of the site, worrying that trends in signals technology have no longer made the base “irreplaceable”. The advent of extensive encryption means that satellite download feeds can be protected “almost anywhere. The remoteness that once hid the site from view no longer hides much at all.” He is sentimental about the ties with Washington. “We have shared in intelligence and expertise far beyond anything our own resources could produce. We have no satellites of this kind.” Precisely why Canberra is blood-crusted in its complicity, less an authoritative host than a butler eager to please.

Pine Gap acts, then, as a symbol of highly distilled, triple strength colonisation: a garrison outpost dominated by the US imperium and its personnel (a poke in the eye of Australian sovereignty), located on native land it defiles (a poke in the eye of the First Nations peoples), and also responsible for aiding the predations of Washington’s allies – more recently the Israeli Defense Forces in its cleansing conflict against the Palestinians. “I understand the genocide in Gaza against my people is made possible by intelligence flowing from the heart of this colony in Alice Springs directly to the Israeli occupation forces,” stated Palestinian activist Remah Naji of Justice for Palestine Magan-djin with potency. Shoebridge agreed: “We’re letting them use our land, this key real estate, I think [to] commit some of the worst atrocities we’ve seen.”

As the AUKUS Public Inquiry continues its various hearings on that ghastly, doomed security pact between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, the Close Pine Gap campaign should be commended as a linked, worthy extension. The former’s proceedings have been mostly savaging the wisdom of a pact that has shown Australia to be embarrassingly disadvantaged, its politicians largely deluded, and its strategic establishment impressionable and bankrupt. (That establishment seeks to bankrupt the Australian treasury to the princely sum of AU$368 billion over promised nuclear-powered submarines that may never arrive.) The Close Pine Gap protests, while receiving less in the way of coverage, is no less pertinent and urgent in its aims.

July 26, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets and lies | Leave a comment

Senior naval officer facing court martial over naval contracts – breaking news from WA

Defence accused of trying to bury details of a high-level investigation into handling of lucrative naval defence contracts by a former senior naval figure

Michelle Fahy, Jul 21, 2026, https://undueinfluence.substack.com/p/senior-naval-officer-facing-court?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=297295&post_id=207838287&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

A secretive court martial process is under way in Western Australia involving a recently retired officer, The Nightly’s Andrew Greene has reported.

The Nightly said it understands the accused had left the Australian Defence Force in the past few years and will soon be subjected to a court martial on eight separate but unspecified charges.

Former senior Defence official Michael Shoebridge said he believes the entire process should be handled by a regular civil court, rather than kept inside the military justice system.

“The alleged offences are probably also offences under civilian law, so the better approach is a standard — open and public — prosecution in a civil court,” Shoebridge told The Nightly. “Instead, this just looks like the Defence leadership and ministers trying to keep this away from the public.”

Another defence industry figure familiar with details of the case backed the assessment, telling The Nightly they believed the military establishment was trying to “bury” the case from public view.

Figures familiar with the allegations have told The Nightly that due to the seniority of the accused ADF member it was initially difficult to find senior officers to take part in the court martial who were not conflicted.

Those figures told The Nightly the complex case will also examine interactions between the government weapons-buying group – Capability and Sustainment Group (CASG) – and several large companies who completed sustainment projects at Henderson shipyard.

The Nightly said it understands the activity under investigation occurred during the previous Coalition government and before the Albanese government took power in 2022.

It is unclear why the matter is being handled by a military disciplinary process rather than a civilian court.

Read The Nightly’s full story here.

July 24, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets and lies | Leave a comment

‘Height of unfairness’: Former SA senator slams government over AUKUS nuclear waste move

Adrian Zorzut 15 July 26, https://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/military/height-of-unfairness-former-sa-senator-slams-government-over-aukus-nuclear-waste-move/news-story/1cfe188f41d9b5530b81e065a4656ebc

The government has an AUKUS program, which they also have to justify to the Australian public but also that they have thought about and have a proper proposal to deal with the waste that will inevitably come from that program. And we know these sorts of topics are controversial. The government needs to gain a social licence and secrecy is not the way to do that,”

As plans to develop nuclear submarines under the AUKUS deal move ahead, the government is being coy about where they’re going to dump nuclear waste.

A former South Australian senator has slammed the federal government for refusing to release information about potential storage sites for nuclear waste that comes from AUKUS submarines.

Rex Patrick said the Australian public had a right to know where hazardous spent fuel from nuclear-powered submarines will be buried and shot down claims the information was a national security secret.

The former submariner turned politician is now considering taking the government to court after they refused three Freedom of Information (FoI) requests.

Mr Patrick wants Canberra to disclose the cost and potential locations for a storage facility as well as a cabinet report on this topic.

“Sensitive is not a ground for exemption. There is no military sensitivity in the storage of nuclear waste. Information about the submarines themselves will potentially attract a national security exemption, but the waste that comes from them has nothing to do with engaging in conflict or defending the country,” he told news.com.au.

“It’s incidental to the project but obviously a significant problem that needs to be addressed. It’s not like someone can build a facility in complete secrecy.”

Mr Patrick, who was an independent SA senator between 2017 and 2022, partially won a court order to cap maximum legal costs he’d have to pay if he lost an appeal against the government to $20,000. Without the cap, the former senator claims he’d face a legal bill of up to $150,000.

Handing down his finding on Monday, July 13, federal court judge O’Sullivan said the information Mr Rex’s was seeking was “a matter of significant public interest,” but stopped short of the senator’s request for a $5,000 cap on legal expenses, a copy of the judgement shows.

Mr Patrick wants to fundraise the cash but said there is no point unless he has a shot of winning his case in court and is consulting with a lawyer on what to do next.

“I’m not in the court to run litigation needlessly. I’m focused on the document and now I need to react,” he said.

‘There will be a cost’

Mr Patrick said he lodged a FoI request for a cabinet report on potential storage sites, which was knocked back by the government and the Administration Review Tribunal (ART) – a watchdog for administrative decisions made by government ministers.

The former parliamentarian plans to appeal and claims the sections of the report he is seeking are not exempt from Freedom of Information laws and are of tantamount interest to the public.

He is also separately challenging a successful appeal by the government to stop the release of other related paperwork he was due.

He claims the government wants him to cover up to $150,000 in its legal fees if he loses.

Mr Patrick won an ART decision in May to access the paperwork which helped develop the cabinet report. The government immediately appealed the decision. The parties are expected to battle it out in court.

“That’s an awful situation for me and for you as a journalist. To win an FoI in a tribunal and have the government appeal it and say if you don’t win this, you will be charged $150,000. I think that is the height of unfairness from the government,” he said.

“The whole point of the FoI regime is to allow people to get access to information, to participate in democracy, to scrutinise the government and what this does is signal that if you win, there will be a cost.”

A spokesperson from the Department of Industry, Science and Resources told news.com.au, “As this matter is before the court it would not be appropriate to comment.”

This month, Jacqui Lambie, Pauline Hanson and David Pocock were just some of 18 independent and minor-party members to pen a letter urging Attorney-General Michelle Rowland to intervene in the public interest.

“It is clear to us that this is an attack on our freedom-of-information regime, with the intent of deterring Australians from pursuing access to information,” they said, according to The Guardian.

“Dragging an ordinary citizen, self-represented and under threat of costs, to argue questions of law raised by the government is most unfair.”

