Karina Lester addresses the Second Meeting of States Parties to the TPNW
Karina Lester, second-generation nuclear test survivor and ICAN Ambassador addresses the delegates at the UN Second Meeting of States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in NYC, November 28th, 2023.
She said “People still suffer to this day. We know our lands are poisoned. We know the fallout contaminated our country and our families, our people who move through those traditional lands…
We want recognition by governments of the day of the harms and what they’ve imposed on our people and on our traditional lands… We want respect and we want to start the conversations on repair. How do we work together to fix the damages that are there?”
She called on states parties to get to work on Articles 6 & 7 and for observers to double their efforts to sign and ratify the #nuclearban. She called on Australia, in particular, to make joining the treaty a top priority.
Sovereignty Surrendered: Subordinating Australia’s Defence Industry
Bureaucratic red tape will be slashed – for the Australian Defence industry and the AUKUS partners.
the broader object here is unmistakably directed, less to Australian capabilities than privileged access and a relinquishing of control to the paymasters in Washington.
“Whenever it cooperates with the US Australia will surrender any sovereign capability it develops to the United States control and bureaucracy.”
November 30, 2023, Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.com/sovereignty-surrendered-subordinating-australias-defence-industry/
One could earn a tidy sum the number of times the word “sovereignty” has been uttered or mentioned in public statements and briefings by the Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese.
But such sovereignty has shown itself to be counterfeit. The net of dependency and control is being increasingly tightened around Australia, be it in terms of Washington’s access to rare commodities (nickel, cobalt, lithium), the proposed and ultimately fatuous nuclear-propelled submarine fleet, and the broader militarisation and garrisoning of the country by US military personnel and assets. (The latter includes the stationing of such nuclear-capable assets as B-52 bombers in the Northern Territory.)
The next notch on the belt of US control has been affirmed by new proposals that will effectively make technological access to the Australian defence industry by AUKUS partners (the United States and the United Kingdom) an even easier affair than it already is. But in so doing, the intention is to restrict the supply of military and dual-use good technology from Australia to other foreign entities while privileging the concerns of the US and UK. In short, control is set to be wrested from Australia.
The issue of reforming US export controls, governed by the musty provisions of the US International Trade in Arms Regulations (ITAR), was always going to be a feature of any technology transfer, notably regarding nuclear-propulsion. But even before the minting of AUKUS, Canberra and Washington had pondered the issue of industrial integration and sharing technology via such instruments as the Defense Cooperation Treaty of 2012 and Australia’s addition to the National Technology and Industrial Base in 2017.
This fundamentally failed enterprise risks being complicated further by the latest export reforms, though you would not think so, reading the guff streaming from the Australian Defence Department. A media release from Defence Minister Richard Marles tries to justify the changes by stating that “billions of dollars in investment” will be released. Bureaucratic red tape will be slashed – for the Australian Defence industry and the AUKUS partners. “Under the legislation introduced today, Australia’s existing trade controls will be expanded to regulate the supply of controlled items and provision of services in the Defence and Strategic Goods List, ensuring our cutting-edge military technologies are protected.”
Central to the reforms is the introduction of a national exemption that will cover trade of defence goods and technologies with the US and UK, thereby “establishing a license-free environment for Australian industry, research and science.” But the broader object here is unmistakably directed, less to Australian capabilities than privileged access and a relinquishing of control to the paymasters in Washington. A closer read, and it’s all got to do with those wretched white elephants of the sea: the nuclear-powered submarine.
As the Minister for Defence Industry, Pat Conroy, states, “This legislation is an important step in the Albanese Government’s strategy for acquiring the state-of-the-art nuclear-powered submarines that will be key to protecting Australians and our nation’s interests.” In doing so, Conroy, Marles and company are offering Australia’s defence base to the State Department and the Pentagon.
With a mixture of hard sobriety and alarm, a number of expert voices have voiced concern regarding the implications of these new regulations. One is Bill Greenwalt, a figure much known in the field of US defence procurement, largely as a prominent drafter of its legal framework. He is unequivocal in his criticism of the US approach, and the keen willingness of Australian officials to capitulate. “After years of US State Department prodding, it appears that Australia signed up to the principles and specifics of the failed US export control system,” Greenwalt explained to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. “Whenever it cooperates with the US it will surrender any sovereign capability it develops to the United States control and bureaucracy.”
The singular feature of these arrangements, Greenwalt continues to elaborate, is that Australia “got nothing except the hope that the US will remove process barriers that will allow the US to essentially steal and control Australian technology faster.”
In an email sent to Breaking Defense, Greenwalt was even more excoriating of the Australian effort. “It appears that the Australians adopted the US export control system lock, stock and barrel, and everything I wrote about in my USSC (US Studies Center) piece in the 8 deadly sins of ITAR section will now apply to Australian innovation. I think they just put themselves back 50 years.”
The paper in question, co-authored with Tom Corben, identifies those deadly sins that risk impairing the success of AUKUS: “an outdated mindset; universality and non-materiality; extraterritoriality; anti-discrimination; transactional process compliance; knowledge taint; non-reciprocity; and unwarranted predictability.”
