B52’s mark the demise of Australia as a self-reliant nation
Australia has become a base for the possible use of US nuclear weapons against China………………..
And all this has happened without the Parliament being consulted
https://johnmenadue.com/b52s-mark-the-demise-of-australia-as-a-self-reliant-nation/
By Bruce Haigh, Nov 5, 2022
News that the US plans to base six B52’s at RAAF, Tindal, will likely change the dynamic, in what has admittedly been a half-hearted attempt by Australia, at improving relations with China.
The Foreign Minister, Penny Wong, got off to a good start, but the momentum was slowed by Prime Minister Albanese’s remarks that China constituted a threat, his rushed attendance at an anti-China NATO Summit meeting, the QUAD meeting and the Abe funeral. Abe like his grand farther Kishi was very anti-Chinese.
Albanese’s remarks echo those of Biden, who has chosen on a number of occasions to say that the US would ‘defend’ Taiwan. These guarantees have each time been denied by White House spokes persons but have been reiterated often enough by Biden to indicate where he stands on the question of the ‘reintegration’ of Taiwan with China.
Biden in his confusing way did nothing to stop the ill-conceived Pelosi visit to Taiwan. Biden has refused, indeed prevented, diplomatic negotiations toward ending the war in the Ukraine. He sees the war, mistakenly and naively, as an opportunity to break Russia. Albanese has gone along with this, recently sending 70 Australian soldiers to the UK to train Ukrainian troops. His thinking, and that of Biden, appear in lockstep over the major foreign policy and defence issues confronting Asia and Europe, mainly created and fanned by the US.
An almost frenzied pace is building in the US for confrontation of China. Why? John Menadue, Richard Tanter, Mike Scrafton and Jeffrey Sachs have all recently written in Pearls & Irritations on this unfolding madness.
The basing of B52’s in the Northern Territory changes the nature of Australia’s defence relationship with the USA and our diplomatic relationship with China. Australia has become a base for the possible use of US nuclear weapons against China. Tentative and overly cautious moves to re-establish a sound and workable relationship with China will have been set back, if not put on ice. Moves that Morrison was a party to, or patsy to, have proceeded apace without the brakes being applied by Marles or Albanese. The horse has bolted. And all this has happened without the Parliament being consulted. So much for Australian democracy. All this talk about Western Democracies standing up to totalitarian regimes is so much cant.
China is unlikely to regard Australia as having acted in good faith and nor is the region and the Pacific. Overnight the US and Australia changed the nature of the game with no prior warning and no special briefings. It is a unilateral and hostile upping of the anti.
It is also unlikely that Australia will be advised if the aircraft are carrying nuclear weapons on planned patrols. The line that can be expected is that for operational and security reasons information relating to carriage of nuclear weapons is classified and can neither be confirmed or denied.
No doubt the Chinese are seriously thinking of writing Australia off as being incapable of independent decision making- a vassal state, a follower, lacking the capacity and courage to shape its regional destiny. The chances of Xi Jinping meeting with Albanese at the G20 have receded, if not evaporated.
Perhaps it is symbolic that the ubiquitous B52 marks the demise of Australia as a self-reliant nation.
The B52 is the symbol of US foreign policy failure in Asia. Not satisfied with the terms of the Paris peace settlement, Nixon and Kissinger decided to bomb the Accord, as it was termed, out of existence. Over a ten-day period beginning on 18 December 1972, B52’s bombed Hanoi and surrounding areas. It was a disaster anywhere from 15 to 30 aircraft were shot down, depending on whether you believe the Americans or Vietnamese. The US was forced back to the negotiating table and agreed to the original terms.
B52’s bombed Laos and Cambodia during the same undeclared war with a greater tonnage of bombs than the US used over Europe in WWII. Fields are still being cleared of unexploded armaments and men, women and children are still being maimed.
The basing of the B52’s blind sides the Defence Review called by Albanese and Marles and gives a great deal of weight to AUKUS, details of which are yet to be put to the Australian Parliament. It is unconscionable that AUKUS is bandied about as a joint defence arrangement when little is known about it.
It is presumed that all that is currently taking place and has taken place between the US and Australia, such as the embedding of US personnel in the ADF, base upgrades and proposed and past purchases of defence equipment, such as the Mark II Abrams tank, were all done under AUKUS, except that the UK seems to have been notably absent. So, is it AUUS? Or against the wishes of the Japanese people will it become JAPAUUS? Or AUJAPUS? OR AUJAPUKUS?
Whatever the Monty Python outcome, it needs to go before the Australian Parliament. It has been a big mistake for Prime Minister, Albanese, to take on and run with Morrison’s dirty and deceitful deal. Australia needs to be aware of the immediate and long-term consequences of the US military and industrial China folly of which once again we have been railroaded into. No debate, no consideration and no brains.
Australia’s $multibillion submarine madness and the phoney China threat
According to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, the cost of eight would be $171 billion after inflation. More recent estimates are over $200 billion.
https://johnmenadue.com/australian-submarine-madness/ By Brian Toohey, Nov 4, 2022
Nobody knows what military threats to Australia from China or anyone else will exist in 2050. In these circumstances, it is folly to commit to spending over $200 billion on acquiring eight US designed nuclear attack submarines to deploy in support of the US on the China coast.
This is particularly extravagant when modern conventionally powered submarines are much cheaper and far harder to detect. Nuclear submarines are noisy because they rely on a reactor to power a steam engine with cooling pumps, turbines, reduction gears and steam in the pipes. They also expel hot water that can be detected, as can the wake on the surface when travelling at high speeds.
Modern battery powered submarines, which Australia perversely has no plans to get, maintain near silent operation with what’s called air independent propulsion (AIP) supplied by a hydrogen fuel cell in Singapore’s German submarines, a Sterling engine favoured by the Swedes or in the case of the latest Japanese submarines, by advanced batteries with long endurance.
These submarines have the great advantage of making the crew far safer than noisy nuclear ones while leaving funds over for much needed improvements in Australian’s health, education, and social security systems as well as for tackling climate change.
Yet the Albanese government has a 350 strong task force in Defence planning the big changes needed to build nuclear powered submarines in Adelaide. In contrast, a prize-winning essay published in the US Naval Institute’s magazine Proceedings in June 2018 said the US Navy would do well to consider acquiring “some quiet, inexpensive and highly capable diesel-electric submarines. It said, “The ability of AIP was demonstrated in 2005, when HMS Gotland, a Swedish AIP submarine, ‘sank’ many U.S nuclear fast-attack subs, destroyers, frigates, cruisers, and even the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier in joint exercises”. However, the Australian Navy somehow sees a great advantage in getting US nuclear attack subs such as the Virginia Class that were sunk in the exercise.
One of the US’s most highly regarded defence analysts, Winslow Wheeler, recently pointed out that these subs have been available only 15 times in 33 years for their six-monthly deployments. This suggests fewer than two of Australia’s eight nuclear submarines would be operationally available, on average, each year. According to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, the cost of eight would be $171 billion after inflation. More recent estimates are over $200 billion.
Australia could build ten of the latest German submarines operated by Singapore for about $10 billion. They also have an outstanding maintenance record, as well as being well suited to the shallow waters in Australia’s region. A similar figure could apply to the latest Swedish ones, but they may not be so readily available. Japan’s new Taigei class would cost roughly the same to buy, but more to operate its bigger crew. The Japanese government would be reluctant to build it in other than in its own shipyards.
These figures suggest that the job of defending Australia could be performed for a reasonable cost, particularly if greater use were made of modern, low-cost, drones. The trend for low-cost drones to become more useful is only likely to grow by 2050 when Australia might be getting its first operational nuclear submarine.
At some stage, a reality check needs to apply to the barrage of claims about increased Chinese aggression or the China threat. The last major war involving China was in Korea in 1950. China argues its rapid arms build-up reflects how it’s surrounded by potential enemies, including the US, which has been in many more aggressive wars and spends much more on its military.
The Pentagon 2021 annual report to Congress on China acknowledged it had withdrawn six land claims to settle border disputes with neighbours. Contrary to the common assumption that it is ready to invade Taiwan, the Pentagon said “There is no indication it is significantly expanding its force of tank landing ships and landing craft – suggesting a traditional large-scale direct beach assault operation requiring extensive lift remains aspirational”.