Mr Patrick said a third FoI request is before the Information Commissioner. Mr Patrick submitted a request for the latest cost estimates for a facility with the Australian Submarine Agency but was told they couldn’t find them – a response he said was an “extraordinary situation” for an organisation that is supposed to cost projects from cradle to grave, a submission to an independent inquiry into AUKUS shows.

Mr Patrick said he believes an underground storage facility could cost “billions” to build and up to $30m a year to maintain.

‘Nothing stopping the PM’

Mr Patrick, who calls himself a transparency warrior, said the documents were a “significant public policy interest”.

“The government governs for us. The government has an AUKUS program, which they also have to justify to the Australian public but also that they have thought about and have a proper proposal to deal with the waste that will inevitably come from that program. And we know these sorts of topics are controversial. The government needs to gain a social licence and secrecy is not the way to do that,” he said.

The former submariner suggested because a storage facility isn’t needed until a nuclear-powered submarine is nearing decommissioning, the government is refusing to make a decision or release information. The average lifespan of a nuclear sub is 33 years, he said.

Mr Patrick added at least one site is needed to bury spent fuel and the decommissioned reactor inside the submarine. He said reactor components are generally buried in a shallow facility while spent fuel needs cooling before it is buried deep underground.

“These are politically-sensitive and emotional issues that the government is seeking to kick down the road, possibly to a time period where they’re not even in power,” he said.

“The government just really doesn’t want to deal with this publicly because it’s a politically controversial topic.”

Mr Patrick is calling on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to release the cabinet report, which the government is claiming to be exempt from FoI laws.

“Even if the document is a cabinet document, there is nothing stopping the prime minister from releasing it and the prime minister is at liberty to do that and he hasn’t.”

The Department of Industry, Science and Resources, the Prime Minister’s Office and the Australian Submarine Agency have been contacted for comment.

July 21, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets and lies | Leave a comment

Vile abuse, targeted by Murdoch – The cost of speaking out against Israel

by Stephanie Tran | Jul 2, 2026, https://michaelwest.com.au/hitlers-jew-judenrat-kapo-the-cost-of-speaking-out-against-israel/

Executive Director of the Jewish Council of Australia, Sarah Schwartz, has told the Bondi Royal Commission of sustained abuse by pro-Israel activists. Stephanie Tran reports.

Giving evidence on Thursday, Sarah Schwartz, a human rights lawyer, said attacks from pro-Israel groups sought to delegitimise Jewish people who criticise Israel.

“They rest on the idea that Jewish identity is inherently tied to Israel, and therefore Jewish people who don’t support Israel or who criticise Israel are not really Jewish and are traitors,” she told the Commission.

Schwartz said she had been referred to as a “self-hating Jew”, “Hitler’s Jew”, “kapo” and “Judenrat”, and had been depicted using Holocaust imagery, including “on a train to concentration camps” and with the yellow Star of David imposed on Jews under Nazi rule.

Holocaust weaponised

She said the atrocities of the Holocaust were a motivation for her Palestine solidarity work and the weaponisation by pro-Israel accounts of Holocaust imagery was “incredibly disturbing”.

“I was taught that never again meant never again for anyone, and that’s why I do the work that I do,” Schwartz said.

“To have the symbols of the Holocaust and Nazi imagery and Jewish persecution used against me has been incredibly disturbing and distressing, and I think it

Schwartz said the stereotype that all Jewish people are politically aligned with Israel “causes immense harm”.

“I speak … almost every day to Jewish people who contact me and who are terrified of speaking out, because they know that if they speak their political convictions, they face the risk of a similar sort of abuse and vilification and targeting that I have experienced.”

Murdoch media coverage fuelled abuse

Schwartz told the commission that reporting by The Australian undermined her safety and ultimately led her to abandon a police application intended to protect her from ongoing harassment.

She recounted an incident in March 2025 after police applied for a personal safety intervention order (PSIO) on her behalf against lawyer Zara Cooper, who targeted Schwartz on Instagram under the pseudonym “@clammy_fraud”.

Schwartz said she first learned of the application through a journalist from The Australian, who contacted her to say the newspaper was preparing a story.

“I informed him I hadn’t been informed of the nature of the PSIO,” she said.

“When I asked him if he could provide me with a copy, he said he couldn’t provide me with a copy … because I didn’t know its contents, I also couldn’t really respond to a lot of it, because it was a police application.”

Schwartz said the following day’s front-page article incorrectly suggested she, rather than police, had initiated the proceedings in an attempt to suppress free speech.

Free speech for me, not for thee

he told the Commission that The Australian subsequently published further articles about the case, including reproducing images and slurs that formed part of the material relied upon by police in seeking the intervention order.

“What was most distressing to me is The Australian chose to republish some of the offensive imagery that was the basis on which police applied for the PSIO,” she said.

“[The Australian] republished content that took my image and placed it on a train to concentration camps, content calling me a kapo and other various slurs.”

Schwartz said the coverage convinced her that pursuing legal protection would expose her to further public attention and place her at greater risk.

“It became very clear to me after that coverage that this was becoming a media circus,” she said.

“Having reported these matters to police … was actually something that was

“going to make me less safe because of the media coverage.”

She subsequently told police she no longer wished to proceed with the intervention order, and the application was withdrawn. She has since been reluctant to report further incidents because she fears doing so would attract similar publicity.

“It’s become very clear to me that, because of the media interest in me as a person, but particularly because of News Corp’s targeting of me, it’s not going to be safe for me to engage in reporting,” she said.

She also expressed concern that republishing the abusive material normalised antisemitic attacks against Jewish critics of Israel.

“I think that media reporting really normalises the use of these terms against other Jewish people … people see that coverage and think that it is legitimate to call a Jewish person Nazi-aligned or to place our face on a train to concentration camps.”

Being Pro-Palestine is not antisemitism

Schwartz dispelled suggestions that pro-Palestinian activism is a significant driver of antisemitism, stating that, despite attempts to portray Palestine solidarity spaces as hostile to Jews, that had not reflected her own experience.

“I know that there is a lot of public discourse … that suggests that human rights spaces and Palestine solidarity spaces, in particular, are spaces that might be hostile to Jewish people,” she said.

“That hasn’t been my experience at all.”

Instead, Schwartz said she had received “many messages of support and clear condemnations of antisemitism” from Muslim colleagues following the Bondi terror attack.

Government response

Schwartz criticised the government’s responses to antisemitism, which have disproportionately focused on the Palestine solidarity movement, including the banning of protest slogans.

“I think that government responses, which locate the source of anti-Semitism within the Palestine solidarity movement, suggest for Jewish people who are also part of that movement that either we’re not really Jewish or that we are somehow against Jewish people in our own communities.”

Asked what measures would most effectively combat antisemitism, Schwartz said governments should prioritise addressing far-right extremism and

“It’s really important for us to take the threat of far-right extremism really seriously … we know that it’s rising and it’s becoming more mainstream,” she said.

“It is critically important that governments and institutions don’t adopt policies in response to antisemitism that engage in that form of conflation itself that suggests that antisemitism is coming from the Palestine solidarity movement.”

She also called for progressive Jewish organisations to be included in policymaking on antisemitism.

“It’s really important that organisations such as the Jewish Council and other progressive Jewish organizations actually have a seat at the table” she said.

“It shows the broader community that

“the Jewish community, like every community, has a diversity of opinions.”