When such vulgar middle-management speech is decoded, much can be put down to the fact that dealing with Washington and its military-industrial complex can be an imperilling exercise. The US imperium remains fixated, as Greenwalt and Corben write, with “an outdated superpower mindset” discouragingly inhibiting to its allies. What constitutes a “defence article” within such export controls is very much left to the discretion of the executive. The archaic application of extraterritoriality means that recipient countries of US technology must request permission from the State Department if re-exporting to another end-user is required for any designated defence article.
The failure to reform such strictures, and the insistence that Australia make its own specific adjustments, alarms Chennupati Jagadish, president of the Australian Academy of Science. The new regulations may encourage unfettered collaboration between the US and UK, “but I would require an approved permit prior to collaborating with other foreign nationals. Without it, my collaborations could see me jailed.” The bleak conclusion: “it expands Australia’s backyard to include the US and UK, but it raises the fence.” Or, more accurately, it incorporates, with a stern finality, Australia as a pliable satellite in an Anglo-American arrangement whose defence arrangements are controlled by Washington.
Independents pressure Australia on nuclear ban treaty ahead of UN meeting
November 24th, 2023
11 independent parliamentarians have issued a public call on the Prime Minister to keep Labor’s promise to sign and ratify the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, ahead of the treaty’s Second Meeting of States Parties on 27 November – 1 December in New York.
The letter, which is signed by Kate Chaney MP, Zoe Daniel MP, Dr. Helen Haines MP, Senator David Pocock, Dr. Monique Ryan MP, Dr. Sophie Scamps MP, Allegra Spender MP, Zali Steggall OAM MP, Senator Lidia Thorpe, Kylea Tink MP, and Andrew Wilkie MP, states that “nuclear weapons do not promote security, they undermine it. We don’t accept the everlasting presence of these weapons.” They “urge the Government to advance its signature and ratification of the Ban Treaty without delay, to bring Australia in line with our South-East Asian and Pacific island neighbours.”
In regards to the letter, Federal Member for Goldstein, Zoe Daniel MP, said: “Voters supported Labor at the election, believing in good faith that they would implement their platform.
“Signing and ratifying was Labor Party policy before the election and has been reaffirmed since.
“In the most perilous times since the height of the Cold War this treaty is needed more than ever; voters want it and so do the vulnerable nations of the Pacific whose backyards were used for nuclear testing without their permission.
“Look at what Labor does, not what it says.”
Australia will attend the Second Meeting of States Parties as an observer, with a parliamentary head of delegation, after attending the first Meeting of States Parties in June 2022. It is expected that several states, including Indonesia, will ratify the treaty during the meeting, bolstering universalisation efforts. Around 100 countries will attend, along with over 400 civil society delegates.
Gem Romuld, ICAN Australia Director, welcomed the independents’ statement and Australia’s attendance at the meeting, but said the Albanese Government must do more, in line with their policy platform to sign and ratify the treaty.
“We welcome the Australian government’s engagement with the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, but observing meetings isn’t enough. There is clearly broad support for signing on to this treaty in the Australian Parliament, as indicated by the independents’ statement to the PM.
“Labor needs to make good on their promise to join the majority of our South East Asian and Pacific neighbours and sign and ratify the TPNW. We hope that Australia’s attendance at this meeting will spur efforts towards this urgent goal.”
Romuld is joining the international ICAN delegation at the meeting, including Yankunytjatjara-Anangu woman and second-generation nuclear test survivor Karina Lester, and current ICAN Executive Director, former Labor MP Melissa Parke.
AUKUS Submarine Revelations Compel a Rethink
16 NOV 2023, By Dr Alan J. Kuperman, https://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/australianoutlook/aukus-submarine-revelations-compel-a-rethink/?fbclid=IwAR0aqbbEXcIh3HpPpmlRKMD9gIJfXmHWKZL6hbNYuq7jT1HhiEBwLsHZ95Q
US Congressional report argues that Australia’s acquisition of nuclear submarines would actually undercut deterrence of China by depleting the US submarine fleet. With the promise of nuclear submarines becoming ever distant, it may be time to reconsider other options.
Recent surprising disclosures have revealed that nuclear-powered submarines, which Australia plans to acquire under the trilateral AUKUS partnership, cannot achieve three of the government’s main stated objectives for the program. The Australian purchase would degrade, not enhance, deterrence against China. It could provide only a miniscule and inconsistent presence at sea even after two decades. And it would undermine rather than sustain the global non-proliferation regime. Thankfully, only a tiny fraction of the program’s total estimated cost of up to AUD $368bn has been spent to date, so it is not too late for Australians to consider better ways to ensure national security.
On the first objective, Australia’s former prime minister, Scott Morrison, who negotiated the AUKUS submarine deal, claimed it was necessary to achieve a “credible deterrent” against China, and his successor Anthony Albanese soon agreed. Last month, however, the US Congressional Budget Office (CBO) belied that assertion. It reported that, because the United States would sell Australia three to five existing nuclear attack submarines (SSNs) from the US fleet before the US industrial base could expand to replace them, “the sale of SSNs to Australia would reduce the number of attack submarines available to the [US] Navy.”
The CBO then posed a crucial question: “Would China be less deterred if the United States reduced the number of its attack submarines to help Australia develop its submarine force?” The answer appeared obvious because “Australia would control its own submarines, and their participation in any particular conflict would not be guaranteed. In fact, in March 2020, the Australian defence minister stated that his country did not promise to support the United States in the event of a conflict involving Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China.” Thus, the report indicated that Australia’s acquisition of nuclear submarines would undercut deterrence of China – exactly opposite to the claims of Australia’s leaders.