China could settle some of the extreme territorial sea claims that were originally made by the Communist Party’s political opponent, the Nationalist Party, before 1949. Taiwan also makes these claims. Although abrasive, nobody has been killed. By 2050 the US, with Australia tagging along, may have extended its well-established history of killing people by engaging in international aggression in violation of the rules. Alternatively, in 2050 China could engage in its first major war since 1950 by attempting to invade Australia, except no one no one has suggested any plausible motive.
Although Australian nuclear submarines will not be available, many Australian pundits see a need to go to Taiwan’s aid if secret intelligence analysis says China is about to attack it. Following the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003 based on concocted intelligence, the Challis chair of international law at Sydney University, Ben Saul, said it’s important to ask if a war over Taiwan would be legal. He wrote in the Lowy Institute’s The Interpreter, “The conventional legal answer favours China. Only a state has the right to use military force in self-defence against an armed attack by another state – and to ask other states to help it to defend itself.”
The Australian Foreign Affairs department says Taiwan is not a state. Saul adds, “In a world with a plurality of different political systems, states are not permitted to use force simply to protect democracy or ‘freedom’ abroad. The US backed Taiwan even when it was a military dictatorship until the 1990s; its defence has never really been about freedom.”
‘Target Oz’: Defence Strategic Review must address nuclear risks
Pine Gap near Alice Springs, RAAF Base Tindal for US B-52’s near Katherine, Darwin Harbour, North-West Cape near Exmouth, and the Stirling submarine base near Fremantle are all potential targets for a strike by China in a conflict with the US over Taiwan or the South China Sea
Pearls and Irritations, By David Noonan, Nov 3, 2022
The Defence Strategic Review must act in accordance with Australia’s commitment to sign the UN “Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons” (the ‘Ban Treaty’) and not seek to compromise that path by supporting roles in nuclear warfare alongside the US.
Anthony Albanese made a commitment in his “Changing the World” Speech (ALP National Conference, 18 Dec 2018), stating:
“We have on our side the overwhelming support of the Australian people. …
Our commitment to sign and ratify the nuclear weapons ban treaty in government is Labor at our best”
The ALP National Platform (2021, p.117) commits “to sign and ratify the Ban Treaty” and Australia must do so in this term of the ALP in federal office.
The Ban Treaty Article 1 Prohibitions require nations to never under any circumstance use or threaten to use nuclear weapons, OR to assist or encourage, in any way, anyone to do so.
To come into compliance with the Ban Treaty, the Defence Review must evolve our Alliance with the US to put an end to defence reliance on US ‘nuclear deterrence’.
The US ‘nuclear weapons umbrella’ is a threat to use nuclear weapons in Australia’s defence policy – a threat that has long been contrary to International Humanitarian Law and is now illegal since the Ban Treaty came into force as a permanent part of International Law from 22 January 2021.
The roles of Pine Gap and the North-West Cape communications base must evolve to exclude military operations related to the use, or threat to use, nuclear weapons.
The ICAN Report “Choosing Humanity” (July 2019) best sets out the case for Australia to sign the Ban Treaty. Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong should now refer the Ban Treaty to an Inquiry by the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties as a proposed treaty action.
Australians have a right to know the risk exposure we face in peace time and in war:
While preparing for war, a second lead task for the Defence Review is to provide transparency on the consequences for Australia as a target in an escalating conflict between the US and China.
The Review must report on the scenarios, risks, and consequences of a nuclear or conventional attack by China on bases in Australia and on the potential resultant health calamity.
Both China and Russia’s priority and capacity to attack US bases in Australia has long been recognised. An ASPI Report (Sept 2022) states Pine Gap is a high-level nuclear target, noting:
“We need to understand what the implications would be for Alice Springs, which is a town of 32,000 people only 18 kilometres from the base.”
The lead author of the report, Paul Dibb has stated: “The risk of nuclear war is now higher than at any time since the Cold War. … Australia should not feel its geographic distance from the epicentre of conflict affords it any significant protection. … We need to plan on the basis that Pine Gap continues to be a nuclear target, If China attacks Taiwan, Pine Gap is likely to be heavily involved.”
A Lowy paper (09 August 2021) also cites Darwin as a potential target in a US-China conflict:
“The arena of hostilities for any such conflict would be mostly confined to East Asia, with the possible exception of strikes against US forces using Darwin as a rear-area staging base.”
No doubt Australia acquiring nuclear powered attack submarines and visits or basing US or UK nuclear subs at Stirling naval base near Fremantle escalates the risk profile we face.
Beijing’s Global Times “China needs to make a plan to deter extreme forces of Australia” (07 May 2021) threatened “retaliatory punishment” with missile strikes “on the military facilities and relevant key facilities on Australian soil” if Australia coordinates with the US in a war over Taiwan:
“China has a strong production capability, including producing additional long-range missiles with conventional warheads that target military objectives in Australia when the situation becomes highly tense.”
Pine Gap near Alice Springs, RAAF Base Tindal for US B-52’s near Katherine, Darwin Harbour, North-West Cape near Exmouth, and the Stirling submarine base near Fremantle are all potential targets for a strike by China in a conflict with the US over Taiwan or the South China Sea……………………more
David Noonan B.Sc., M.Env.St., is an Independent Environment Campaigner and was a long-term campaigner for Australian Conservation Foundation.
See the public submission to the Defence Review by David Noonan (29 Oct 2022).
As Australia gets American nuclear-capable bombers, it risks becoming a dangerous military mess and target – like Guam
China’s furious reaction as Australia gets US nuclear-capable bombers A furious Beijing has blasted reports of the US gifting Australia nuclear-capable bombers, prompting a concerning warning from China.
https://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/military/chinas-ominous-threat-to-australia-over-us-nuclearcapable-bombers/news-story/ca67d55d29ef716883078e4fb8e2101f Ally Foster and Frank Chung, November 1, 2022 –
Australia has been issued an ominous threat, after China lashed out at reports of the US sending nuclear-capable bombers to the Northern Territory.
According to an investigation by the ABC’s Four Cornersthat aired on Monday, Washington has drawn up plans to build a dedicated a “squadron operations facility” at the Tindal air base south of Darwin that will house “six B-52s”.
These aircraft are capable of delivering both nuclear and conventional weapons, with a combat range of more than 14,000km.
The news has prompted a furious response from Beijing, with the former editor-in-chief of the CCP-run Global Times issuing an ominous warning to Australia.military
Commentator Hu Xijin said Australia would need to “bear the risks” of this move.
“The PLA’s Dongfeng missiles definitely fly faster than the B-52 bombers,” he wrote on Twitter.
“If Australia wants to become a “big Guam,” then it must bear the corresponding strategic risks.”
There have even been warnings that accepting these bombers could “trigger a regional arms race”.
Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Zhao Lijian said by sending the bombers to Australia, the US had “increased regional tensions, seriously undermined regional peace and stability, and may trigger a regional arms race”.
“Defence and security co-operation between any countries should be conducive to regional peace and stability and not target or harm the interests of third parties,” he told reporters in Beijing.
Mr Zhao said Beijing was urging all the countries concerned to “abandon the old Cold War zero-sum thinking and narrow geopolitical concepts”.
The focus should instead be on contributing more to regional peace and stability and enhancing “mutual trust”, he said.
With nuclear-capable B-52 bombers in Australia, USA could make lethal nuclear attack on mainland China.
The ability to deploy the long-range bombers to Australia sends a strong message to adversaries about Washington’s ability to project lethal air power, the US Air Force was quoted as saying in the report.
China slams report US to deploy nuclear-capable B-52 bombers in Australia amid Taiwan tensions, SCMP 31 Oct 22
The US Air Force said deploying long-range bombers to Australia sends a message to adversaries about Washington’s ability to project lethal air power
As the B-52s could reach and potentially attack mainland China, they will serve as a warning to Beijing over a Taiwan assault, a defence analyst said
The United States is planning to deploy up to six nuclear-capable B-52 bombers to an airbase in northern Australia, a source familiar with the matter said on Monday, amid heightened tensions with Beijing.
Dedicated facilities for the bombers will be set up at Australian air force’s remote Tindal base, about 300km (190 miles) south of Darwin, the capital of Australia’s Northern Territory, said the source, who declined to be identified because they are not authorised to speak publicly on the issue.