July 11, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets and lies | Leave a comment

Royal Commission on cohesion hears only half the story

the same evening news that reports rising antisemitism in Australia – correctly, and without my objection – routinely fails to report the parallel rise in anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian abuse, the vandalised mosques, the women afraid to wear hijab in public, the children told by implication that their faith makes them suspect

By Wayne Hawkins | 2 July 2026, https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/royal-commission-on-cohesion-hears-only-half-the-story,21247

Australia’s Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion risks undermining its own purpose by excluding evidence of Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism, writes Wayne Hawkins.

AUSTRALIA’S Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion is now in its third Sydney hearing block, running until 10 July.

It was established in January, in the aftermath of the Bondi Beach attack that killed 15 people on a night meant for celebration. Nobody disputes that the Commission has real work to do. The rise in antisemitic incidents recorded since October 2023 is documented, severe and deserving of the most rigorous scrutiny our institutions can offer.

But an inquiry into hatred reveals something about itself in who it decides not to hear from. And on that count, this Commission has already answered the question.

In May, the Loud Jewish Collective applied for leave to appear before the first hearing block, wanting to give evidence about their own members’ experiences of antisemitism. They were refused — the Commissioner was, in the words used to reject them, “not satisfied” that they had a direct and substantial interest in the matter.

The Australian Palestine Advocacy Network met the same fate. Two organisations, both with members who have lived antisemitism or anti-Palestinian racism directly, both judged to be outside the scope of an inquiry into hatred and social cohesion in Australia.

I find it hard to read that as anything other than a decision about which Australians get to define what cohesion means.

I wrote a parliamentary submission earlier this year arguing that Islamophobia is racism — not by analogy, not as a lesser cousin of antisemitism, but structurally, mechanistically, the same thing happening to a different group. Collective blame. The demand that an entire community continuously prove its loyalty to the actions of people who share only its faith. The recasting of legitimate  political grievance – in this case, mass civilian death in Gaza – as evidence of an inherent, civilisational danger.

These are not two separate phenomena needing two separate inquiries that never speak to each other. They are the same mechanism, pointed in two directions at once, often by the same actors in the same news cycle.

The Commission’s own proceedings have illustrated the problem it was never asked to examine. Commissioner Virginia Bell described the 7 October attack, in passing, as a “Hamas invasion”, a characterisation that quietly recasts a population under decades of occupation as the invading force on their own land.

Witnesses in an SBS News report on the second hearing block have testified to being “tired” of seeing Palestinian flags at cultural events, of overhearing artists call for a free Palestine, of having to scroll past footage of starvation in Gaza on their phones.

These are real discomforts and I don’t dismiss them. But an Inquiry that treats a 45-second elevator ride past distressing news as a harm worth recording, while refusing entry to the people living the underlying catastrophe, has told us where its sympathies sit before a single recommendation is written. 

This is not a call to relitigate the Commission’s right to exist, or to diminish what Jewish Australians have endured since the Bondi attack and well before it. It is a call to notice the asymmetry, because the asymmetry is the story.

No one has asked Christian Australians to account for Christian nationalist violence as the price of being heard on social cohesion. No one demands that Buddhist or Hindu Australians distance themselves from documented nationalist violence against Muslim minorities in Myanmar and India before their testimony is taken seriously. Only one direction of scrutiny in this country currently requires an entire community to prove, in advance and as a condition of entry, that it is not secretly the threat.

I don’t say this to score a point against the Commission. I say it because the same evening news that reports rising antisemitism in Australia – correctly, and without my objection – routinely fails to report the parallel rise in anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian abuse, the vandalised mosques, the women afraid to wear hijab in public, the children told by implication that their faith makes them suspect.

A Royal Commission with “social cohesion” in its title, that structurally cannot hear from the second-largest group experiencing religious and racial hostility in this country, is not examining social cohesion. It is examining one half of a single problem and calling the result whole.

The fix here isn’t complicated and it doesn’t require abandoning the Commission’s core purpose. It requires the Commissioner to recognise that anti-Palestinian racism and Islamophobia sit inside the same terms of reference as antisemitism, not outside them — because they are produced by the same mechanism of collective blame, and because a finding on “social cohesion” that only canvasses the cohesion of part of the country isn’t a finding at all.

Bell still has time, before her final report in December, to widen the door rather than defend its current width.

Naming a mechanism early is not alarmism — it’s the only thing that has ever interrupted one before it finishes running its course. Every Australian who has had a synagogue vandalised, a mosque firebombed, or a hijab grabbed in the street deserves the same seriousness from the institutions meant to protect them.

An Inquiry that only extends that seriousness in one direction isn’t building cohesion. It’s choosing sides while insisting it isn’t.

Wayne Hawkins is an independent commentator based in Tasmania and an independent candidate for the federal seat of Clark.

July 5, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets and lies | Leave a comment

Underestimating the potential impacts of attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities

I worked with Kristina Kukolja, a journalist who obtained (heavily redacted) FOI files about the Australian government’s assessment and responses to Israel/US attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities in 2025 and 2026. Its clear the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency underestimated the possible resultant radiological releases. Australia was one of the first countries to support those attacks both in 2025 and 2026 on the basis that any measures to avoid Iran acquiring nuclear weapons were a good thing, despite criticising Russia’s attacks on nuclear facilities in Ukraine.

Close monitoring of developments and modelling of possible scenarios including worst-case scenarios from attacks on nuclear facilities is something one would expect any responsible government to undertake and to use as the basis for informing and protecting their staff and the public, particularly the substantial number of Australian citizens in the Middle East (at least 115,000). 

An additional reason for Australia to thoroughly assess attacks by allies on nuclear power plants is that during 2025-6 Australia chairs the IAEA board of governors. In relation to both Ukraine and the Middle East, the IAEA Director General has been consistently calling out the severe radiological risks of military attacks on nuclear facilities and calling for such attacks, in violation of international law, to end. Australia’s position here was clearly divergent from the IAEA’s.

One wonders whether underestimating the potential risks and keeping the assessments secret might be connected with an incentive to downplay the risks for political reasons. See article in the last Saturday Paper (below)_ o you don’t get stuck behind a paywall.

A year ago the government began receiving modelling on radiation risks from the war in the
Middle East, which experts say understated the danger and should be made public.

Exclusive: DFAT’s secret nuclear briefings

By Kristina Kukolja, Jun 24, 2026

Documents obtained under freedom of information show that a year ago the
Australian government began secretly receiving detailed modelling of radiation risks
from the war in the Middle East and the protective action Australian citizens may
need to take, but did not share this with Australians in the region.

American and Israeli strikes on sites in Iran and Iran’s retaliation against US targets
prompted the Australian government agency responsible for nuclear safety to
produce numerous reports to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) –
at times, on a daily basis – detailing “credible worst-case scenarios” for possible
nuclear incidents in Iran, Israel and the United Arab Emirates.

The reports outline protective measures such as evacuation, sheltering and
restrictions of food and drinking water. Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear
Safety Agency (ARPANSA) experts also briefed the Inter-Departmental Emergency
Task Force (IDETF), convened to manage Australia’s response to the war, chaired by DFAT and attended by top government agencies including the Australian Defence
Force.

The Saturday Paper asked DFAT whether it had informed citizens about the
government’s monitoring and modelling for nuclear worst-case scenarios; whether
diplomatic staff were told to prepare food and water supplies; whether other
Australians, including military personnel, received the same advice; and whether
Australian embassies had secured supplies of potassium iodide tablets for
distribution.