Second, Morrison declared in 2021 that AUKUS’s “first major initiative” would be to provide Australia a nuclear-powered submarine fleet. This year, however, Albanese conceded that the still-under-design SSN-AUKUS would not begin delivery to Australia until the 2040s at least. In the meantime, according to RAN Vice Admiral Jonathan Mead’s Senate Estimates testimony in May, Australia expects to receive from the United States by the late 2030s two partially used nuclear submarines and one new one. That may sound like three submarines, but it is illusory. Recent reports reveal that only 63 percent of the US Navy’s submarines are operable in any year, and those that can operate spend only 39 percent of the year at sea. Thus, on average, each US attack submarine is on duty for just 25 percent of the year, or three months. This means that even if Australia received its promised three US vessels by the late 2030s, on average the RAN would be able to deploy less than one nuclear submarine at a time. Is that really the “fleet” that Aussies expect for their billions of tax dollars?
Third, Albanese promised at the 2023 AUKUS summit that “Australia’s proud record of leadership in the international nuclear non-proliferation regime will of course continue.” However, the SSN-AUKUS would violate a fundamental tenet of that regime by needlessly using weapons-grade, highly enriched uranium (HEU) fuel – sufficient for hundreds of nuclear bombs.
Since the 1970s, the non-proliferation regime has banned HEU fuel in the new reactors of countries like Australia that have pledged under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to eschew nuclear weapons. The regime went so far as to convert 71 old reactors from HEU fuel to low-enriched uranium (LEU) fuel, to eliminate the proliferation risk. Indeed, HEU minimisation is deemed so vital for non-proliferation that it has been applied even to tiny reactors containing only one kilogram of weapons-grade uranium. Now Australia intends to eviscerate that non-proliferation norm by fuelling each SSN-AUKUS with hundreds of kilos of such bomb-grade uranium.
Fortunately, nuclear submarines do not require HEU fuel and can function perfectly well with LEU fuel, as the navies of France and China use. Despite this, Australia and its partners insist on HEU fuel for SSN-AUKUS, to enable smaller reactors without refuelling, thereby sending a message globally that HEU is required for the best submarines. As a result, we can expect other countries to declare – as Iran did immediately following the AUKUS announcement – that their navies too will use HEU, which they will enrich themselves, opening a huge back door to nuclear weapons. By contrast, LEU fuel is infinitely more proliferation resistant than HEU fuel, notwithstanding musings by uninformed AUKUS cheerleaders.
Australia’s defence minister, Richard Marles, has dismissed proliferation concerns by saying the HEU fuel would be imported in “sealed” reactors and thus inaccessible. In reality, however, Australia announced this year that it would extract the HEU fuel from all retired submarines and retain it in perpetuity, thereby savaging the non-proliferation regime even further. The supposedly “spent” fuel from each retired submarine would in fact contain an estimated 200 kilograms of still very highly enriched uranium, sufficient for a dozen or more nuclear weapons.
So, what can Australia do now? At the least, it should ask its partners to switch to LEU fuel for Australia’s SSN-AUKUS, to comport with non-proliferation norms. Fortunately, the US Congress has funded development of LEU naval fuel for the last eight years, providing a head-start to incorporate such proliferation-resistant fuel in the ongoing design of the SSN-AUKUS. If Albanese means what he says about “leadership in the international nuclear non-proliferation regime,” this step is a no-brainer.
The bigger question is whether Australia should abandon pursuit of nuclear submarines entirely. The Congressional report suggests that doing so would actually strengthen deterrence over the next few decades by not depleting the US fleet. Australia instead could reprogram the hundreds of billions earmarked for its nuclear submarines to buy defence systems that would complement rather than undermine US deterrence. That certainly sounds like a win-win.
Alan J. Kuperman is associate professor and coordinator of the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Project at the LBJ School of Public Affairs, University of Texas at Austin.
First newly built nuclear-powered submarine under AUKUS likely to be sold in 2038, US admiral reveals
ABC, By defence correspondent Andrew Greene, 9 Nov 23
Australia will be sold its first new American nuclear-powered submarine in 2038, according to a senior US naval officer who has also revealed that initial sales of second-hand Virginia-class boats will likely take place in 2032 and 2035.
Key points:
- US Navy personnel have laid out when they think the first nuclear-powered submarines could be delivered to Australia
- The first newly constructed boat under the AUKUS deal is expected to be sold in 2038
- Second-hand Virginia class submarines could be sold in 2032 and 2035
During a separate media event in Sydney, the visiting commander of the US Pacific fleet also assured Australians that this country will maintain full sovereignty over the American technology when it eventually comes into service here.
Speaking in Washington, the US commander of submarine forces, Vice Admiral Bill Houston, provided a provisional timeline for transferring Virginia-class submarines to Australia under the AUKUS partnership.
According to US publication Breaking Defense, Vice Admiral Houston said planned US sales of “in-service submarines” to Australia are expected in 2032 and 2035, while the 2038 sale will be a newly constructed Block VII version of the Virginia-class.
The newly constructed Block VII submarine will not carry the Virginia Payload Module, the mid-body section equipped on certain boats in the fleet that increases its missile capacity.