The development was first reported by the Australian Broadcasting Corp (ABC)‘s Four Corners programme, citing US documents………………………..
Australia’s Northern Territory is already host to frequent military collaborations with the United States. Thousands of US marines rotate through the territory annually for training and joint exercises, first started under President Barack Obama.
Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles’ office did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment…………………
The ability to deploy the long-range bombers to Australia sends a strong message to adversaries about Washington’s ability to project lethal air power, the US Air Force was quoted as saying in the report.
Last year, the US, Britain and Australia created a security deal that will provide Australia with the technology to deploy nuclear-powered submarines, riling China.
Becca Wasser, senior fellow at the Washington-based Centre for a New American Security, told the ABC that putting B-52s that could reach and potentially attack mainland China in Australia will be a warning to Beijing, as fears grow of an assault on Taiwan.
Asked about US nuclear bombers being positioned in Australia, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said defence and security cooperation between countries should “not target any third parties or harm the interests of third parties.”
“The relevant US behaviours have increased regional tensions, seriously undermined regional peace and stability, and may trigger an arms race in the region,” Zhao told reporters at a regular briefing in Beijing
“China urges the parties concerned to abandon the outdated Cold War and zero-sum mentality and narrow-minded geopolitical thinking, and to do something conducive to regional peace and stability and enhancing mutual trust between the countries,” Zhao added. https://scmp.com/news/asia/australasia/article/3197806/amid-taiwan-tensions-us-deploy-nuclear-capable-b-
US Air Force to deploy nuclear-capable B-52 bombers to Australia
The US Air Force is preparing to deploy up to six nuclear-capable B-52 bombers to northern Australia in a show of “nuclear deterrence” to China.
news.com.au Frank Chung @franks_chung, October 31, 2022 ,
The US Air Force is preparing to deploy up to six nuclear-capable B-52 bombers to northern Australia in a show of “nuclear deterrence” to China, amid growing fears of an invasion of Taiwan.
According to an investigation by the ABC’s Four Corners airing on Monday, Washington has drawn up plans to build a dedicated a “squadron operations facility” at the Tindal air base south of Darwin that will house “six B-52s”.
The giant aircraft, with wingspan of 56 metres, have a combat range of more than 14,000 kilometres and are capable of delivering both nuclear and conventional weapons.
Documents obtained by Four Corners show the planned facilities, which will include a parking area and adjoining maintenance centre, will be used for “deployed B-52 squadrons”.
“The ability to deploy US Air Force bombers to Australia sends a strong message to adversaries about our ability to project lethal air power,” the US Air Force told the program.
The Defence Department has been contacted for comment.
According to the program, the Tindal air base plan — expected to cost up to $US100 million and be completed by 2026 — is part of a much larger upgrade of defence assets across northern Australia, including the Pine Gap spy base.
Anti-nuclear activist Richard Tanter from the Nautilus Institute told Four Corners the move greatly expanded Australia’s commitment to any US war with China.
“It’s a sign to the Chinese that we are willing to be the tip of the spear,” he said.
“It’s very hard to think of a more open commitment that we could make. A more open signal to the Chinese that we are going along with American planning for a war with China.”
The plans were hinted at in last year’s annual Australia-United States Ministerial (AUSMIN) meetings, which agreed for “enhanced air co-operation” which would see “rotational deployment of US aircraft of all types in Australia”, although B-52s were not explicitly mentioned……………………..
NSW Greens Senator David Shoebridge slammed the “dangerous escalation”.
“It makes Australia an even bigger part of the global nuclear weapons threat to humanity’s very existence — and by rising military tensions it further destabilises our region,” he said……………………………………………………. more https://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/military/us-air-force-to-deploy-nuclearcapable-b52-bombers-to-australia/news-story/dd7cc13dc270dbabb332cc200e279b7c
The Pentagon builds a network in our Australian Department of Defence amidst media silence
https://johnmenadue.com/pentagon-takes-over-australias-defence-policies-amidst-media-silence/ By John MenadueOct 29, 2022,
It is more than inter-operability and inter-changeability with the US military. Anthony Albanese and Richard Marles need to break up the American network in our Department of Defence that the Washington Post has exposed.
The Washington Post has found that a retired US Admiral is ‘now a Deputy Secretary of Defense for Australia’.
I wonder how the Admiral handles ASTEO documents- for Australian eyes only?
In the last few days in Pearls and Irritations, Mike Scrafton and Richard Tanter have exposed how retired US Admirals have been employed as highly paid consultants to shape our policies on submarines.
At the same time our media has shown no interest or concern. This is more than ‘foreign influence’. It looks more like foreign control.
As Paul Keating recently put it,‘our strategic sovereignty is being outsourced to another country, the US’.
It was the Washington Post, not our Corporate Media that has given us an insight into the abdication of responsibility of our politicians, public officials and journalists who have been on a Washington drip feed for so long. They have been captured by American interests, particularly the US military and industrial complex that former President Eisenhower warned us about.
Following the first Washington Post exposures, the authors then ran a webinar from which the Post has printed a Q and A.
The webinar includes the following:
“In court papers, the Justice Department and Pentagon officials were very clear about this: They argued that disclosing the documents might subject retired generals, admirals and others to embarrassment and/or harassment, and would be an invasion of their privacy.”
“We have more stories we’re working on – stay tuned. Congress has taken some half-steps in recent years to require the Pentagon to disclose more details about retired generals and admirals working for foreign governments. But the Pentagon hasn’t been very forthcoming. Maybe that will change now.”
Q: “What was something which personally shocked you during your investigation?
From Nate Jones:
“I was surprised to learn Admiral Stephen Johnson is now a deputy Secretary of Defense for Australia.”
From Craig Whitlock:
“I was surprised by how many retired U.S. generals went to work as advisors and consultants to the Saudi Crown Prince AFTER he approved the assassination of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. I mean, hello?”
Q: “Do they have to disclose anything about what they do?
From Nate Jones:
“Here is a sample of former national security advisor James Jones’s application. You can see he discloses some things in a page or two.”
From Craig Whitlock:
“The war in Yemen is a good example of a terrible, unintended consequence. The Pentagon and State Dept have authorized more than 300 retired US military personnel to work as contractors or consultants for Saudi Arabia and UAE since 2015. During that time, KSA and UAE have bombed the heck out of Yemen, turning their civil war into a far worse humanitarian disaster. US has enabled that to a significant degree by allowing so many veterans to build up the KSA and UAE armed forces.”
From Craig Whitlock:
“With one exception, there were no instances of retired US personnel seeking to work for nations that the US govt categories as “foreign adversaries” eg., China, North Korea, Iran, Cuba or Venezuela. The lone exception was a retired US Air Force officer who sought – and received – approval to work for a satellite launch company owned by the government of Russia.”
The Washington Post revealed that one of the American consultants was (probably still is) being paid $6000 a day for his consultancy to Prime Minister Morrison, plus whatever he might have been receiving from Peter Dutton, plus presumably a fee for participating in a longer running US Defence project. No doubt he was also on some sort of “compensation” from the US Defence Industry. Presumably he was the mystery source when Dutton persisted in claims that he could get a couple of US submarines much earlier.
The inclusion of the UK in AUKUS was only a cover for the US/Australia deal.
But all the $10m of funding to US Admirals is of lesser concern than the peddling of US interference in our national security debate. We have known all along that the need for the submarines stemmed from concerns in the US defence community years ago about the so-called “submarine gap” in the containment ring around China – which they intended Australia to fill. And we would pay for it!
And all of that has been borne out by the relentless pressure applied recently by US service chiefs and Pentagon officials to promote so shamelessly major new Australian defence procurement in advance of the Smith/Houston review.
While Morrison and Dutton created the astonishing network, it appears that Albanese and Marles have not moved to break it up. They should do so quickly.
This has all the makings of a major can of worms which both major parties will be keen to keep the lid on.
This is not just a national disgrace. It is positively dangerous.
Malcolm Fraser called the US a dangerous ally.
I have written many times about how we are joined at the hip to an ally that is almost always at war. And we keep tagging along in one US defeat after another. The US is now goading China.
Our future is not to be a spear carrier for the US in our region. Our future is learning to live securely in our own region.
China is not going away but the US ultimately will.
Our captured corporate media will not examine the offence to our national dignity that the Washington Post has exposed. Our media has abandoned all pretence of independence and professionalism.
