Worst places in Australia to be if World War Three hits
For Australia, the question isn’t where to hide in the event of a nuclear war. It’s where not to be — and this is the top of the list.
news.com.au Jamie Seidel Jamie Seidel is a freelance writer | @JamieSeidel 12 Feb 24
For Australia, the question isn’t where to hide in the event of a nuclear war. It’s where not to be. And how to cope afterwards.
………………………………………the bomb is back.
And international analysts fear there’s a growing will to use them…………………………………………………………………………….
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists chose to keep their “Doomsday Clock” at 90 seconds to midnight late last month – the closest it has ever been to an apocalypse.
They cited the danger of the Russia-Ukraine war, the slaughter in Gaza, and the worldwide diplomatic, economic and environmental toll associated with 2023 being the hottest year in recorded history.
All it takes is one “incident”. Then the domino effect of “Mutually Assured Destruction” kicks into play.
Those with the largest arsenals – China, Russia and the United States – are still likely to hit strategic targets. At least in the first wave of a nuclear exchange.
Australia in the firing line
……………………………………………………“Once we enter the slippery slope of even limited nuclear exchanges, the end result will be escalation to mutual annihilation — something about which both Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping may need reminding,” says ANU emeritus strategic studies professor Paul Dibb.
PINE GAP has long been known to top the list. This highly secret US military installation exists to detect and track nuclear missiles. Removing it early in any war would degrade the ability of the US to defend its own soil.
“In the late 1970s, it was made quite clear to me during talks in Moscow that Pine Gap was a priority Soviet nuclear target,” Professor Dibb said in a recent ASPI critique.
“And in 2016, I was warned: ‘In the event of nuclear war between Russia and America, you Australians will find that nuclear missiles fly in every direction.
HAROLD E HOLT Naval Communications Station at Northwest Cape, near Exmouth, Western Australia, is in a similar category. This enormous communications facility has been built to communicate with submarines at depths of up to 30 metres. Eliminating it would sow confusion among US attack and ballistic missile submarine commanders.
From here, the list gets more controversial.
RAAF TINDAL near Katherine in the Northern Territory has recently been adapted to host nuclear-capable US B-52 bombers. Any nuclear-capable delivery system is a likely nuclear target…………………….
HMAS STIRLING, the naval base in Perth’s southern suburbs, is slated to become a regular pitstop call for US and UK nuclear-powered submarines. Eventually, it is hoped to also house Australia’s own. But such submarines are incredibly high-value targets because they combine immense firepower, globe-circling range and virtual invisibility.
OSBORNE NAVAL SHIPYARD in Port Adelaide could potentially join its US and UK cousins on a nuclear warhead list. The nuclear-powered submarines it is expected to begin assembling are among the most lethal ships in the sea. But also the hardest to build, maintain and repair.
“Armed with nuclear submarines, Australia itself will be a target for possible nuclear attacks in the future,” Communist Party mouthpiece Victor Gao threatened shortly after then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull dropped the AUKUS nuclear submarine pact bombshell in 2021.
“Do you really want to be a target in a possible nuclear war, or do you want to be free from nuclear menace,” he menaced. [ Ed note – “menaced” – I thought it was a fair question]
MARINE ROTATIONAL FORCE – DARWIN is a rotating force of 2500 US Marine troops, aircrew and sailors based in and around Darwin and at RAAF Base Darwin. While small, it does represent the core upon which a much larger force can be built. And it’s a high-profile US presence far from home shores.
RAAF BASE WILLIAMTOWN, 40km north of Newcastle, NSW, is home base to Australia’s small fleet of F-35 Lightning II stealth fighters. But the one thing these aircraft were explicitly designed to do – be invisible to radar – makes attacking their undefended airfields an obvious shortcut.
GARDEN ISLAND NAVAL BASE, Sydney, is already home to a disproportionately large number of Australia’s otherwise limited number of major surface (and subsurface) combat vessels. And while there are no plans for US or UK nuclear attack submarines to visit, Australia’s own will likely operate from this centralised hub. https://www.news.com.au/national/worst-places-in-australia-to-be-if-world-war-three-hits/news-story/1c0180b0a5f8652b024bfc1fe9444313
When Times Were Better: Victoria’s Ties with Israel’s Defence Industry
But now, of course, there’s a live domestic debate about the war, and … most people are concerned about civilian casualties.”………… Israel’s predatory policies towards Palestinians since 1948 can be dismissed as peripheral and inconsequential to the current bloodbath (?)