Under the AUKUS agreement, the United States will sell at least three, and up to five, Virginia-class submarines in the 2030s, before the United Kingdom will then jointly construct a new SSN-AUKUS submarine fleet with Australia.
Defence Minister Richard Marles has not yet commented on the new details of the proposed “optimal pathway” for nuclear-powered submarines, but earlier this week he expressed optimism the project still enjoyed broad political support in the US.
“There is legislation which is going through the US Congress as we speak, legislation which goes to reducing the export control regime as it applies between Australia and America,” Mr Marles said on Tuesday.
“[It is] legislation which will enable the sale of the Virginias but importantly legislation which will enable the provision of the Australian contribution to the American industrial uplift,” he added.
US officials insist the annual production rate of Virginia-class submarines needs to increase from the current level of 1.2 vessels to well above 2 per year, before transfers to Australia can occur……………………………………………… https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-09/aukus-submarine-sales-timelines-revealed/103083780
Targeting Gaza From US Spy Hub in Australia
Peter Cronau reports on Canberra’s secret support for Israel’s brutal assault on Palestinians in Gaza through NSA intelligence satellites in the U.S. Pine Gap base near Alice Springs.
Peter Cronau, Declassified Australia https://consortiumnews.com/2023/11/03/targeting-gaza-from-us-spy-hub-in-australia/
The Pine Gap U.S. surveillance base located outside of Alice Springs in Australia is collecting an enormous range of communications and electronic intelligence from the brutal Gaza-Israel battlefield — and this data is being provided to the Israel Defence Forces.
Two large Orion geosynchronous signals intelligence satellites, belonging to the U.S. and operated from Pine Gap, are located 36,000 kms above the equator over the Indian Ocean. Frosxxxdxxxxxm there, they look down on the Middle East, Europe and Africa, and gather huge amounts of intelligence data to beam back to the Pine Gap base.xxxxxc
After collecting and analysing the communications and intelligence data for the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), Pine Gap is providing it to the Israel Defence Forces, as it steps up its brutal assault on Palestinians in the Gaza enclave.
Pine Gap facility is monitoring the Gaza Strip and surrounding areas with all its resources, and gathering intelligence assessed to be useful to Israel,” a former Pine Gap employee has told Declassified Australia.
David Rosenberg worked inside Pine Gap as “team leader of weapon signals analysis” for 18 years until 2008. He is a 23-year veteran of the NSA.
“Pine Gap has satellites overhead. Every one of those assets would be on those locations, looking for anything that could help them.”
“Pine Gap facility is monitoring the Gaza Strip and surrounding areas with all its resources, and gathering intelligence assessed to be useful to Israel.”
Rosenberg says the personnel at Pine Gap are tasked with collecting signals such as “command and control” centres in Gaza, with Hamas headquarters often located near hospitals, schools and other civilian structures. “The aim would be to minimise casualties to non-combatants in achieving their objective of destroying Hamas.”
Since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel that killed over 1,400 Israelis, both military and civilian, the Israel Defence Forces has bombed hundreds of targets inside Gaza, killing far more than Hamas militants. An estimated 9,000 people so far have been killed, including most shockingly 3,600 children.
United Nations agencies have deplored the nearly four-week Israeli bombing campaign saying,
“Gaza has become a ‘graveyard’ for children with thousands now killed under Israeli bombardment, while more than a million face dire shortages of essentials and a lifetime of trauma ahead.”
Pine Gap’s Global Role
The sprawling satellite ground station outside Alice Springs, officially titled Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap (JDFPG), has been described as the United States’ second most important surveillance base globally.
About half the 800 personnel working at the Central Australian base are American, with Australian government employees making up fewer than 100 of the increasingly privatised staff.
The base is no mere passive communication collector. Personnel at the Pine Gap base provide vital detailed analysis and reporting on SIGINT (signals intelligence) and ELINT (electronic intelligence) it collects.
As well as surveillance of civilian, commercial and military communications, it provides detailed geolocation intelligence to the U.S. military that can be used to locate with precision targets in the battlefield.
This was first conclusively documented in a secret NSA document, titled “Site Profile,” leaked from the Edward Snowden archive to this writer and first published by ABC Australia in 2017:
“RAINFALL [Pine Gap’s NSA codename] detects, collects, records, processes, analyses and reports on PROFORMA signals collected from tasked target entities.”
These PROFORMA signals are the communications data of radar and weapon systems collected in near real-time — they likely would include remote launch signals for Hamas rockets, as well as any threatened missile launches from Lebanon or Iran.
“Pine Gap detects, collects, records, processes, analyses and reports on PROFORMA signals collected from tasked target entities.
This present war in Gaza is not the first time the dishes of Pine Gap have assisted Israel’s military with intelligence, including the detecting of incoming missiles, according to this previous report.
“During the [1991] Gulf War, Israeli reports praised Australia for relaying Scud missile launch warnings from the Nurrungar joint U.S.-Australian facility in South Australia, a task now assigned to Pine Gap.”
During the early stages of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, the NSA installed a data link to send early warning of any Iraqi missile launches detected directly to Israel’s Air Force headquarters at Tel Nof airbase, south of Tel Aviv.