Can our Parliament rouse itself and help restore some trust in our institutions and expose what is going on?
John Menadue is the Founder and Editor in Chief of Pearls and Irritations. He was formerly Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet under Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser, Ambassador to Japan, Secretary of the Department of Immigration and CEO of Qantas.
Australia changes policy tack – moves in the direction of supporting the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
Australia drops opposition to treaty banning nuclear weapons at UN vote
After former Coalition government repeatedly sided with US against it, Labor has shifted position to abstain
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/29/australia-drops-opposition-to-treaty-banning-nuclear-weapons-at-un-vote— Daniel Hurst, 29 Oct 22,
Australia has dropped its opposition to a landmark treaty banning nuclear weapons in a vote at the United Nations in New York on Saturday.
While Australia was yet to actually join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, the shift in its voting position to “abstain” after five years of “no” is seen by campaigners as a sign of progress given the former Coalition government repeatedly sided with the United States against it.
The foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, said through a spokesperson that Australia had “a long and proud commitment to the global non-proliferation and disarmament regime” and that the government supported the new treaty’s “ambition of a world without nuclear weapons”.
The previous Coalition government was firmly against the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, a relatively new international agreement that imposes a blanket ban on developing, testing, stockpiling, using or threatening to use nuclear weapons – or helping other countries to carry out such activities.
Australia voted against opening negotiations on the proposed new treaty in late 2016 and did not participate in those talks in 2017. Since 2018 it has voted against annual resolutions at the UN general assembly and first committee that called on all countries to join the agreement “at the earliest possible date”.
That changed early on Saturday morning when Australia shifted its voting position to abstain. Indonesia, New Zealand, Malaysia and Ireland were among countries to co-sponsor this year’s supportive UN resolution.
Australia traditionally argued the treaty would not work because none of the nuclear weapons states had joined and because it “ignores the realities of the global security environment”.
It also argued joining would breach the US alliance obligations, with Australia relying on American nuclear forces to deter any nuclear attack on Australia.
But the treaty has gained momentum because of increasing dissatisfaction among activists and non-nuclear states about the outlook for disarmament, given that nuclear weapons states such as the US, Russia and China are in the process of modernising their arsenals.
The treaty currently has 91 signatories, 68 of which have formally ratified it, and it entered into force last year.
The Nobel peace prize-winning International Campaign Against Nuclear Weapons (Ican) had been urging Australia to vote in favour of the UN resolution on Saturday – or at least abstain in order to “end five years of opposition to the TPNW under the previous government”.
Three in four members of the Labor caucus – including Anthony Albanese – have signed an Ican pledge that commits parliamentarians “to work for the signature and ratification of this landmark treaty by our respective countries”.
Labor’s 2021 national platform committed the party to signing and ratifying the treaty “after taking account” of several factors, including the need for an effective verification and enforcement architecture and work to achieve universal support.
These conditions suggest the barriers to actually signing may still be high. But Gem Romuld, the Australia director of Ican, said the government was “heading in the right direction” and engaging positively with the treaty.
Romuld said it “would be completely self-defeating to wait for all nuclear-armed states to get on board” before Australia joined.
“Indeed, no disarmament treaty has achieved universal support and Australia has joined all the other disarmament treaties, even where our ally – the US – has not yet signed on, such as the landmine ban treaty,” Romuld said.
In 2017 the US, the UK and France declared that they “do not intend to sign, ratify or ever become party” to the new treaty, and the Trump administration actively lobbied countries to withdraw.
Wong told the UN general assembly last month that Australia would “redouble our efforts” towards disarmament because Russian president Vladimir Putin’s “weak and desperate nuclear threats underline the danger that nuclear weapons pose to us all”. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/29/australia-drops-opposition-to-treaty-banning-nuclear-weapons-at-un-vote—
‘Small but important step’: Australia’s shift on treaty banning nuclear weapons applauded
Australia abstained from voting on the UN treaty banning nuclear weapons for the first time in five years. Previously, the country had opposed the treaty.
SBS News 29 Oct 22,
Anti-nuclear campaigners welcomed the shift in the Australian government’s position on a UN treaty banning the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
Australia was among 14 nations to abstain from voting. There were 43 nations who voted against the UN resolution co-sponsored by New Zealand, Indonesia, Malaysia and Ireland. A total of 124 nations voted in favour of the motion.
The Australian branch of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) described the move as “a small but important step forward”.
“ICAN looks forward to a formal decision by the Albanese government to sign and ratify the TPNW (the treaty) – in line with its pre-election pledge,” the group said.
The overwhelming majority of Australians support joining this treaty, and progress towards disarmament is more urgent than ever.”
ICAN said it was encouraging to see that the majority of nations stood united on the risks of nuclear war, particularly “in light of the war in Ukraine”.
It ends years of Canberra siding with the United States by actions on the treaty to ban the deadly weapons and comes as Australia looks to nuclear submarines to boost its navy…………………………………
Australia also recently faced criticism from nuclear powers for joining a Pacific push to help deal with the consequences of nuclear testing.
New Zealand, a signatory to the nuclear weapons ban, has previously pushed for Australia to join.
A total of 93 countries have signed the treaty, including 68 nations that have formally ratified it. https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/small-but-important-step-australias-shift-on-treaty-banning-nuclear-weapons-applauded/j3cz2yr7l
Flaps up and blinkers on: politicians happy with the unknown unknowns of fighting war
the system had “failed utterly” when former prime minister John Howard “alone decided and authorised ADF lethal force elements to be joined with the US-led coalition invasion of Iraq … preceding the public announcement on March 18, 2003, only to be followed by the bombing of Iraq in the early hours of the following morning.
“Howard’s decision has since been revealed to have been based on false and misleading intelligence. History has also revealed serious defects in the decision to commit Australian forces to war in Vietnam, to Afghanistan, to Syria not to mention other secret clandestine intelligence collection operations in the post-WW2 period,”
Michael West Media by Zacharias Szumer | Oct 27, 2022,
When it comes to the powers vested in politicians to send Australians into foreign conflicts, the major parties stand by the cliche: if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. But the system is broken, as war reform advocates have told Zacharias Szumer.
For advocates of war powers reform, Labor’s recently announced Inquiry into International Armed Conflict Decision Making hasn’t got off to a promising start. The defence minister and defence subcommittee deputy chair have already come out against parliamentary approval for overseas military deployments, the desired reform that advocates are seeking.
The Minister of Defence, Richard Marles, has said he is “firmly of the view” that the current system is “appropriate and should not be disturbed”. In a letter referring the Inquiry into International Armed Conflict Decision Making to the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, Marles said the current arrangements “enable the duly elected government of the day to act expeditiously on matters of utmost national importance in the interests of the safety and security of our nation and its people.”
Greens senator Jordon Steele-John, the party’s spokesperson for foreign affairs, peace and nuclear disarmament, told MWM that “Marles’ comments reflect a Labor Party that is self-conflicted. We see Richard Marles endorsing the current system, meanwhile many members of the Labor caucus are pushing for an inquiry.”
Labor MPs Julian Hill and Josh Wilson put forward the resolution at the last ALP conference that got the inquiry added to the party’s policy platform. The defence subcommittee, which is handling the inquiry, is chaired by Hill and also includes Wilson. However, the subcommittee doesn’t feature anyone from the Greens, who have long championed requiring parliamentary approval before overseas deployment of troops.
Liberal MP Andrew Wallace, the deputy chair of the defence subcommittee, recently told the Guardian that he was “surprised that the Labor Party is even contemplating” a change to a system that had “stood us in good stead for many many years.”
“The executive has got to be given the power to govern the country and particularly in relation to national security issues. I don’t care whether it’s Labor or Liberal – they can’t be hamstrung by the parliament,” he added.
Steele-John said that it was “sad to see Andrew Wallace and the Liberals so adamantly opposed to an inquiry on this matter, but transparency, investigating and making decisions based on that investigation are not the attributes of the party that thought invading Iraq was a good idea.”
Greens senator David Shoebridge, the party’s spokesperson for defence and veterans’ affairs, echoed Steele-John’s sentiments. “This is a disturbingly accurate insight into the attitude of the Coalition and many in Labor – they don’t want parliamentary democracy to get in the way of their ‘parties of government’ club. Imagine letting government be ‘hamstrung by parliament’,” the senator tweeted earlier in October.