Given the federal government’s brusque termination of previous agreements entered into by Victoria with purportedly undesirable entities, the Albanese government has a useful precedent.
Complicity with genocide – actual, potential or as yet unassessed by a court – can hardly be in Canberra’s interest. Over to you, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
February 9, 2024 Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.com/when-times-were-better-victorias-ties-with-israels-defence-industry/
Times were supposedly better in 2022. That is, if you were a lawmaker in the Australian state of Victoria, a busy Israeli arms manufacturer, or cash counting corporate middleman keen to make a stash along the way between the two. That view is premised on the notion that what happened on October 7, 2023 in Israel was stunningly remarkable, a historical blot dripped and dribbled from nothingness, leaving the Jewish state vengeful and yearning to avenge 1200 deaths and the taking of 240 hostages. All things prior were dandy and uncontroversial.
Last month, word got out that the Victorian government had inked a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Israeli Defence Ministry in December 2022. “As Australia’s advanced manufacturing capital, we are always exploring economic and trade opportunities for our state – especially those that create local jobs,” a government spokesperson stated in January. It’s just business.
No one half observant to this should have been surprised, though no evidence of the MoU, in form or substance, exists on Victorian government websites. (It is, however, listed on the Australian government’s Foreign Arrangements Scheme register.) For one thing, Israel’s Ministry of Defense had happily trumpeted it, stating that its International Defense Cooperation Directorate (SIBAT) and the Victorian statement government had “signed an industrial defense cooperation statement” that December. Those present at the signing ceremony were retired General Yair Kulas, who heads SIBAT and Penelope McKay, acting secretary for Victoria’s Department of Jobs, Precincts, and Regions.
That an MoU should grow from this was a logical outcome, a feature of the State’s distinctly free approach to entering into agreements with foreign entities. In April 2021, the previous Morrison government terminated four agreements made by the Victorian government with Iran, Syria and China. The agreements with Iran and Syria, signed in November 2004 and March 1999 respectively, were intended as educational, scientific and training ventures. The two agreements with China came in the form of an MoU and framework agreement with the National Development and Reform Commission of the PRC, both part of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
The Israeli arms industry has taken something of a shine to Victoria. One of its most aggressive, enterprising representatives has been Elbit Systems, Israel’s prolific drone manufacturing company. Through Elbit Systems of Australia (ELSA), it established a Centre of Excellence in Human-Machine Teaming and Artificial Intelligence in Port Melbourne after announcing its plans to do so in February 2021.
Continue readingAustralia sends sailors to Guam for US Navy nuclear submarine training
By JUAN KING. STARS AND STRIPES • February 9, 2024
A second, larger contingent of Australian sailors is training alongside U.S. counterparts on Guam as part of an agreement to create a nuclear-powered submarine force for the Australian navy.
Australia sent 37 officers and enlisted personnel to Naval Base Guam to train aboard the submarine tender USS Emory S. Land, according to a Feb. 4 news release from the country’s Department of Defence.
The training program falls under the AUKUS pact, an agreement by Australia, the United Kingdom and United States to build eight nuclear-powered submarines for Australia by the 2030s at a cost of about $240 billion over 30 years.
A rotating force of U.S. and U.K. submarines is expected to establish itself in Australia by 2027 as part of the plan. “The opportunity for our Navy personnel to learn from our AUKUS partners demonstrates meaningful progress along Australia’s pathway to acquiring nuclear-powered submarines,” Defence Minister Richard Marles said in the release………………………….. https://www.stripes.com/branches/navy/2024-02-09/nuclear-sub-training-australia-guam-12948455.html—
Australian Sailors Embed Aboard Submarine Tender for Nuclear Experience
The Sailors and Officers will embed aboard USS Emory S. Land, one of two U.S submarine tenders based in the Pacific territory, for up to five months.
Naval News Staff 04 Feb 2024
A group of 37 Royal Australian Navy officers and sailors have departed for Guam to embed on board USS Emory S. Land, the United States submarine tender.
In December last year, Australia, the United States and United Kingdom announced that Australian sailors would commence duty in Guam from early 2024 as part of preparations for the commencement of Submarine Rotational-Force West where, from as early as 2027, one UK Astute-class submarine and up to four US Virginia-class submarines will have a rotational presence at HMAS Stirling in Western Australia.