Israel’s Access to ‘Five Eye’ Jewels
The NSA “maintains a far-reaching technical and analytic relationship with the Israeli SIGINT National Unit (ISNU),” according to documents published by The Intercept in 2014. The documents show the NSA and ISNU are “sharing information on access, intercept, targeting, language, analysis and reporting.”
“This SIGINT relationship has increasingly been the catalyst for a broader intelligence relationship between the United States and Israel.
“The Israeli side enjoys the benefits of expanded geographic access to world-class NSA cryptanalytic and SIGINT engineering expertise.”
It’s thanks to the Pine Gap base, with its satellites so strategically positioned to monitor the Middle East region, along with its targeting and analysis capability, that Israel is able to make use of these benefits.
Another leaked document, a targeting exchange agreement from the U.K.’s surveillance agency, GCHQ, reveals one of the “specific intelligence topics” shared among the NSA, GCHQ and ISNU was “Palestinians.” The document states that “due to the sensitivities” of Israeli involvement that particular program does not include direct targeting of Palestinians themselves.
The NSA considers their intelligence-sharing arrangement as being “beneficial to both NSA’s and ISNU’s mission and intelligence requirements.”
This wide intelligence sharing arrangement potentially opens up to the Israelis the “jewels” of the Five Eye global surveillance system collected by the NSA global surveillance network, including by Australia’s Pine Gap base.
Declassified Australia asked a series of questions of the Australian Defence Department about the role of the Pine Gap base in the Israel-Gaza war, and about the legal protections that may be in place to defend personnel of the base should legal charges of war crimes be laid. No response was received by deadline.
Peter Cronau is an award-winning investigative journalist, writer, and film-maker. His documentaries have appeared on ABC TV’s Four Corners and Radio National’s Background Briefing. He is an editor and cofounder of DECLASSIFIED AUSTRALIA. He is co-editor of the recent book A Secret Australia – Revealed by the WikiLeaks Exposés.
This article is from Declassified Australia.
Defence continues its blanket secrecy on weapons exports
Mapping the revolving door between government and the weapons industry
Undue Influence revolving door database progresses
Undue Influence Substack, MICHELLE FAHY, NOV 4, 2023
Australia has approved 322 military or dual-use permits to Israel over the past six years, according to new figures the government provided last week in response to questions on notice from Greens Senator David Shoebridge. The period covered was January 2017 to March 2023.
Defence has previously admitted that it favours secrecy over transparency and accountability regarding its decisions on weapons exports.
As I reported in 2021, Defence elevates the protection of ‘commercially sensitive’ information and ‘opportunities for Australian companies’ above fundamental democratic principles of transparency and accountability.
The recent reports show that Defence Department secrecy around weapons exports has not improved with the change in government.
Australia is obliged under international law to ensure weapons exports are not used to commit human rights violations, but Defence’s ongoing secrecy means the public has no idea what the Department has approved for export in our name.
“Australia has a legal duty under the UN Arms Trade Treaty, which Australia actively promoted when it was a UN Security Council member, to ensure that weapons are not used to commit human rights violations,” says former United Nations legal expert and Australian government minister Melissa Parke, who now leads the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). “Under the treaty, there must also be fully transparent public reporting about arms exports.”
Senator Shoebridge, the Greens’ defence spokesperson, said Australia had “one of the most secretive and unaccountable weapons export systems in the world”, given that it doesn’t break down the exact items exported.
Furthermore, Defence’s disclosure of the number of permits it has approved is a statistical veneer of limited value. Consider: one permit can cover multiple shipments or shipments to multiple countries. One permit can also cover multiple quantities, types and models of weapons or other items, whether physical or ‘intangible’ (electronic). In addition, as Defence freely admits, not all permits it approves proceed to export and delivery. Knowing the number of approved permits is therefore meaningless.
The ethical consequences of Defence’s policy of protecting the commercial interests of Australian weapons companies can be readily understood given the current war between Israel and Hamas: Australia is likely to have contributed towards the indiscriminate killing of innocent people in Gaza.
“Australia’s actions in approving arms exports to countries that are known to be committing serious violations of human rights, and its failure to be transparent about this, are inconsistent with its obligations under international law,” says Parke. “Having signed up to … these international laws, the Australian government can’t just cherry pick what aspects it’s going to abide by, especially when it … lectures other countries, such as China and Russia, about the importance of the international rule of law.” https://undueinfluence.substack.com/p/mapping-the-revolving-door-database-progress?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=297295&post_id=138509639&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&utm_medium=email
Australian leadership in Indo‑Pacific nuclear diplomacy
JOHN TILEMANN, The Interpreter, 3 Nov 23
With growing state capabilities in the region, “guardrails”
are more important than ever. Canberra can help.
Australia should again take a leadership role in nuclear diplomacy, working with regional neighbours, to reduce nuclear threats in the Indo-Pacific through confidence building and preventive diplomacy measures.
This was the call in an open letter to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese published this week by a cross-party and expert group of prominent Australians in the fields of public policy and nuclear security, urging the government to act to stem the rising tide of global nuclear threats – threats mostly generated today in the Indo-Pacific.
The seriousness of the danger has been acknowledged by regional leaders, including Australia’s prime minister. But it has yet to receive the high-level political attention it demands.