“Seeing a democratically elected politician so readily reject oversight by parliament on “national security” issues should worry us all. Democracy is not optional in times of crisis or when the drumbeats of war start,” Shoebridge added.
Steele-John also questioned Marles and Wallace coming out against reform so soon after the inquiry was announced. “I hope to see all political parties and MPs approach this committee in good faith,” he said. “The ability for all MPs and parties to scrutinise the decision of ADF deployment will add a level of transparency and accountability designed to avoid repeating the catastrophic mistakes the executive government has made in the last 20 years,” he said.
Beyond the halls of parliament
Peter Hayes, a former RAAF group captain and Vietnam War veteran, told MWM that he was “disappointed” by Marles’ statement, which he said “seemed to pressure the Inquiry rather than to await with an open mind its conclusions and recommendations.”
“The inquiry could have accepted submissions from the Defence Department and others without any need for Minister Marles to make his personal views public,” said Hayes, who has also previously served as Director of Information Warfare at Australia’s Air Command Headquarters.
Hayes also took issue with Wallace’s argument that the current system had “stood us in good stead for many many years”, saying that the system had “failed utterly” when former prime minister John Howard “alone decided and authorised ADF lethal force elements to be joined with the US-led coalition invasion of Iraq … preceding the public announcement on March 18, 2003, only to be followed by the bombing of Iraq in the early hours of the following morning.”
“Howard’s decision has since been revealed to have been based on false and misleading intelligence. History has also revealed serious defects in the decision to commit Australian forces to war in Vietnam, to Afghanistan, to Syria not to mention other secret clandestine intelligence collection operations in the post-WW2 period,” Hayes added………………………………….
if the aim is to minimise threats against Australia or its citizens, Fernandes does not believe the system has kept us in “good stead”:
In Afghanistan, the real objective was to show Australia’s relevance to the United States. We stayed because of US domestic politics rather than the military situation on the ground. After the Taliban’s comeback in 2008, the Obama administration did not want to be attacked in domestic elections for being unable to defeat the Taliban. And we can see the results – in 2001, Islamic terrorists were based in Kabul, Kandahar, Jalalabad and a few pockets of rural Afghanistan. Twenty years later, the Taliban is back in power, and US wars – enabled by the intelligence facility at Pine Gap – have resulted in a massive expansion of terrorist activity across the globe.
Fernandes’ book Island Off the Coast of Asia contains a proposal for a new system under which the Australian parliament would have greater control over military deployments. He will reportedly be making a submission to the inquiry based on this proposal.
Public submissions to the inquiry are open until November 18. https://michaelwest.com.au/flaps-up-and-blinkers-on-politicians-happy-with-the-unknown-unknowns-of-fighting-war/
Wong, Marles schedule US trip as nuclear submarine deadline nears
Financial Review, Andrew TillettPolitical correspondent, 26 Oct 22,
Annual top-level foreign affairs and defence talks will be held in Washington in December, allowing senior officials to lock down final details over Australia’s planned purchase of nuclear-powered submarines before the Albanese government publicly outlines its plans for the multibillion-dollar project.
With this year’s federal budget eschewing major funding decisions in the defence portfolio, The Australian Financial Review understands the US will for the third year running host the annual AUSMIN talks between the Australian and US governments………..
One defence source suggested that holding talks in the US would result in the ministers being accompanied by a bigger-than-usual cohort of Australian officials to speak to US counterparts from the Defence and Energy departments about the submarine project.
The nuclear submarine taskforce, which is examining the best options for Australia to acquire nuclear submarine technology from the US and UK under the AUKUS partnership, is due to report to the Albanese government in March after an 18-month study on what submarine to acquire, where it will be built, delivery timetable, cost and any interim measures required to avoid a capability gap.
Separately, former defence minister Stephen Smith and former Defence Force chief Angus Houston are conducting a Defence Strategic Review looking at the military’s weapons needs in light of deteriorating regional security. That review is also due in March.
Both reviews will outline billions of dollars in new spending for Defence that will need to begin to be accommodated when the next budget is handed down in May.
This year’s budget papers fail to reflect the significant increase in funding required for existing projects as construction gets under way in earnest…………………………….. more https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/wong-marles-schedule-us-trip-as-nuclear-submarine-deadline-nears-20221026-p5bsyp
Scandalous conflicts of interest in Australia’s advice from USA on nuclear submarines.
To an extraordinary degree in recent years, Australia has relied on high-priced American consultants to decide which ships and submarines to buy and how to manage strategic acquisition projects. In addition to the six retired U.S. admirals, the government of Australia has hired three former civilian U.S. Navy leaders and three U.S. shipbuilding executives.
RETIRED U.S. ADMIRALS ADVISE AUSTRALIA ON DEAL FOR NUCLEAR SUBMARINES,
Washington Post, By Craig Whitlock and Nate Jones 19 Oct 22, Since 2015, Australia has hired the admirals and other former Navy officials as high-dollar consultants on shipbuilding,
Two retired U.S. admirals and three former U.S. Navy civilian leaders are playing critical but secretive roles as paid advisers to the government of Australia during its negotiations to acquire top-secret nuclear submarine technology from the United States and Britain.
The Americans are among a group of former U.S. Navy officials whom the Australian government has hired as high-dollar consultants to help transform its fleet of ships and submarines, receiving contracts worth as much as $800,000 a person, documents show.
All told, six retired U.S. admirals have worked for the Australian government since 2015, including one who served for two years as Australia’s deputy secretary of defense. In addition, a former U.S. secretary of the Navy has been a paid adviser to three successive Australian prime ministers.
A Washington Post investigation found that the former U.S. Navy officials have benefited financially from a tangle of overlapping interests in their work for a longtime ally of the United States. Some of the retired admirals have worked for the Australian government while simultaneously consulting for U.S. shipbuilders and the U.S. Navy, including on classified programs.
One of the six retired U.S. admirals had to resign this year as a part-time submarine consultant to the Australian government because of a potential conflict of interest over his full-time job as board chairman of a U.S. company that builds nuclear-powered subs.
Australia has leaned heavily on former U.S. Navy leaders for advice during its years-long push to upgrade its submarine fleet, a seesaw effort that has rattled long-standing alliances and remains beset by uncertainty. After abruptly canceling a pact with France last year, Australia is now trying to finalize a deal with the United States and Britain to build a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines that could cost an estimated $72 billion to $106 billion, when adjusted for inflation over the length of the program.1
The outcome will have global ramifications and could alter the military balance of power among the United States, its allies and China. Helping the Australians build nuclear-powered submarines would enhance U.S. national security in Asia overall but could strain U.S. shipyards and delay the Pentagon’s own plans to add more subs to its fleet, according to U.S. military officials and defense analysts.
The Australian government has kept details of the Americans’ advice confidential. The Post was forced to sue the U.S. Navy and State Department under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to obtain documents that shed light on the admirals’ involvement.
Under federal law, retired U.S. military personnel as well as reservists must obtain approval from the Pentagon and the State Department before they can accept money or jobs from foreign powers. The law applies to retirees — generally those who served at least 20 years in uniform — because they can be recalled to active duty. Records show that each of the six retired admirals followed the rules and received U.S. authorization to work for the government of Australia.
Between 2015 and 2021, the Navy received 95 applications from retirees to work for foreign governments — and approved every one, according to the documents that The Post obtained under FOIA. Government lawyers fought the release of the records, arguing that they were of little public interest and that disclosing basic details would violate the retirees’ privacy
For three of the retired admirals on Australia’s payroll, the U.S. Navy spent less than a week reviewing their paperwork before granting permission, the documents show. Two of the admirals applied to work for the Australians within one month of their retirement from the military.
Officials at the White House and the U.S. Navy declined to comment for this article.
Compared with the U.S. Navy, which has about 290 deployable ships and submarines, Australia’s fleet is small, with only 43 vessels. But Australia’s strategic importance looms large because of its proximity to the Indian and Pacific oceans, as well as the world’s busiest shipping lanes, near the contested waters of the South China Sea.
If Australia acquires nuclear subs, it will become the seventh country to do so. With only 26 million people, Australia would be by far the least populous member of the club.