DFAT declined to respond to these questions. A spokesperson said the department
“maintains internal contingency action plans at all Australian embassies and
consulates, intended to respond to crises and support Australians overseas.
Requests for technical advice, such as modelling, are part of prudent, scenario-
based planning and help inform our understanding of how an incident could affect
Australians in different locations.”

As the strikes escalated around nuclear facilities this year, an email to ARPANSA
staff from the emergency management project leader on March 9 said: “DFAT is
facing a major consular crisis, with many Australians unable to return home.

“It’s important to be supportive and respectful of their situation … We should also not
overwhelm DFAT or crowd their decision space unnecessarily.”

At the time of that update, there were about 115,000 Australians in the Middle East,
says DFAT – 24,000 in the UAE.

The results of ARPANSA’s modelling should be made “widely and promptly publicly
available … to inform Australians in making travel or evacuation decisions and be
better equipped to take timely protective measures”, says Dr Tilman Ruff, co-founder
of the Nobel Prize-winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons
(ICAN), based in Australia.

The radiation assessment reports and electronic correspondence released under
freedom of information are heavily redacted, including on the grounds that disclosing
certain information could damage the Commonwealth’s defence or international
relations.

In a statement, ARPANSA says the reports were prepared “for a specific operational
purpose but shared more broadly across government, including through the IDETF”
and “informed public-facing messaging, including through Smartraveller”.

The Smartraveller website provides general advice on nuclear incidents. Despite the
Middle East war, Ukraine is still the only country where Australians have been
specifically warned about a nuclear risk, stating that Russian actions “pose a threat
to Ukraine’s nuclear power plants”.

ARPANSA’s reports to DFAT began in June 2025 after Israel attacked Iranian
nuclear sites and scientists, followed by US strikes the Trump administration
declared had obliterated Iran’s nuclear facilities. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese
said Australia, which had just taken over chairing the International Atomic Energy Agency board of governors, supported the attacks, on the grounds they were
designed to prevent Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon.

The assessments contain plume modelling – how far radiation could spread – and
exposure estimates for 48 hours after a possible incident at facilities such as the
targeted Natanz and Fordow fuel enrichment plants and Isfahan nuclear technology
centre. Projected plumes from Israel’s Dimona nuclear research facility and Iran’s
Bushehr nuclear power station – potentially causing the “greatest radiological
hazard” – reached neighbouring countries, including Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia,
Qatar and the UAE.

“A military attack, even unintentional, could cause a catastrophic
nuclear accident such as Chernobyl or Fukushima.”

One simulation on June 20 last year showed radiation from a potential Bushehr
incident extending hundreds of kilometres into the Persian Gulf to Abu Dhabi and
Dubai, where Australian civilians and diplomatic staff are based, and the Al Minhad
Air Base, where Australian troops are stationed. While the report noted low
radiological risks for Australian “embassy locations in Kuwait City, Doha, Riyadh and
Bahrain”, the unredacted section did not address cities that would be affected by the
plume.

At the same time, IAEA director-general Rafael Grossi told the United Nations
Security Council an operating nuclear power plant hosts thousands of kilograms of
nuclear material, and a direct hit, or hits to electricity supply, could cause its reactor
core to melt, potentially causing “a very high release of radioactivity to the
environment”.

In the worst case, Grossi said, protective actions would be required: “evacuations and sheltering of the population or the need to take stable iodine, with the reach
extending to distances from a few to several hundred kilometres. Radiation
monitoring would need to cover distances of several hundred kilometres and food
restrictions may need to be implemented.”

“Are we getting this wrong?” asked ARPANSA’s emergency project leader in an
email to a redacted recipient on June 21 referencing DFAT concerns that Grossi’s
comments differed from earlier assessments.

ARPANSA’s subsequent report assured there was no conflict, citing findings of
“similar distances for urgent protective action”. Declassified text messages between
agency staff acknowledge that environmental damage “would be a big issue
following the event”.

The agency’s worst-case scenario for Bushehr involved a “station blackout due to
loss of power after damage to plant infrastructure and backup power supply”.

“Although it is not an ideal state for a nuclear reactor, the backup systems mean that
a core meltdown would not be an immediate concern,” the report stated.

Tilman Ruff says this assessment “unduly downplays the real risks, particularly when
the cause of loss of external power is a major aerial bombardment, which risks
widespread and uncontrolled damage to plant systems.”

Ruff says the reports show the “greatest radiological risks in Iran and Israel arise
from damage to the Bushehr power plant, with 3000 megawatts of thermal capacity,
much larger than the next largest facility between the two countries, the Dimona
nuclear site, with a reactor estimated at 150MWt. Yet in none of the scenarios is the
possibility of damage to reactor containment included for Bushehr, as it is for smaller
reactors at Soreq, Tehran and Dimona.”

He says the reports also fail to specify scenarios involving a core meltdown, reactor
explosion or fire, “or consideration of spent fuel pools, which often contain larger and
longer-lived amounts of radioactive materials than are present in reactor cores”.

Professor Tatsujiro Suzuki, former vice-chairman of Japan’s Atomic Energy
Commission, agrees spent fuel pools are “the most vulnerable part of the nuclear
power project”.

“A military attack, even unintentional, could cause a catastrophic nuclear accident
such as Chernobyl or Fukushima.”

Over time “the radiation consequences could reach India or Pakistan, potentially the
Mediterranean area or even northern Europe”.

When the US and Israel launched new attacks on Iran in February, ARPANSA’s
Radiation Emergency Coordination Centre (RECC) in Melbourne was placed “on
heightened readiness”.

New reports from the RECC warned a large release of radioactive material from
Bushehr or the UAE’s Barakah nuclear power plant could see “radioactive
contamination deposited on land used for food production and in water bodies” in the
region. In worst-case events, they say, embassy staff may need to take protective
actions including sheltering in place with doors and windows sealed and awaiting
further advice.

“Use of potassium iodide tablets may be directed. As a precautionary measure, and
if feasible, having a short-term stockpile of food and water (seven days) at the
Kuwait and Doha embassies may be prudent to avoid ingesting potentially
contaminated food and water … And to provide additional reassurance to embassy
staff as they are within several hundred kilometres of the reactor site.” 

Throughout March and into April, the period covered by the 2026 documents, Iran
reported strikes on multiple nuclear sites to the IAEA, including the Bushehr power
plant. Missiles were also reported near Israel’s Dimona facility. No off-site radiation
was recorded, but Rafael Grossi repeatedly warned attacks on Bushehr threaten a
“major radiological accident affecting a large area in Iran and beyond”.

In late March, DFAT requested radiation projections for possible nuclear incidents in
Pakistan, Türkiye, Syria, Armenia and Iraq. The 2026 modelling generally indicated more severe off-site releases than the 2025 assessments, says Tilman Ruff.

“The maps also depict higher levels of radioactive fallout, with potential exposure
near multiple facilities, including the relatively small research reactors at Soreq and
Tehran reaching over 50 mSv [millisieverts]. The estimated exposures are
significantly greater for Isfahan, Natanz and Fordow enrichment sites.”

Kristina Kukolja is a Walkley Award-winning journalist and broadcaster.