Eight of the world’s nine nuclear-armed states have strategic stakes in our region. Tensions among these nuclear players continue to rise, and the price of nuclear mistakes, or worse, intentional use of nuclear weapons, could be existential.
The numbers illustrate the danger…………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Long gone are the days of the relative simplicity of the bipolar world of two opposing blocs with a degree of stability arising from the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction. The multi-polar nuclear world of the Indo-Pacific is an even more dangerous place.
And additional nuclear complexity arises from the expectations of states benefiting from “ironclad treaty alliances” that the United States extends to Australia, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and Thailand.
Both South Korea and Japan have expressed concern about the reliability of US strategic assurances, and both could build nuclear weapons quickly should they take that decision. Australia’s nuclear diplomacy must also address those proliferation pressures…………………………………………….
Global instruments to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and to cap nuclear weapon testing have been very successful – but there are big gaps in these regimes in the Indo-Pacific.
Three of the four countries to reject the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, designed to prevent the further spread of nuclear weapons, are in this region: India, Pakistan and North Korea. The formal entry into force of the global ban on nuclear weapon testing is blocked by eight countries in two areas of regional tension – the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific.
Widely supported proposals for a global ban on the production of materials used to make nuclear weapons – highly enriched uranium and plutonium – are also resisted by those in our region still growing their nuclear arsenals.
While remaining hugely important, global mechanisms must be supplemented by regional mechanisms. Even basic tools for crisis management such as hotlines are either unevenly maintained or non-existent.
The ASEAN Regional Forum brings together all relevant Indo-Pacific players but has had limited success in moving beyond information exchange to confidence building measures – and preventive diplomacy remains a distant ambition.
The East Asia Summit also engages all key Indo-Pacific strategic nuclear parties, but it has yet to become a mechanism for addressing security challenges, let alone reducing nuclear threats.
Nevertheless, Australia has a solid record of institution building from APEC through to its strong engagement with the ASEAN-led arrangements that have done much to establish the habits of regional dialogue. ……………………………………………………… more https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/australian-leadership-indo-pacific-nuclear-diplomacy
Australia must lobby US for ‘no first use’ of nuclear weapons, says ex-minister Gareth Evans
Former foreign minister says it is ‘sheer dumb luck’ that arms have not been used in the past 78 years and urges leadership on control measures
Daniel Hurst, Guardian, 1 Nov 23
Labor luminary and former foreign minister, Gareth Evans has urged Australia to lobby the US to promise “no first use” of nuclear weapons, warning that global arms control agreements “are now either dead or on life support”.
Evans says that in the wake of sealing the Aukus nuclear-powered submarine deal, the Albanese government should give “some comfort to ALP members and voters that we are really serious about nuclear arms control”.
Evans told Guardian Australia it was “sheer dumb luck” that the world had avoided a nuclear attack in the 78 years since the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and “it is utterly wishful thinking to believe that this luck can continue in perpetuity”.
Evans joined arms control experts and former senior diplomats in urging the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, to take “a leadership role in addressing the rising nuclear threats in our region”.
Australia should appoint “a high-level envoy to engage our regional partners on an agenda of nuclear confidence building and preventive diplomacy measures”, according to a letter from the Asia-Pacific Leadership Network for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (APLN).
While the group’s letter to Albanese is not specific about policy measures, Evans offered his own view that Australia’s status as a close US ally “gives us a particularly significant potential role” in pushing to reduce nuclear risks.
“The most immediately useful step we could take would be to support the growing international movement for the universal adoption of No First Use doctrine by the nuclear-armed states,” Evans told Guardian Australia…………………………………….
In a stark warning about the security environment, Evans said the risk of nuclear weapons being used through human error, miscalculation or system error was “greater than ever, not least given new developments in AI and cyber-offence capability”.
“Nearly 13,000 nuclear warheads are still in existence, with a combined destructive capability of close to 100,000 Hiroshima- or Nagasaki-sized bombs, and stockpiles, especially in our own Indo-Pacific region … are now growing again,” he said.
“The taboo against their deliberate use is weakening, with Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, talking up this prospect in language not heard since the height of the cold war.”
In addition to seeking universal support for “no first use”, Evans said other potential risk-reduction measures include cutting the number of weapons ready for immediate use……………………………………………….
The APLN letter gained support from high-powered experts including John Carlson, the former head of the Australian Safeguards and Non-Proliferation Office, and Ramesh Thakur, a former UN assistant secretary general.
Other signatories included John Tilemann, a former diplomat and international civil servant with the International Atomic Energy Agency, and Gary Quinlan, a former Australian ambassador to the UN.
The leader of the Greens in the Senate, Larissa Waters, backed the letter with the former Australian Democrats leader Natasha Stott Despoja and the former Labor minister for international development Melissa Parke. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/nov/01/australia-must-lobby-us-for-no-first-use-of-nuclear-weapons-says-ex-minister-gareth-evans #nuclear #antinuclear #nuclearfree #NoNukes
AUKUS nuclear submarine deal triggers accusations over cost and construction
SMH, By Daniel Keane 30 Oct 23
South Australia’s premier remains insistent that the nation’s future nuclear-powered submarines should be constructed in Adelaide, despite a prominent call for the vessels to instead be built by, and purchased from, another AUKUS nation in order to save taxpayers “billions and billions of dollars”.