To an extraordinary degree in recent years, Australia has relied on high-priced American consultants to decide which ships and submarines to buy and how to manage strategic acquisition projects. In addition to the six retired U.S. admirals, the government of Australia has hired three former civilian U.S. Navy leaders and three U.S. shipbuilding executives.
Since 2015, those Americans have received consulting deals worth about $10 million combined, according to Australian contracting records posted online.
The six retired U.S. admirals who have worked for the Australian government declined to be interviewed or did not respond to requests for comment.
Some Australian lawmakers and defense analysts have expressed doubts about whether the U.S. consultants have been worth the expense. The Americans’ recommendations have influenced a series of ill-fated decisions by Australian officials that could delay the arrival of any new submarines until 2040, almost a decade later than planned.
“We were paying a lot of money [for advice] and it wasn’t obvious to me that we were getting value for money,” said Rex Patrick, a former member of the Australian Senate who has criticized the government’s submarine acquisition plans.
$6.8 million for advice on an aging fleet
In September 2021, after years of futile attempts to replace its aging fleet of six submarines, the government of Australia announced two decisions that surprised the world.
First, it abruptly canceled a long-standing $66 billion agreement to buy a dozen French diesel-powered subs. Then it revealed it had reached a historic accord instead to acquire nuclear propulsion technology for submarines from the United States and Britain……………………………………………….
As Australia negotiates with the United States, it is paying for expert advice from two people who once served in American uniforms: retired U.S. admirals William Hilarides and Thomas Eccles……………………………………….
The influx of American shipbuilding consultants in Australia began eight years ago…………………………………………………………………………………..
The Australian government created additional naval advisory committees — and stocked them with Americans.
In October 2016, Australian officials announced a new Naval Shipbuilding Advisory Board with Winter, the former Navy secretary, serving as the chairman. He was joined by three retired admirals: Eccles, Hilarides and Sullivan.13………………………………………
Marcus Hellyer, a senior defense analyst with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank based in Canberra, said the advisory panels could have used more European perspectives to balance out those of the Americans. Unlike the U.S. Navy, he noted, the Australian navy does not design its own ships from scratch and is accustomed to relying on foreign models.
“It’s a very different kettle of fish to the U.S. system,” he said.
A carousel of consultants
By 2019, Australia’s landmark submarine deal with France appeared to be in jeopardy. Delays plagued the design phase. Projected costs rose. Doubts spread about whether the Shortfin Barracudas, which the Australians dubbed their Attack class of subs, would be capable of deterring China’s more imposing undersea fleet.
The American carousel of hired help continued to spin. Sullivan, the retired vice admiral, left the shipbuilding advisory board in 2019. That same year, Johnson resigned as Australia’s deputy defense secretary. But the Australian government added three more U.S. civilian consultants to its advisory panels.
Australian lawmakers grew impatient with the submarine program’s delays and irritated by the Australian government’s unwillingness to let its highly paid U.S. advisers answer questions.
The American carousel of hired help continued to spin. Sullivan, the retired vice admiral, left the shipbuilding advisory board in 2019. That same year, Johnson resigned as Australia’s deputy defense secretary. But the Australian government added three more U.S. civilian consultants to its advisory panels.
Australian lawmakers grew impatient with the submarine program’s delays and irritated by the Australian government’s unwillingness to let its highly paid U.S. advisers answer questions.
‘It’s confidential’
In June 2021, worried about the fate of the submarine agreement with France, the Australian Senate insisted on hearing directly from Hilarides and senior Australian defense officials.
Lawmakers wanted answers: Had the American consultants urged the Australian government to consider modifying, or even killing, the Attack-class submarine deal?
Testifying remotely from the United States, Hilarides was as tight-lipped as Winter had been.
“Because that advice is used to support government decision-making, it’s confidential,” Hilarides said.
Three months later, the Australian government canceled the submarine contract with the French. It also announced a new three-way defense alliance with the United States and Britain, including an agreement to admit Australia to the exclusive club of nations with nuclear-powered submarines.
Only four other countries — China, Russia, France and India — operate nuclear subs. Brazil is trying to develop nuclear reactors for submarines, but its progress has been slow.
Left undecided was whether Australia would buy U.S. or British nuclear subs, and where they would be built. But defense analysts predicted the United States would probably win out.
Australian lawmakers soon began to raise questions about the American consultants and their connections to the U.S. submarine industry.
Donald, the retired four-star admiral on Australia’s Submarine Advisory Committee, has also served as chairman of the board of Huntington Ingalls Industries since 2020. The defense contractor, based in Newport News, Va., is the maker of Virginia-class submarines, the same model that the government of Australia was now thinking about buying.
At a parliamentary hearing in October 2021, a senior Australian defense official acknowledged that Donald’s role with Huntington presented a potential conflict of interest. But the official said the Australian government and Donald hadn’t yet decided if it was necessary for him to resign as a consultant.
Donald remained on the committee for six more months. In his written response to questions, Donald said he resigned in April to avoid any conflicts after “it became evident” his committee “would need to become involved in providing independent critical assessment” on acquiring nuclear-powered subs.
But Australia is still paying other Americans for advice on how to negotiate with the U.S. government.
Winter, the former U.S. Navy secretary, registered with the U.S. Justice Department in September 2021 as a foreign lobbyist working for the Australian prime minister’s office. In his disclosure form, Winter said he would be paid $6,000 a day, plus expenses, to support Australia during its nuclear submarine talks with Washington.15………………………………………………………
Australia will almost certainly have to buy its first nuclear subs off American or British production lines.
U.S. Navy and British Royal Navy officials, however, say their shipyards are booked solid making their own submarines. The only way to squeeze in orders from Australia would be to spend billions expanding U.S. or British shipyards.
Hellyer, the Australian defense analyst, said it is hard to envision a scenario under which Australia would receive its first nuclear submarine before 2040. With the Collins-class vessels scheduled for retirement a decade from now, that could leave Australia without submarines for eight years.
“I can’t really see what the way forward is at the moment,” he said. “The whole thing has been completely disastrous.”
About this story
Photos used in the card illustrations from Department of Defense.
Editing by David Fallis and Sarah Childress. Research by Alice Crites. Copy editing by Martha Murdock and Christopher Rickett. Photo editing by Robert Miller and Wendy Galietta. Video editing by Jason Aldag. Design and development by Frank Hulley-Jones, Stephanie Hays and Talia Trackim. Design editing by Christian Font and Matt Callahan. Project management by Wendy Galietta. https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/2022/australia-nuclear-submarines-us-admirals/?itid=ap_craigwhitlock
Concerns in outback SA grow as federal government plans to store defence waste at planned Kimba nuclear dump
ABC By Sara Tomevska, 18 Oct 22,
The federal government is facing questions over how it will dispose of highly-radioactive waste produced by Australia’s future nuclear-powered submarine fleet, as concerns about a controversial nuclear dump in outback South Australia grow.
Key points:
- The federal government chose a site near Kimba for its nuclear waste site in 2021
- Locals are now concerned high-level nuclear defence waste could be stored at the site
- There are two legal challenges underway to block the site from going ahead
After 40 years of searching, the federal government last year announced it had chosen Napandee, a 211-hectare property near the town of Kimba, to consolidate Australia’s low-and-intermediate nuclear waste……….
last June, the federal parliament passed a range of amendments to the National Radioactive Waste Management Act.
One of the changes allows defence waste to be stored at the site too.
Fourth generation wheat farmer Terry Schmucker has long opposed the dump, fearing the site could lead to contamination.
“As a farmer have become connected to the land and I’ve come to realise how precious topsoil and agricultural land are,” he said.
He said the changes to legislation had added to his anxiety. “I always expected that the dump was the thin end of the wedge … but it’s disappointing that the government hasn’t come straight out and said ‘this is how it is’,” he said.
A Department of Defence spokesperson said Australia’s defence programs already generated a “range of low-level radioactive waste” which was currently stored in two temporary facilities.
In September 2021, three months after the amendment bill passed through parliament, former Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced Australia would acquire nuclear-powered submarines as part of the AUKUS defence pact.
Mr Schmucker said the deal raised “serious questions” about how and where the federal government would dispose of high-level radioactive waste generated by the submarines.
“I think it’s going to come here, that’s just the way it is,” he said.