The Navy personnel will spend up to five months on board USS Emory S. Land integrating with US sailors and building the unique knowledge, skills and experience in how the US conducts nuclear-powered submarine (SSN) maintenance…………………………………… https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2024/02/australian-sailors-embed-aboard-submarine-tender-for-nuclear-experience/
Funding the imperium: Australia subsidises U.S. nuclear submarines
The gem in this whole venture, at least from the perspective of the U.S. military-industrial complex, is the roping in of the Australian taxpayer as the funder of its own nuclear weapons program.
By Binoy Kampmark | 6 January 2024. https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/funding-the-imperium-australia-subsidises-us-nuclear-submarines,18217
AUKUS, the trilateral pact between the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia, was a steal for all except one of the partners.
Australia, given the illusion of protection even as its aggressive stance (acquiring nuclear-powered submarines, becoming a forward base for the U.S. military) aggravated other countries; the feeling of superiority, even as it was surrendering itself to a foreign power as never before, was the loser in the bargain.
Last month, Australians woke up to the sad reminder that their government’s capitulation to Washington has been so total as to render any further talk about independence an embarrassment. Defence Minister Richard Marles, along with his deputy, Minister for Defence Industry Pat Conroy, preferred a different story.
Canberra had gotten what it wanted: approval by the U.S. Congress through its 2024 National Defense Authorisation Act (NDAA) authorising the transfer of three Virginia class nuclear-powered submarines to the Royal Australian Navy, with one off the production line, and two in-service boats. Australia may also seek congressional approval for two further Virginia class boats.
The measures also authorised Australian contractors to train in U.S. shipyards to aid the development of Australia’s own non-existent nuclear-submarine base, and exemptions from U.S. export control licensing requirements permitting the ‘transfer of controlled goods and technology between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States without the need for an export license’.
For the simpleminded Marles, Congress had “provided unprecedented support to Australia in passing the National Defense Authorisation Act which will see the transfer of submarines and streamlined export control provisions, symbolising the strength of our Alliance, and our shared commitment to the AUKUS partnership”.
Either through ignorance or wilful blindness, the Australian Defence Minister chose to avoid elaborating on the less impressive aspects of the authorising statute. The exemption under the U.S. export licensing requirements, for instance, vests Washington with control and authority over Australian goods and technology while controlling the sharing of any U.S. equivalent with Australia. The exemption is nothing less than appropriation, even as it preserves the role of Washington as the drip feeder of nuclear technology.
An individual with more than a passing acquaintance with this is Bill Greenwalt, one of the drafters of the U.S. export control regime.
As he told the ABC last November:
“After years of U.S. State Department prodding, it appears that Australia signed up to the principles and specifics of the failed U.S. export control system.”
In cooperating with the U.S. on this point, Australia would “surrender any sovereign capability it develops to the United States control and bureaucracy”.
The gem in this whole venture, at least from the perspective of the U.S. military-industrial complex, is the roping in of the Australian taxpayer as the funder of its own nuclear weapons program. Whatever its non-proliferation credentials, Canberra finds itself a funder of the U.S. naval arm in an exercise of modernised nuclear proliferation.
Even the Marles-Conroy media release admits that the NDAA helped ‘establish a mechanism for the U.S. to accept funds from Australia to lift the capacity of the submarine industrial base’. Airily, the release goes on to mention that this “investment” (would “gift” not be a better word?) to the U.S. Navy would also ‘complement Australia’s significant investment in our domestic submarine industrial base’.
A few days after the farcical spectacle of surrender by Australian officials, the Congressional Research Service provided another one of its invaluable reports that shed further light on Australia’s contribution to the U.S. nuclear submarine program. Australian media outlets, as is their form on covering AUKUS, remained silent about it. One forum, Michael West Media, showed that its contributors – Rex Patrick and Philip Dorling – were wide awake.
The report is specific to the Navy Columbia (SSBN-826) Class Ballistic Missile Submarine Program, one that involves designing and building 12 new SSBNs to replace the current, aging fleet of 14 Ohio class SSBNs. The cost of the program, in terms of 2024 budget submission estimates for the 2024 financial year, is US$112.7 billion (AU$168.2 billion).
As is customary in these reports, the risks are neatly summarised. They include the usual delays in designing and building the lead boat, thereby threatening readiness for timely deployment; burgeoning costs; the risks posed by funding the Columbia class program to other Navy programs; and ‘potential industrial-base challenges of building both Columbia-class boats and Virginia-class attack submarines (SSNs) at the same time’.