Key points:
- Alexander Downer has called for all of the nation’s future nuclear subs to be built overseas
- But SA premier Peter Malinauskas says Australia should build them “for national security reasons”
- Mr Downer also said the question of storage of AUKUS nuclear waste needs to be addressed
Former foreign affairs minister Alexander Downer has described the AUKUS project’s $368 billion price tag as “eye-watering”, and said he expects a future federal government to abandon the local construction element of the deal.
“We’re just going to wreck Australia if we keep promising to spend money on any manner of projects and have no idea where the money is going to come from,” Mr Downer told the ABC on Sunday.
“I don’t think the existing federal parliament or the next one is going to make a decision on this, but I think down the years, in the end, the federal government will decide that this is just too expensive, and they will buy the submarines from overseas.
“I’d be almost certain of that.”
Responding to similar comments Mr Downer made in The Weekend Australian, SA premier Peter Malinauskas said it is vital that Australia develops the ability to build the vessels “for national security reasons”, but also because “neither the US nor the UK in the long term have the capacity” to construct Australia’s entire fleet.
“They are struggling to meet their own demand,” Mr Malinauskas said.
Under the current terms of the AUKUS pact, Australia will get three US-made Virginia-class submarines while it builds up to eight nuclear-powered submarines of its own.
Mr Malinauskas accused Mr Downer of “misunderstanding” the intentions and expected outcomes of AUKUS…………………………………………………………..
But Mr Downer has rejected the premier’s comments, and in turn accused Mr Malinauskas of failing to understand the economics of AUKUS.
“I have a challenge to the premier — to explain where all this money is going to come from, and why does the premier think it’s better we spend eye-watering amounts of money on building nuclear submarines in Adelaide rather than investing … in other parts of our economy?” Mr Downer said……………………
“Peter Malinauskas and [SA opposition leader] David Speirs will be well and truly retired by the time this project comes about.
“It’s easy for them to make any manner of promises about times in the future, which will be way beyond their political life span — we can all make promises about the Second Coming.”
Mr Downer also said the question of storage of nuclear waste from the subs had not been satisfactorily addressed.
“There’s some elements of the Labor Party who have reservations, or are opposed to, nuclear-powered submarines and any association with nuclear power, and so I part company with them on that,” he said.
“But you’re going to have to store the waste somewhere. I’m not sure where that will be stored.” https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-29/sa-premier-defends-aukus-after-alexander-downer-questions-cost/103036822
Australian Submarine Agency stated Osborne, South Australia for building nuclear submarines, – but Osborne is totally unsuitable!
25 Oct 23
The latest reliable information is that Osborne, South Australia, is unsuitable for the construction of the new hybrid nuclear power submarines in that it is far too small.
Besides it in its inherent size, being too small without any capacity for expansion, the submarines building
facility will require two concentric buffer zones for which there is simply no room based on the reports in
InDaily.
The first of these buffer zones will be immediately surrounding the Osborne complex and will be a “
shoot to kill“ buffer zone for high security.
The external buffer zone surrounding the first one will be fairly substantial and is to ensure complete
environmental and similar protection
It is therefore daydreaming to put up Osborne for the construction of the hybrid nuclear powered
submarines
From INDAILY 11 October 2023, Radiation monitoring at SA nuclear subs: – “In a written response to InDaily, a spokesperson from the Australian Submarine Agency said they had informed the State Government, Port Adelaide Enfield Council, and the PortnAdelaide residents Environment Protection group of the environmental baseline contamination assessment at Osborne.
“This assessment will determine existing levels of non- radiological contaminants and background radiation on the preferred site for the Submarine Construction Yard and surrounding areas,” the spokesperson said.” –
This is at first instance no more than a good political photoshoot based on ignorance .
It seems that as pointed out by Rex Patrick the government has failed to learn anything from the ill fated and expensive Kimba situation
Having regard to the warnings by ANSTO it also seems that yet again there is no consensus by the various organs of the federal government
Finally it is interesting that Susan Close who is the deputy premier of South Australia and is ostensively regarded environmental scientist has had little to say on this situation which is similar to her stance on Kimba.
Both the federal and state governments should heed the excellent study entitled RESET OF AMERICA’S NUCLEAR WASTE MANAGEMENT Strategy and Policy by Professor Rod Ewing and his assembled experts to properly understand the implications and requirements of the possible start of a nuclear installation such as in this instance.
The work now being undertaken should immediately start a safety case for full community consultations which seems most appropriate since media polls suggest that more than 70% of South Australia’s population is against any nuclear activity
This situation is just another black mark for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for not approving the implementation of AUKUS under the nonproliferation treaty
Antipodean Nuclear Free Zones: Testing Times for Antarctica and the South Pacific
October 19, 2023 https://nonproliferation.org/antipodean-nuclear-free-zones-testing-times-for-antarctica-and-the-south-pacific/
Australia and New Zealand have historically promoted strong anti-nuclear policies at both a global, regional, and sub-regional level. They joined with the United States and the other original parties to the 1959 Antarctic Treaty to make Antarctica nuclear free.
Both countries also took France to the International Court of Justice in 1973 in order to bring about a halt to France’s nuclear testing program in the South Pacific, and actively promoted the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone in the 1985 Treaty of Rarotonga.