June 25, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets and lies | Leave a comment

One “family”: weapons multinationals, Defence bureaucracy and the military top brass

Shoebridge:

When members of the public look at this and they see someone who has been …responsible for making decisions about multibillion-dollar contracts with Lockheed Martin, managing multibillion-dollar contracts with Lockheed Martin, and see someone step out of that from the uniform and in less than a week take a job with Lockheed Martin, that doesn’t just miss the pub test, that brings Defence into disrepute, the Public Service into disrepute. They see people leveraging their very recent experience to maximise corporate profits in this case for the world’s biggest weapons manufacturer. Don’t you see how this looks to the public and see how this kind of behaviour stinks…?

Senior military officers working in the upper echelon of the defence department’s arms buying group regularly pass through the revolving door into a post-military career in the weapons industry. The Australian arms industry revolving door database that I have been researching and compiling contains numerous examples, including Jeremy King and Chris Deeble.

Defence shelves 12-month cooling-off period for staff departing for weapons industry and adopts ‘bespoke’ conflict management strategies in a move likely to facilitate more rapid revolving door moves

Michelle Fahy, Undue Influence, Jun 20, 2026

The world’s largest weapons maker, Lockheed Martin, has poached its new Australian chief executive directly from the upper echelon of the federal government’s weapons buying group.

The high profile appointment, made in January, continued the US weapons giant’s long-standing practice of recruiting its local chief executives from the senior ranks of Australia’s military and defence officials.

Lockheed Martin told major general Jeremy King late last year that he was in line for its top Australian job, yet King continued to oversee the Defence Department’s multibillion-dollar helicopter contract with Lockheed.

Having accepted the job, mere weeks separated King’s departure from Defence’s Capability Acquisition and Sustainment Group (CASG) and his commencement at Lockheed Martin Australia.

Lockheed Martin’s global revenue in 2024 was US$65 billion ($91 billion), with 91 per cent of that coming from the sale of arms. Its Australian subsidiary has $4.6 billion in current contracts with the Australian Government (source: AusTender, 30.4.26).

As the head of aviation systems in CASG, major general King was responsible for managing Australia’s $2.8 billion contract with Lockheed Martin for the supply of 40 Black Hawk helicopters. Earlier, in 2023, King had played a critical role in Defence’s decision to replace its trouble-plagued Taipan helicopter fleet with the Black Hawks, but he was not the final decision-maker on the deal.

In October last year, King told his boss, Chris Deeble, head of CASG, that he was being considered by Lockheed for the chief executive role. According to the Canberra Times, he also told Deeble that he intended to work with Lockheed Martin’s offer.

However, it wasn’t until early November that King handed the required conflict of interest form to Deeble and was then removed from further involvement in Lockheed Martin’s contractual arrangements with Defence.

In his evidence to Senate Estimates in February, Deeble was vague as to exactly when in October King had advised him of Lockheed’s approach: “within the October time frame”.

In response to a direct question as to when King departed CASG, Deeble again lacked specificity: “at the end of last year”.

Chief of Army Simon Stuart was more forthcoming on the military side, stating that King had ceased his full-time service with the Australian Army on 5 January.

Having employed the well-worn delaying tactic of taking the question ‘on notice’ during a senate hearing, the Defence Department later revealed that King had departed CASG on 5 January as well.

The department did not respond to my questions as to precisely when in October King advised Deeble of Lockheed’s approach, nor when in November King submitted the required conflict of interest forms.

On 12 January, just one week after King had quit the public service, Lockheed Martin Australia announced that he was its next chief executive.

Senior military officers working in the upper echelon of the defence department’s arms buying group regularly pass through the revolving door into a post-military career in the weapons industry. The Australian arms industry revolving door database that I have been researching and compiling contains numerous examples, including Jeremy King and Chris Deeble.

……………………………………………..The Australian Public Service code of conduct is clear about the risks of public servants moving too rapidly into the private sector: they may use inside knowledge and contacts to benefit their new employer in influencing government, and they may use or reveal confidential or sensitive information that advantages their employer in dealing with government or the market generally.

The Defence Department had a longstanding rule requiring a 12-month gap between its officials leaving public service and joining the private sector in a related industry position (cooling-off period) to help mitigate such risks.

This timeframe was already insufficient for the risk-mitigation task – given that many defence procurement programs extend over many years and some of the largest can take a decade or more to finalise – yet no cooling off period at all was applied by Defence to buffer major general King’s transfer to Lockheed Martin.

Multiple objections to the lack of cooling-off period expressed by Greens’ senator David Shoebridge during Senate Estimates were swept aside, or ignored, by all officials present, from the Chief of the Defence Force (CDF) Admiral David Johnston down. No-one answered Shoebridge’s repeated question as to whether anyone in Defence had formally approved King’s move to Lockheed. Nor did Army Chief Simon Stuart or the CDF answer Shoebridge’s repeated question as to whether a cooling-off period still applies to Defence revolving door moves more generally.

Indeed, the remarks from both military leaders made it plain that as long as Defence’s claimed “clear policies” on managing conflicts of interest are adhered to, there is no longer any impediment to a speedy transition into the arms industry for senior Defence officials.

Defence did not respond to questions as to whether, and if so when, the 12-month rule has been scrapped. Further investigation revealed that this longstanding rule has been scrapped by Defence.

…………….The weapons industry is recognised globally as a very high risk industry for corruption. When asked by Shoebridge during Senate Estimates how the Defence Department had ensured Lockheed Martin managed its side of the obvious conflicts of interest inherent in hiring King, a Defence probity official said the weapons giant had provided a letter of undertaking outlining what it intends to do.

What wasn’t explained, or even mentioned, was how Defence intends to ensure Lockheed adheres to its undertakings.

……………10 years on, nothing has changed

Just as the Defence hierarchy welcomed the departure to Lockheed Martin, 10 years ago, of its senior defence scientist Tony Lindsay – who joined Lockheed one day after he left his senior public service post – the Defence leadership today continues to see no reason for concern about the rapid-fire revolving door moves of its senior staff into leadership roles in the weapons industry.

In fact, CDF David Johnston welcomed major general King’s move, telling Senate Estimates that King’s expeditious move to the private sector was to Australia’s benefit.

Shoebridge:

When members of the public look at this and they see someone who has been …responsible for making decisions about multibillion-dollar contracts with Lockheed Martin, managing multibillion-dollar contracts with Lockheed Martin, and see someone step out of that from the uniform and in less than a week take a job with Lockheed Martin, that doesn’t just miss the pub test, that brings Defence into disrepute, the Public Service into disrepute. They see people leveraging their very recent experience to maximise corporate profits in this case for the world’s biggest weapons manufacturer. Don’t you see how this looks to the public and see how this kind of behaviour stinks…?

……..The man responsible for reviewing both of King’s conflict of interest declarations and Lockheed Martin’s undertakings regarding the management of those conflicts was Chris Deeble, himself no stranger to the revolving door.

As part of his 37-year career with the Royal Australian Air Force, Deeble spent the last decade or so of his time in the military managing complex multibillion dollar procurement programs inside Defence’s weapons buying ………………………….

In 2019, Deeble was wooed by the world’s third largest weapons-maker, US-based Northrop Grumman. Deeble agreed to head its Australian subsidiary, a job he held for more than three years. Northrop Grumman is deeply involved in the US government’s nuclear weapons program, amongst many other defence programs, including the Triton drone and the nuclear-capable B-21 stealth bomber.agency

In mid-2022, Defence was looking for a new head of CASG. Deeble got the job. Inside a month of leaving Northrop Grumman, he was back inside Defence as the nation’s top arms buyer, appointed by the Albanese government in August 2022.