Australian funding becomes important in the last concern. Because of AUKUS, the U.S. Navy “has testified” that it would require, not only an increase in the production rate of the Virginia class to 2.33 boats per year, but ‘a combined Columbia-plus-Virginia procurement rate’ of 1+2.33. Australian mandarins and lawmakers, accomplished in their ignorance, have mentioned little about this addition.
But U.S. lawmakers and military planners are more than aware that this increased procurement rate:
‘…will require investing several billion dollars for capital plant expansion and improvements and workforce development at both the two submarine-construction shipyards (GD/EB [General Dynamics’ Electric Boat in Groton, Connecticut] and HII/NSS [Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Newport News Shipbuilding]) and submarine supplier firms.’
The report acknowledges that funding towards the 1+2.33 goal is being drawn from several allocations over a few financial years, but expressly mentions Australian funding ‘under the AUKUS proposed Pillar 1 pathway’, which entails the transfer component of nuclear-powered submarines to Canberra.
The report helpfully reproduces the 25 October 2023 testimony from the Navy before the Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee of the House of Armed Services Committee. Officials are positively salivating at the prospect of nourishing the domestic industrial base through, for instance, ‘joining with an Australian company to mature and scale metallic additive manufacturing across the SIB [Submarine Industrial Base]’.
The testimony goes on to note that:
‘Australia’s investment into the U.S. SIB builds upon ongoing efforts to improve industrial base capability and capacity, create jobs, and utilise new technologies. This contribution is necessary to augment VACL [Virginia class] production from 2.0 to 2.33 submarines per year to support both U.S. Navy and AUKUS requirements.’
The implications from the perspective of the Australian taxpayer are significant.
‘Australian AUKUS funding will support construction of a key delivery component of the U.S. nuclear strike force, keeping that program on track while overall submarine production accelerates.’
The funding also aids the advancement of another country’s nuclear weapons capabilities, a breach, one would have thought, of Australia’s obligations under the Treaty of Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
Defence spokesman for the Australian Greens, Senator David Shoebridge, makes that very point to Patrick and Dorling:
“Australia has clear international legal obligations to not support the nuclear weapons industry, yet this is precisely what these billions of dollars of AUKUS funding will do.”
The Senator also asks:
“When will the Albanese Government start telling the whole truth about AUKUS and how Australians will be paying to help build the next class of U.S. ballistic missile submarines?”
For an appropriate answer, Shoebridge would do well to consult the masterful, deathless British series Yes Minister, authored by Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn.
In one episode, the relevant minister, Jim Hacker, offers this response to a query by the ever-suspicious civil service overlord Sir Humphrey Appleby on when he might receive a draft proposal:
“At the appropriate juncture. In the fullness of time. When the moment is ripe. When the necessary procedures have been completed. Nothing precipitate, of course.”
In one word: never.
Perth could be an ‘especially important target’ due to AUKUS
January 12, 2024
Curtin University Dean of Global Futures Professor Joe Siracusa says while Australia has always been a nuclear target, Perth has particularly become a target for China and Russia due to AUKUS.“They see the AUKUS development here, not only nuclear-propelled submarines, but they’re going to have nuclear cruise missile type things here,” he told Sky News Australia.
Defence Minister Marles announces Australia has joined in U.S. attacks on Yemen
Comment. As Marles yet again spouts the “global rules-based order”, we wonder where is Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, and why was Parliament not consulted?
Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles confirms Australian personnel contributed to strikes in Yemen.
ABC News, 12 Jan 24
Defence Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles says Australian personnel had been present in “operational headquarters” but said he could not elaborate further on the precise nature of their participation.
Key points:
- A US official said strikes against the Iran-backed group were carried out by aircraft, ships and a submarine
- It comes as the United Nations Security Council demands an immediate halt to the shipping disruptions
- The US Central Command said Houthi rebels have launched their 27th attack since November 19
Mr Marles said Australia’s participation was “completely consistent” with the national interest. “Australia must stand up for freedom of navigation,” Mr Marles said, accusing the Houthis of “disruption of the rules-based order.”
The US and Britain have started launching strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen.
Houthi official Abdul Qader al-Mortada said raids were conducted in several Yemeni cities, including the capital Sana’a, in the early hours of Friday.
Two Hodieda residents told Associated Press they heard five strong explosions.