However, in 2021 Australia along with the UK and US announced the AUKUS initiative, which in March 2023 was finalized in San Diego. Australia will eventually acquire AUKUS nuclear-powered submarines during the 2030s.
This has placed a spotlight on Australia’s anti-nuclear credentials and its international law commitments and has attracted criticism from within the Asia Pacific, including from New Zealand, Pacific island states, and China. This seminar considers these issues through the lens of international law.
VIDEO – on original
Chapters:
00:00:00 Moderator: Avner Cohen, Professor, Nonproliferation and Terrorism Studies, Middlebury Institute of International Studies
00:01:44 Speaker: Donald R. Rothwell, Professor of International Law, ANU College of Law, Australian National University
00:57:07 Q&A
Australian Red Cross calls on the Australian Government to sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
Black Mist and the Ban
On the 70th anniversary of the first nuclear weapon test on mainland Australia, we support the call for a nuclear weapons ban.
On the 70th anniversary of the first nuclear weapon test on mainland Australia at Emu Field on Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) lands, and at a time when people in Australia consider deeply new ways to address realities in the experience of First Nations people, we support the call for Australia to urgently join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
On 15 October 1953, the first nuclear weapons testing on mainland Australia took place at Emu Field as part of Operation Totem. This was only one in a series of twelve major nuclear weapons tests and the hundreds of smaller-scale trials conducted in Australia from 1952 to 1963. Today, First Nations People continue to suffer long-term and inter-generational effects from these blasts, impacting their health, communities, and homelands.
The devastating legacy of nuclear weapons testing in Australia cannot be undone, it must never be forgotten and we, as Australians, must do everything in our power to right these wrongs. These actions include compensating affected communities, remediating contaminated lands, and recommitting to the fight in ensuring that these weapons are never used again.
The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), as the first and only treaty to comprehensively ban these bombs, recognises their disproportionate impact on Indigenous communities. The Treaty, which also provides for victims’ assistance and environmental remediation, is the clear path forward to addressing these weapons’ destructive force in Australia.
Australian Red Cross calls on the Australian Government to sign and ratify the TPNW. We endorse the “Black Mist and the Ban” Statement, released by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons and co-drafted by Karina Lester, Yankunytjatjara Anangu woman and second generation survivor of the Emu Field nuclear tests, urging the Government to take swift action towards the complete elimination of nuclear weapons.
Accident on nuclear submarine would leave Australia ‘unavoidably’ responsible, says US report.
9 news By Richard Wood • Senior Journalist Oct 4, 2023
Australia would “unavoidably” become responsible for stopping an accident once it sails American-made nuclear powered submarines under the AUKUS deal, a report warns.
The warning comes in a study prepared for US legislators that looks at the potential impacts of the Royal Australian Navy acquiring the submarines.
Australia will spend up to $368 billion by 2055 to build a new fleet of eight nuclear-propelled submarines in Adelaide to enter service in the 2040s under the costliest defence project in the nation’s history.
But any accident on one of the vessels would have potentially huge ramifications, the Congressional Research Service report said.
Any mishap might “call into question for third-party observers the safety of all US Navy nuclear-powered ships”.
It would likely impact support by the American public for operating US Navy nuclear-powered submarines.
Foreign ports might also be put off from hosting the vessels, thus affecting the US Navy’s deterrent ability against potential adversaries such as China and Russia………………..
The federal government confirmed earlier this year that Australia will take delivery of three US Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarines by the early 2030s.
The report comes after a group of Republicans in the US Senate in July expressed their fears that selling nuclear-powered submarines to Australia through the AUKUS arrangement would leave their own navy short.
They demanded more funding for the US military before they said they would support the sale.
But Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles said he was confident the US Congress would pass the AUKUS deal.
Aukus: UK defence giant BAE Systems wins Australian £3.95bn #nuclear submarine contract
BBC News By Peter Hoskins, Business reporter 2 October 23 #antinuclear #nuclear-free #NoNukes
Britain’s biggest defence firm, BAE Systems, has won a £3.95bn ($4.82bn) contract to build a new generation of submarines as the security pact between the US, UK and Australia moves ahead.
In March, the three countries announced details of the so-called Aukus pact to provide Australia with nuclear-powered attack submarines by the late 2030s.
The pact aims to counter China’s ambitions in the Indo-Pacific region.
Beijing has strongly criticised the three countries over the deal.
……………………..”This multi-billion-pound investment in the Aukus submarine programme will help deliver the long-term hunter-killer submarine capabilities the UK needs to maintain our strategic advantage and secure our leading place in a contested global order,” UK Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said as the Conservative party conference got under way in Manchester.
………………….Other major UK defence contractors are also getting a boost from the Aukus deal.
In March, it was confirmed that Rolls-Royce Submarines would provide all the nuclear reactor plants that will power the SSN-Aukus vessels.
In June, Rolls-Royce said it would almost double the size of its Raynesway facility in Derby as a result of the deal. On Sunday, Babcock International, which maintains and supports the UK’s submarines, said it had signed a five-year deal with the Ministry of Defence to work on the SSN-Aukus design.
The Aukus security alliance – which was first announced in September 2021 – has repeatedly drawn criticism from China.
However, the three Western countries say the deal is aimed at shoring up stability in the Indo-Pacific more https://www.bbc.com/news/business-66979798
1 This month
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
– go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com/
Antinuclear 