When asked by Senator Shoebridge whether anybody had to sign off on King’s plan of “literally going from gamekeeper to poacher in less than a week”, and whether Deeble himself had approved King’s move to Lockheed, Deeble did not answer either question……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Auditor general’s revolving door concerns

The nation’s auditor general has repeatedly warned of the corroding influence of the revolving door, which leads to cosy, familial relationships between the Defence hierarchy and the weapons multinationals.

In evidence to parliament’s audit committee in November 2024, deputy auditor general Rona Mellor warned of the importance of keeping an “appropriate distance in our relationships” with multinational weapons contractors.

“There’s a really big challenge ahead for Defence. The biggest challenge … is that there is a culture in these very long-term contracts… There’s a real risk that you get captured by the provider.”………………………………………………………………….

The mega-spend AUKUS era makes stopping the revolving door urgent

Australian governments have long been susceptible to the revolving door process in which politicians, the military, and public servants move effortlessly between government, lobbying firms, and the arms industry. The movement of King to Lockheed Martin is more of the same behaviour that’s been occurring for decades…………………………..

Australia’s limp attempts at managing the revolving door have been completely ineffective, particularly in the Defence/arms industry domain. The arrival of AUKUS requires this unregulated and unmonitored democracy-eroding phenomenon to be brought under control.https://undueinfluence.substack.com/p/one-family-weapons-multinationals?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=297295&post_id=202535704&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

June 22, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets and lies | Leave a comment

Australia will now investigate Israel over Assault Claims | West Report Live

Streamed live on 16 Jun 2026 The West Report

This is the biggest story most Australians have not yet grasped.

Today, in Canberra, Australian survivors of physical, psychological and sexual abuse by Israeli authorities met with Foreign Minister Penny Wong, the Hon Dr Anne Aly MP, a Deputy Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police, and a senior DFAT official.

As a result, the Australian Government has committed to an independent investigation into the assaults, sexual assaults and torture of the Gaza Flotilla humanitarians. Read that again. Not an internal Israeli review. Not a department preparing a briefing note. Not a politician expressing concern.

June 17, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets and lies | Leave a comment

Australia’s Secret Embrace of U.S. Nuclear Planning

Australia’s subterfuge around its anti-nuclear commitments keeps Australians in the dark about American nuclear weapons on our territory.

DECLASSIFIED, By Jesse Boylan, ICAN Australia, Jun 12, 2026

n the morning of 15 February 2023, during a Senate Estimates hearing, Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Defence Secretary Greg Moriarty were asked to respond to a simple but loaded question by the Greens Senator, Jordon Steele-John: 

“I’m seeking on behalf of the community to get a firm commitment from the government that the [US] B-52s [long-range bombers] cycling through Australia will be solely conventionally capable, not nuclear capable.”

Senator Steele-John was trying to establish whether Australia would be hosting nuclear-capable bombers, which would undermine Australia’s nuclear-free status and increase its exposure to nuclear‑armed conflict. Adversaries, namely China, as Declassified Australia has exposed, would treat these aircraft as potentially nuclear‑armed, increasing the risk Australia could be targeted in a nuclear escalation.

Senator Wong consulted with Defence officials on the questions before providing an answer. After the mid-morning break, Secretary Moriarty addressed the question. In their report, Performing Fealty in a Nuclear Alliance, Vince Scappatura and Richard Tanter – experts on US military and intelligence facilities in Australia – describe Moriarty’s response as a “boilerplate formulation”:  

[S]tationing of nuclear weapons in Australia is prohibited by the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty, to which Australia is fully committed…Successive Australian governments have understood and respected the longstanding US policy of neither confirming nor denying the presence of nuclear weapons on particular platforms. Australia will continue to fully comply with our international obligations, and the United States understands and respects Australia’s international obligations with respect to nuclear weapons.

In other words, Australia has a nuclear weapons-free policy but would let the US circumvent it, which makes one wonder why the Foreign Minister felt she needed time to consult. Hansard documents prove that variations of this response have been used since at least 2006. 

Liberals past ‘no nukes’ policy

Following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, in an attempt to counter Soviet regional expansion, Washington asked Australia if the US might fly B-52 bombers over the north of Australia for training purposes. Australian Liberal Prime Minister Malcom Fraser agreed. 

A year later, Fraser agreed to a second American request for Indian Ocean maritime surveillance flights staging through Darwin. This time he required that the B-52s be “unarmed and carry no bombs” – meaning no nuclear weapons. Fraser went even further and forced the US to make this public, which was an unprecedented request by an ally and contrary to the US practice of neither confirming nor denying the presence of nuclear weapons on their aircraft or ships. 

It’s clear Fraser held a deep distrust in America, says Tanter – who worked with Fraser on the second half of his 2014 book ‘Dangerous Allies’. This distrust had deepened after the Pentagon Papers revealed the US government had lied to the American and Australian public about the Vietnam War. Fraser also knew there could be situations where Australian and US interests would not align. US bombers flying operations from Australia raised questions of sovereignty. 

While in opposition, Labor bitterly opposed and ridiculed Fraser’s protocol, but when Labor leader Bob Hawke took office in 1983, they kept it. By the end of the Cold War, in 1991, US B-52 missions wound down, and Fraser’s arrangements were essentially forgotten, rather than held onto as a model worth preserving. Every subsequent government has allowed the US military presence to expand without conditions placed on the carrying of nuclear weapons in Australian sovereign territory. 

Australia’s nuclear posture has changed

Since the 1960s, secretive facilities at Northwest Cape, near Exmouth in Western Australia, and Pine Gap, near Alice Springs in the Northern Territory, have supported US early warning, communications and targeting operations – essential for nuclear war planning. These facilities on Australian soil, and our reliance on US extended nuclear deterrence, implicate us in US nuclear operations. 

Under the Australia-US alliance, the US is preparing to deploy up to six B-52 bombers to RAAF Tindal airbase, near Katherine in the Northern Territory from this year. Will they be conventional-only bombers, nuclear-capable, or a mixture of both? And will the government be told?

Under AUKUS, the trilateral security partnership, US Virginia-class attack submarines will be regularly arriving at HMAS Stirling near Perth from 2027. Although this has not been specified, Vince Scappatura, a lecturer from the School of International Studies at Macquarie University, says it is possible that the submarines will be armed with nuclear weapons at some point. Although these and older attack submarines have been visiting Stirling for routine maintenance for a long time, they will become “de facto homeported at HMAS Stirling,” Scappatura says. In this way, it is conceivable that Australia might in the near future directly support nuclear combat missions from Australian soil. 

Professor Gareth Evans, Labor’s Foreign Affairs Minister from 1988 to 1996, told me Australia has been “painting targets on our backs all over the place” on the assumption that the alliance is indispensable. 

While upholding the Labor government policy on ‘neither confirm nor deny’ presence of nuclear weapons on visiting US aircraft, Evans was active on nuclear disarmament issues while in office, helping Prime Minister Paul Keating initiate the 1996 Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. Since leaving office Evans has continued his work on disarmament issues and led the 2009 International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament report Eliminating Nuclear Threats: A Practical Agenda for Global Policymakers. 

Performing strategic ambiguity

Later in the 2023 Senate Estimates exchange, Greens Senator David Shoebridge tried to clarify if our obligations under the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty (SPNFZT) – also known as the Treaty of Rarotonga – restrain Australia from permitting nuclear armed B-52 bombers in Australia. 