“If the waste site is set up at Kimba, there’s nothing to stop [the government] from bringing even worse stuff than what’s going to come out of the submarines and putting it here in agricultural land.”
Could submarine waste really end up in Kimba?
The legislation explicitly prevents high-level radioactive waste or spent nuclear fuel — which is what the submarines would produce — from being dumped at the Napandee site.
Barngarla Determination Aboriginal Corporation (BDAC) chairman Jason Bilney said he was concerned that could be changed with the stroke of a pen.
“We all know what the government is like, the government can change that at any given time and try and slip it through,” he said.
Former senator and submariner Rex Patrick was part of the parliament that passed the legislation, and said he believed it was unlikely that protection would ever be removed.
“The parliament that passed the facility were of the clear understanding that high-level material would not be stored at the site,” he said.
“Now, of course, [legislation] can be changed by a future parliament. And so, there is a risk there. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-18/kimba-dump-controversy-continues/101537270?utm_campaign=abc_news_web&utm_content=facebook&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_source=abc_news_web&fbclid=IwAR2plCSj2ctHNmhZEHJTvacBN5nsIb-LVQD-pyhMIcnEDkQh0OMdFOCp-Ec
70 years since Operation Hurricane: the shameful history of British nuclear tests in Australia
Red Flag, by Nick Everett, Sunday, 16 October 2022
At 9.30am on 3 October 1952, a mushroom cloud billowed up above the Monte Bello Islands, 130 kilometres off the coast of Western Australia. The next day, the West Australian reported: “At first deep pink, it quickly changed to mauve in the centre, with pink towards the outside and brilliantly white turbulent edges. Within two minutes the cloud, which was still like a giant cauliflower, was 10,000 feet [three kilometres] high”.
Derek Hickman, a royal engineer who witnessed the blast aboard guard ship HMS Zeebrugge, told the Mirror: “We had no protective clothing … They ordered us to muster on deck and turn our backs. We put our hands over our eyes and they counted down over the tannoy [loudspeaker]. There was a sharp flash, and I could see the bones in my hands like an X-ray. Then the sound and the wind, and they told us to turn and face it. The bomb was in the hull of a 1,450-ton warship and all that was left of her were a few fist-sized pieces of metal that fell like rain, and the shape of the frigate scorched on the seabed.”
Operation Hurricane was, up until that moment, a closely guarded secret. ……………………….
Throughout 1946, negotiations took place between the British and Australian governments, culminating in an agreement to establish a 480-kilometre rocket range extending northwest from Mount Eba (later moved to Woomera) in outback South Australia.
On 22 November 1946, Defence Minister John Dedman informed parliament of cabinet’s decision to establish the rocket range. Peter Morton, author of Fire Across the Desert: Woomera and the Anglo-Australian Joint Project 1946–1980, explains that Dedman reiterated claims made in a report by British army officer John Fullerton Evetts that related to the original proposed site at the more remote location of Mount Eba, not Woomera. Dedman told parliament that Australia was the only suitable landmass in the Commonwealth for such testing, the designated area was largely uninhabited and that impacts on the Aboriginal population in the Central Aboriginal Reserves would be negligible. According to Morton, there were approximately 1800 Aboriginal people living on the reserves at the time. The Committee on Guided Projectiles would immediately begin consultations with the director of Native Affairs and other authorities, Dedman told parliament.
Dedman’s announcement ignited fierce opposition. In her book Different White People: Radical Activism for Aboriginal Rights 1946-1972, Deborah Wilson describes the independent Labor member for Bourke, Doris Blackburn, spearheading a peace movement strongly supported by the Australian Communist Party. She published her speeches in the CPA newspaper, Tribune. Blackburn was the widow of lawyer and parliamentarian Maurice Blackburn, whose left-wing views resulted in his expulsion from the ALP.
Blackburn insisted that the rocket range amounted to a grave injustice against a “voiceless minority”, Australia’s First Nations people. In March 1947, medical practitioner Charles Duguid told a 1300-strong Rocket Range Protest Committee meeting in Melbourne that he was appalled by the government’s blatant “disregard” for the rights of Aboriginal people. According to a Tribune report, he asked those present: “Shot and poisoned as they were in the early days, neglected and despised more lately, will most of our Aborigines [sic] now be finally sacrificed and hurried to extinction by sudden contact with the mad demands of twentieth century militarism?”
Dedman, supported by the Menzies-led opposition, dismissed concerns expressed by Duguid and anthropologist Donald Thompson that contact between military personnel and Aboriginal people living in the military zone would have devastating consequences for their traditional way of life. Deploying assimilation arguments, Dedman insisted that contact between military personnel and “natives” in the area would simply accelerate an inevitable process of detribalisation.
Meanwhile, Liberal and Country Party politicians railed against Duguid and other opponents of the project, labelling them dupes of communism with a lax attitude to the nation’s security, according to Wilson. They called on the Chifley government to follow the example of the Canadian royal commission established to weed out alleged communist spies in public sector employment…………….
In June 1947, federal parliament rushed through the Approved Defence Projects Protection Bill, a gag tool preventing critical commentary about the government’s defence policy. Transgressors were threatened with fines of up to £5,000 or a 12-month prison sentence.
Under the cover of “national security”, federal bans were imposed on union officials visiting the Woomera rocket range site, now a no-go area for anyone other than sanctioned military personnel. Anti-communist fearmongering helped set the scene for the Chifley government’s establishment of a new and powerful security organisation, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), in 1949.
In mid-1947, 446 kilometres north of Adelaide, the Woomera township was swiftly constructed on the traditional lands of the Kokatha people. By mid-1950, its population had grown to 3,500 and, over the following decade, doubled to 7,000. Roads gouged through Aboriginal country. Electricity and telegraph lines soon followed, connecting the military base with centres of political power.
The nature of the missile testing remained a top secret to all but those firmly ensconced within the upper echelons of the Department of Defence. However, rumours of a nuclear testing program abounded. The detonation of a 25-kiloton nuclear weapon off the Monte Bello Islands made Britain’s nuclear ambitions, and the Australian government’s complicity, visible for the world.
In the film Australian Atomic Confessions, witness May Torres, a Gooniyandi woman living at Jubilee Downs in the Kimberley, described observing a cloudy haze that remained in the sky for four or five days. At the time she did not know that it carried radioactive particles that were to contribute to cancer and an early death for many of her community, including her husband, in the early 1960s.
Another witness, Royal Australian Air Force pilot Barry Neale, described aircraft operating out of Townsville identifying nuclear particles in the air three days after the detonation. Two days later, New Zealand Air Force aircraft similarly observed radioactive particles that had emanated from Operation Hurricane. Still today, signs on the Monte Bello islands warn visitors about the dangers of elevated radiation levels.
In October 1953, two nuclear tests (Operation Totem) took place at Emu Field, 500 kilometres northwest of Woomera. In May and June 1956, nuclear testing returned to the Monte Bello Islands. Operation Mosaic detonated the largest ever nuclear device in Australia: a 60-kiloton weapon four times as powerful as that which had destroyed Hiroshima.
My aunt was among the children who witnessed the Monte Bello explosion from the jetty in the Pilbara town of Roebourne. The spectacle left her and her siblings covered in ash, oblivious to the toxicity of the fallout they were exposed to.
Meanwhile, west of Woomera, Aboriginal people were being relocated from their traditional lands. In preparation for Operation Buffalo, a series of four nuclear tests at the Maralinga Testing Ground, an 1,100 square kilometre area was excised from the Laverton-Warburton reserve and declared a no-go area.
Two patrol officers, William MacDougal and Robert (Bob) Macaulay, were given the nearly impossible task of keeping Aboriginal people out of the no-go area. The pair’s reports to the range superintendent were frequently censored, according to Morton.
In December 1956, a Western Australian parliamentary select committee, led by Liberal MLA William Grayden, visited the Laverton-Warburton Ranges. The select committee’s report (the Grayden Report) identified that displaced Aboriginal people suffered from malnutrition, blindness, unsanitary conditions, inadequate food and water sources, and brutal exploitation by pastoral interests.
News reports in the Murdoch-owned Adelaide News dismissed the committee’s findings, insisting that the claims could not be substantiated. Responding to the Murdoch media whitewash, Tribune reported on 9 January 1957 that the committee had “ripped aside the screen that has veiled the cruel plight to which our [g]overnments condemn Australian Aborigines”.
Tribune asserted that “huge areas of the most favourable land are being taken from [Aboriginal] reserves and provided for mining interests, atomic and guided missile grounds, and other purposes”.
A subsequent Tribune article reported a week later on the observations of Pastor Doug Nicholls, who accompanied the West Australian minister for native welfare, John Brady, on a tour of the Warburton-Laverton district. According to Tribune:
“Pastor Nicholls said that at Giles weather station, deep in the heart of the best hunting grounds in the Warburton reserve—a region that the Government had stolen as part of the Woomera range—the white people lived like kings, and the Aboriginal people worse than paupers … The Commonwealth had spent a fortune on Woomera, but has not even supplied a well for the Aboriginals.”
The Grayden Report deeply shocked the public. A film documentary produced by Grayden and Nicholls, Their Darkest Hour, further exposed these crimes. Wilson describes scenes from the film:
“Images of malnourished, sick and poverty-stricken Aboriginal people bombard the viewer. A mother’s arm has rotted off with yaws. A blind man with one leg hobbles grotesquely on an artificial leg stuffed with furs and bandaged into an elephant-like stump. Malnourished children with huge swollen bellies stare blankly at the camera. A baby lies deathlike beside a mother too weak to walk. A sickening close-up of a toddler who fell into a fire reveals cooked flesh covered with flies. Skeletal remains of a man, dead from thirst, lie beside a dried-up waterhole. As the film concludes, his body is buried in an unmarked grave.”
The detrimental impact of British nuclear testing in Australia wasn’t limited to traditional Aboriginal people. It also exposed thousands of military personnel and their families to nuclear radiation, survivors still feeling the effects seven decades on, according to submissions received by the 1985 McClelland Royal Commission into British Nuclear Tests in Australia.
In 2001, a group of Melbourne scientists made a startling discovery: thousands of jars of ashed human bone that all contained strontium 90, a by-product of nuclear testing that can cause bone cancer and leukaemia. All had been collected from autopsies without the consent of family members, according to a 2002 report by the Australian Health Ethics Committee. This officially sanctioned “body-snatching” provided vital, and until then hidden, evidence of radioactive contamination with widespread effects on human health.
In the mid-1950s, CSIRO scientist Hedley Marston was tasked by the Atomic Weapons Tests Safety Committee (AWTSC) with studying the radioactive iodine uptake in sheep and cattle as part of wider effort to monitor the biological effects of radiation caused by atomic-bomb testing in Australia. Marston argued that radioactive iodine found in the thyroids of animals indicated the presence of radioactive strontium in the food chain, which would endanger the health of humans, particularly children. Marston’s discovery put him in conflict with the AWTSC, who denied the tests resulted in significant radioactive contamination.
According to the Australian Health Ethics Committee, between 1957 and 1978, the AWTSC and its successor, the Australian Ionising Radiation Committee, covertly took samples of bones from 22,000 human remains during autopsy to test for the presence of strontium 90. The surviving samples located in 2001 suggested that radioactive contamination was far more widespread than previously admitted.
The winding down of the British nuclear testing program in Australia in 1953 did not bring an end to the Australian government’s role in the global nuclear industry. Since 1954, Australian uranium has supplied nuclear reactors around the world, including to the Fukushima reactor in Japan, which in 2011 was the site of the most severe nuclear disaster since the 1986 Chernobyl meltdown. Australia has also committed to acquiring nuclear-powered submarines to better pursue its imperial interests, and those of its allies, in the Asia-Pacific. And the nuclear industry is trying to promote itself as a viable alternative to polluting fossil fuel industries.
Its shameful history, and the dire threat it poses to humanity, must not be forgotten. https://redflag.org.au/article/70-years-operation-hurricane-shameful-history-british-nuclear-tests-australia
Radiation ‘hotspots’: legacy of British nuclear tests lingers on idyllic islands in Western Australia
Tourists warned not spend more than an hour at the Montebello Islands sites – as a new study examines the effect of radioactive sands on marine life.
Guardian, Narelle Towie, @narelletowie 8 Oct 22,
The white ocean sands of Western Australia’s Montebello Islands may appear inviting, but 70 years ago they were the site of Britain’s first nuclear tests.
Now researchers are working to uncover how much and what type of radioactive material persists in sediment on the ocean floor of the archipelago, made up of 265 low-lying islands and islets, 1,200km north of Perth. They hope to get a clearer idea of its effects on the area’s abundant marine life and any lingering dangers to people who visit the islands for tourism or fishing.
The nuclear fallout from atomic blasts in the 1950s have been well studied on land, but little is known about how radioactive sands affect the 60,000-hectare marine park’s ecosystem.
In June 2020 a team led by Madison Hoffman, an environmental radioecologist at Edith Cowan University, collected hundreds of kilograms of sediment from an area near the blast sites, 120km west of Dampier, for analysis.
Hoffman says they detected levels of radioactivity higher than background levels, as expected.
“Those levels are highest in areas around where those three detonations took place, but we also have some areas which have come up with levels a little higher than we expected for where we found them.”
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The 12 nuclear tests carried out between 1952 and 1957 – including three in the Montebellos – were part of a secretive deal between Britain and Australia that was championed by the then prime minister, Robert Menzies. Further “minor trials” were carried out in South Australia until 1963.
The first test, codenamed Operation Hurricane, took place on 4 October 1952 at a lagoon off Trimouille Island in the Montebellos.
A decommissioned warship, HMS Plym, was rigged up with a 7kg plutonium device, sending tonnes of seawater and mud 3,000 metres into the air and impregnating the ocean sand with radioactive isotopes.
On 16 May and 19 June 1956 two more bombs were set off from towers at Trimouille and Alpha islands as part of Operation Mosaic. The bombs were boosted with hydrogen and lithium and were the biggest ever detonated in Australia.
Hoffman says while some radionuclides, or radioactive atoms, are blasted inside sand grains, others attach to the surface of sediment and shift in rough weather, such as during cyclonic activity.
“When we know what radionuclides there are and what ratios they are in, they can act like a fingerprint, kind of like a forensics tool that is distinct to the Montebellos,” Hoffman says.
“When sediment rock gets moved from point A to point B, it is taking those radionuclides with it and potentially moving those hotspots and migrating them around.”
Hoffman wants to know where these hotspots are so she can study how the radiation exposure affects sediment-dwelling marine life. The area is home to a rich variety of marine species including dugongs, turtles, whales, hundreds of fish species and mangroves………………….
Darren Koppel, a marine contaminant expert with the Australian Institute of Marine Science, says low levels of radiation over long periods can cause chronic toxicity to plants and other organisms.
“We do not have much data on the chronic effects of radiation to marine organisms, so this type of research is critical to fill those data gaps,” Koppel says.
“The most likely effect is that sensitive organisms and plants will have stopped living or growing in the areas with higher radioactivity, leaving only the more tolerant species.”
The Montebello Islands are managed by the WA Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions.
It says there are still “slightly elevated radiation levels” at Trimouille and Alpha islands and warns tourists not to camp or spend longer than one hour at those sites.
Tourists travel from the nearby towns of Karratha, Port Hedland, Onslow and Dampier on fishing trips. Despite warning signs , the department has found evidence of campers on the islands in recent years.
In the Great Victoria Desert, in outback South Australia, authorities spent millions trying to clean up radioactive fallout from nuclear testing at Maralinga, where the British detonated seven atomic bombs.
According to researchers at Monash University, residual plutonium and uranium still contaminate the land at Maralinga as tiny radioactive grains in the soil.
Little heed was given to the Anangu Pitjantjatjara people who lived on the land, who lived with the legacy of the explosions for decades afterwards. It wasn’t until 1994 that the Australian government paid $13.5m in compensation for what had been done to the land.
British and Australian servicemen exposed to radiation by the blasts have also fought long campaigns for the effects on their health to be recognised and adequately compensated…………………
Hoffman says that key technical documents about the nuclear testing, which could help with her research, were reclassified by the UK in 2018.
“We have so little documentation or information about what really happened,” Hoffman said.
“Without that information and all the really crucial statistics [about the blasts] it is really difficult to make sense of the answers we have now in relation to what originally happened.” https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/oct/08/radiation-hotspots-legacy-of-british-nuclear-tests-lingers-on-idyllic-islands-in-western-australia
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