Wong quickly jumped in, asserting: 

“No. You’re reading more into it. The statement says, ‘There is no impediment under this treaty or the nuclear non-proliferation treaty to the visit of foreign aircraft to Australian airfields or transit of Australia’s airspace’.” 

The responses of Wong and Moriarty – who is now serving as Australia’s Ambassador to the United States – used “strategic ambiguity” as a shield to deflect Greens’ questions. It’s what Scappatura and Tanter describe as “public performance by political leaders”, which often involves obfuscation, displaced logic, and the denial of reality. 

Under the Treaty of Rarotonga, ‘stationing’ of nuclear weapons in Australia is prohibited, but ‘transits’ and ‘visits’ are permitted. Dr Monique Cormier, an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law at Monash University, told me that the line between ‘transiting’ and ‘stationing’ is “open to a lot of interpretation”. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Neither confirm nor deny: ‘love it or hate it’

Since 1948, Australia has accepted the US policy to neither confirm nor deny (NCND) if nuclear weapons are on visiting aircraft or ships……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

‘Full knowledge and concurrence‘

Where Australia allows the US to use its facilities for defence purposes, it is supposed to have “full knowledge and concurrence” of US activities on Australian soil. But this does not mean “Australia approves each individual activity or task undertaken”. Rather, Defence Minister Richard Marles said in 2023, it means that we “agree to the purpose of activities conducted in Australia, we are aware of the capabilities being used, and understand their expected outcomes.” 

So, does Australia not know what the US does on its soil, or do we know, but look the other way? 

Scappatura and Tanter believe Australia cannot have it both ways. It either does not know the nuclear status of visiting aircraft, ships and submarines – undermining its claims of sovereignty – or does know, but is unable (or unwilling) to share. (The Foreign Minister and Defence Minister did not respond to repeated requests for comment sent to them by Declassified Australia.) “To me,” says Scappatura, “that’s humiliating. It’s humiliating for Senator Wong; it’s humiliating for me as an Australian citizen.” 

Extended Nuclear Deterrence

Associate Professor Tilman Ruff from the University of Melbourne is a co-founder and founding chair of the Nobel-prize winning organisation ICAN – the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. He understands the intergenerational trauma and legacy of war: his family were German immigrants in Palestine who lost many family members during both world wars. They were imprisoned as slave farm labour for the British and then interned in Australia till 1947. 

Both of his grandmothers told him if war broke out again, “They wanted the first bomb to drop on their heads because they didn’t want to live through another one,” he says.

It wasn’t until after medical school, however, that Ruff learnt about the impacts of nuclear weapons and understood the responsibility on health professionals to campaign against their existence. Since then, he has dedicated his life to abolishing “the world’s worst weapons”………………………………………………………………….

Australia has formally stated it relies on the US for extended nuclear deterrence since the 1994 Defence White Paper “Defending Australia”. The expectation the US would use its nuclear weapons to protect Australia in case of attack, has never been formalised by Washington. This policy was only supposed to be an interim measure until a total ban on nuclear weapons could be achieved, says Evans, who was involved in drafting the white paper. “I don’t think anyone thought that nuclear weapons elimination was going to happen anytime soon,” he told me. 

The UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) – also known as the nuclear weapons ban treaty – seeks to eliminate nuclear weapons entirely. It entered into force in 2021 with global support, but Australia is not yet a signatory. Instead, Australia still relies on extended nuclear deterrence, which is embedded in defence policy. 

The text in Australia’s 2026 National Defence Strategy warns of a “new nuclear arms race”. It reaffirms that relying on the US for nuclear deterrence and other arms control is Australia’s best protection against increasing nuclear risk. 

But in his Press Club speech, Minister Marles neglected to mention the US is a key driver of nuclear weapons proliferation, with 5402 warheads in its military stockpile: 1,770 deployed; 1,930 in reserve; and 1,342 awaiting dismantlement. A recent Congressional Budget Office report projected the US will spend up to US$1.5 trillion over the next thirty years (roughly US$95 billion a year) to modernise and expand its nuclear arsenal.

Evans firmly believes that we don’t need to rely on US extended nuclear deterrence for security, telling me:

“It’s very doubtful whether it would ever mean anything in practice. The US is highly unlikely to sacrifice San Francisco for Sydney or, or Miami for Melbourne. And so, it is pretty illusory. And to the extent that we are still relying on it, that is still a real issue to debate.” …………………………….

The path to nuclear abolition

There is no doubt nuclear weapons pose an existential threat. A modern nuclear weapon is five to ten times more powerful than those dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Their use – whether deliberate or accidental – would cause indiscriminate destruction, long-term environmental harm, and unimaginable loss of life. ………………………………………………………………………………………………….

If Palau can sign the nuclear weapons ban treaty, Australia should too, says Ruff: 

“What an extraordinary lack of courage and conviction for Australia to doubt it could do the same. There couldn’t be a better time for the government to really step up and become the first nuclear complicit state to join this treaty.”

In practice, signing the nuclear weapons ban treaty would present an opportunity to renegotiate with the US to decommission or change functions of bases like Pine Gap and Northwest Cape that directly aid with the possible use of nuclear weapons. It would mean shutting down the Relay Ground Station at Pine Gap, which is essential for US nuclear war fighting, and it would mean ending our reliance on extended nuclear deterrence. https://declassifiedaus.org/2026/06/01/australias-secret-embrace-of-u-s-nuclear-planning/

June 15, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets and lies | Leave a comment

Freedom Of Information to die? Albanese’s nuclear strike on transparency

Instead of handing the documents over the Government has challenged the Tribunal’s decision in the Federal Court.

 Who needs greater secrecy laws when you’ve got deep pockets funded by the very taxpayers’ they deny information to.

by Rex Patrick | Jun 7, 2026

So adamant is the Albanese Government to keep AUKUS nuclear waste plans secret, they initiated a Federal Court appeal to overturn an Administrative Review Tribunal transparency win. Rex Patrick reports.

Are we seeing another nail in the coffin of Freedom of Information and what is left of government transparency?

When ART Deputy President Britten-Jones handed down his decision in favour of disclosure he was adamant “there is a significant public interest in understanding policy decisions by Government in respect of nuclear waste management”.

He was quite convinced that the “best way to achieve [nuclear waste] social licence and trust is through transparency and not secrecy”.

But his very strong position was not enough to overcome Prime Minister Albanese’s secrecy obsession. In a very rare move, the Federal Government has appealed the Tribunal’s transparency decision to the Federal Court.

Political Sensitivity

It’s clear that the documents the Government was ordered to make public are politically sensitive. They may well be politically radioactive, but this is not an allowable reason under the Freedom of Information Act to refuse to release documents.

Britten-Jones stated in his decision:

I do not consider that there would be significant harm from disclosing geological information about a particular site even if it could be inferred that the site is either ruled in or ruled out from further consideration as a location for storage or disposal of nuclear waste.

At least one potential site for AUKUS waste is named in the documents. 

In response to the Government’s pleadings for narrative control, Britton-Jones stated: 

I can understand the [Government’s] preference for an orderly release of information but if the material was released, the Government would be able to provide its own context and the public would benefit from better understanding the process being undertaken.

He went on to declare:

Whilst there may be some inconvenient responses to the release of the information requiring Government action, the release would lead to and inform debate on a matter of public importance and it would increase scrutiny, discussion, comment and review of the Government’s activities. These are factors in the public interest that favour giving access to the material in issue to the Applicant. In my view, these factors outweigh any of the concerns expressed by the witnesses for the Respondent.

The documents requested also include documents that Britten-Jones stated “might well be contentious and give rise to sensitivities’.

That’s all too much for government.

Instead of handing the documents over the Government has challenged the Tribunal’s decision in the Federal Court.

The end of FOI?

The notice of appeal includes a request to the court that if the Government are successful,

“then I will have to pay their legal costs.”

I won the transparency battle in the Tribunal, and the Government now wants me to personally pay up to $150,000 if they win their appeal. With their very deep pockets (your money) they will likely engage a King’s Counsel to take on a bush lawyer.

In lodging the appeal and seeking costs against me the Government has ignored its own model litigant rules, which state that it can’t “take advantage of a claimant who lacks the resources to litigate a legitimate claim”. The rules also state that “In certain circumstances, it will be appropriate for the Commonwealth or Commonwealth entity to pay costs (for example, for a test case in the public interest).”

Greens spokesperson for Justice, Senator David Shoebridge, was unimpressed on hearing of the proposed cost order:

“The Labor government has repeatedly made it clear that they are willing to use millions of public dollars to silence whistleblowers and hide the truth from the public.

“But even from them, this is fresh territory.”

“Threatening someone with a potentially crippling legal bill simply because they put a successful FOI through the system is bullying, plain and simple.”

In September last year the Albanese Labor Government tabled an FOI Amendment Bill in the Parliament with provisions that sought to dramatically expand Government secrecy. After a significant campaign by civil society groups, the Bill was booted from the Parliament by all non-government senators.

“Albanese’s secrecy grab failed.”

The appeal in this matter revives Albanese’s secrecy plans. It matters little what the law is, if a citizen fights and gets a good transparency decision from the Information Commissioner or the Administrative Review Tribunal the Government can just appeal it to the Federal Court and threaten legal costs. The regular citizen will have to walk away. They can’t risk a loss.

Bingo for the Government! Who needs greater secrecy laws when you’ve got deep pockets funded by the very taxpayers’ they deny information to.

Senator Shoebridge stated further, 

“This is another ugly precedent in secrecy from the Albanese government, and this time it’s delivered with a side serve of intimidation. It’s really shameful stuff.”

The approach taken is a nuclear strike on transparency of government and could well mean an end to FOI fights. It’s the absolute antithesis of the new era of transparency Albanese promised before his was elected. Indeed, it’s a very different story now that he’s got his hands on the government’s legal armoury.

June 9, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets and lies | Leave a comment

Can one optimal pathway have two lanes? When it comes to AUKUS submarines, apparently yes

“Was the optimal pathway of last week actually not “optimal”? And if so, why was it called the “optimal pathway”?

Was the optimal pathway of last week actually not “optimal”? And if so, why was it called the “optimal pathway”?

By acting defence and national security correspondent Tom Lowrey, ABC News, Wed 3 Jun, 26

For an arm of the government tasked with a fairly straightforward mission — that is, fighting — Defence is famous for wrapping itself in impenetrable language.

Ships and planes are “platforms”, weapons are “capabilities”, soldiers are “personnel” and Australia’s road to running a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines is a “constrained optimal pathway”.

That optimal pathway has come in for plenty of scrutiny in the past few days.

The plan, as of last week, was for Australia to buy two “in-service”, that is, second-hand, submarines in 2032 and 2035, and a third brand-new submarine in 2038.

As of this week the plan is for Australia to buy three used submarines which the government is now arguing has been its preferred option all along.

Defence officials fronting up to estimates hearings this week have been copping questions on the surprise shift.

Was the optimal pathway of last week actually not “optimal”? And if so, why was it called the “optimal pathway”?

“You can absolutely have two constrained optimal pathways,” new Defence Secretary Meghan Quinn told Greens Senator David Shoebridge.

The exchange led Senator Shoebridge to accuse AUKUS of “not only damaging the public purse, but destroying the English language”.

Any economist will tell you constrained optimisation is taught in first year uni. It’s basically finding the best option with the cards you’ve been dealt.

But the exchange highlights the trouble the government is having explaining the changes it’s made and the risk to public confidence in Australia’s biggest ever defence project.

Substituting subs

Back when the “optimal pathway” was first announced in 2023, questions about the complexity of the plans were already being asked……………………….

The new Virginia class submarine would have arrived in 2038, and while details of exactly what it would have looked like aren’t known, it would likely have had some significant differences to its 2020s counterparts.

And the first Australian-made AUKUS submarine would have hit the water in Australia by 2042.

Marles has since argued Australia always held concerns about that plan and our preference from the outset was to acquire three in-service Virginia class subs to try and simplify things……………………..

Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy addressed the shift on Radio National Breakfast.

“Submarine availability [and] maintenance has improved in the US system, which means that the US Navy feels comfortable releasing a third in-service submarine,” he said.

“That means it’ll be cheaper and simpler for us to run.”

…………………….. For some Australians it might look like the government is arguing a ten-year-old Toyota Corolla (with a responsible owner, of course) is actually a better option than a brand new model straight off the lot.

….It’s getting more real. It’s costing much more money, up to $96 billion between now and 2036, shipyards are being built, and sailors are being trained.

AUKUS is also going to attract much more scrutiny.,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-06-03/two-optimal-pathways-aukus-submarines/106755658

June 8, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets and lies | Leave a comment

AUKUS. From ‘best’ we’ll never get to second hand subs

Meanwhile, Defence Minister Richard Mares maintains the facade. He’s either dishonest or dumb. Time will tell which one it is.

by Rex Patrick | Jun 1, 2026, https://michaelwest.com.au/aukus-from-best-well-never-get-to-second-hand-subs/

Defence Minister Marles announced a change to the AUKUS submarine program: second-hand subs! What’s the scam?

The scam is, at an enormous cost of (at least) $368B, we now only get second-hand subs from the US while we wait for the promised nuclear subs on the never-never.

In May 2023, Admiral Mead, the head of the Australian Submarine Agency, told the Senate that the first two Virginia-class subs that would be transferred to Australia would be second-hand, and the remaining subs would be brand new. He repeated it a year later.

But the reality is and always has been different. The US is only building about 1.2 subs per annum and needs to get to a built rate of 2.0 to meet US needs, and 2.3 to meet theirs and ours. They have no way of getting there.

We’ve sent $2.8B non-refundable taxpayers’ dollars to the US over the past two years to try to shift the build rate dial, and it’s done nothing, other than drain our Treasury.

Anyone who bothers to read the US Congressional Research Service’s advice to Congress on AUKUS knows we will not get subs from the US. Anyone who has bothered to read the recently released UK Parliamentary report on AUKUS knows we will not get subs from the UK.

The Albanese Government has embarked on an all-eggs-in-one-basket program where,

“the US hens are not laying enough eggs, and the UK chooks are headless?.

Meanwhile, Defence Minister Richard Mares maintains the facade. He’s either dishonest or dumb. Time will tell which one it is.

Rex Patrick is a former Senator for South Australia and, earlier, a submariner in the armed forces. Best known as an anti-corruption and transparency crusader, Rex is also known as the “Transparency Warrior.”

June 5, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets and lies | Leave a comment