Hodieda lies on the Red Sea and is the largest port city controlled by the Houthis.
Yemen’s Houthi rebels said they will continue targeting Israel-linked ships in the Red Sea despite overnight air strikes by the US and Britain, their spokesman said on Friday.
“We affirm that there is absolutely no justification for this aggression against Yemen, as there was no threat to international navigation in the Red and Arabian Seas, and the targeting was and will continue to affect Israeli ships or those heading to the ports of occupied Palestine,” Yemen’s Houthis spokesperson Mohammed Abdulsalam posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.
On Friday, Iran said it condemns the US-Britain attack on Houthis in Yemen warning that it will fuel “insecurity and instability” in the region, Iranian state media reported.
“We strongly condemn the military attacks carried out this morning by the United States and the United Kingdom on several cities in Yemen,” said Nasser Kannani, spokesperson at Iran’s foreign ministry.
“These attacks are a clear violation of Yemen’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and a breach of international laws,” he added…………………………………………
US President Joe Biden said Australia, Canada, Bahrain and the Netherlands provided support for the operation………………………………………..
The strikes would mark the first counterattack launched against the Iran-backed group, since it began Red Sea attacks in November last year.
It comes as the United Nations Security Council demanded an immediate halt to the disruption in global commerce on Thursday.
A joint statement by Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, New Zealand, Republic of Korea, United Kingdom and the US said the UN resolution, in addition to Houthi ignoring calls to end the shipping attacks, had led to these “precision strikes”……………………………..
Scotland’s first minister Humza Yousaf, whose parents-in-law escaped Gaza in early November, warned the UK “does not have a good record of military intervention in the Middle East”, demanding MPs have a briefing. ………………………………………………………………………………….
The Iran-backed group says it is conducting attacks in support of Palestinian militant group Hamas in its fight against Israel………………………………………………………….
Before the resolution on Thursday, United States deputy ambassador Robert Wood said “freedom of commercial activity on the seas is critically important to commerce and to national security of a number of states”.
Wider fallout on the horizon
Nearly 10 per cent of global oil trade and an estimated $US1 trillion ($1.5 trillion) in goods pass through the Red Sea route annually.
Houthi attacks have forced many shipping companies to use the much longer and more-expensive route around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope………………………………………………………………. more https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-01-12/britain-joins-strikes-against-houthi-rebels/103312432?fbclid=IwAR0IWBxVsFVdHyF534j_12Il1ojMC-TMJ2zflrOI_J5Xnt9KWqBRBmUCAy8
Nuke policy quietly nuked: Australia to fund US nuclear weapon delivery program
Greens Defence Spokesperson Senator David Shoebridge said, “When will the Albanese government start telling the whole truth about AUKUS and how Australians will be paying to help build the next class of US ballistic missile submarines?”
by Rex Patrick and Philip Dorling | Jan 2, 2024, https://michaelwest.com.au/australia-to-fund-nuclear-missiles-aukus/
A newly released Congressional Research Service report confirms that Australian funds will be used to support the United States Navy’s nuclear ballistic missile submarine program. The Government has sunk Labor’s nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation pledges. Rex Patrick and Philip Dorling explain.
The Columbia class submarines will carry 16 thirteen metre long Trident II D5 missiles. Each of those missiles can carry up to eight (they can carry 12 but, by treaty, the number has been limited to eight) multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicles. Each re-entry vehicle can deliver a thermonuclear warhead to an individual target.
Fully loaded, each submarine will be able deliver thermonuclear weapons to 128 cities or hardened military targets.
When on patrol, the submarines are virtually undetectable, and there are no known, near-term credible threats to the survivability of the SSBN force. The ballistic missile submarines are the most survivable leg of the triad.
The US Navy for more than a decade consistently identified the Columbia Class program as its top priority program.
Enter AUKUS
There has been a lot of focus on how the US will meet its own production requirements for the conventionally armed Virginia class nuclear attack submarines with the AUKUS agreements providing for two existing submarines to be transferred to Australia and at least another new vessel acquired off the production line.
No-one in Australia has paid much attention to the Columbia Program. That’s been an oversight.
The Columbia class ballistic missile submarines will be built at General Dynamics’ Electric Boat in Groton, Connecticut, and Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Newport News Shipbuilding (HII/NNS), in Newport News, Virginia. That’s exactly the same shipyards the Virginia class attack submarines will be built.
And this will all be happening at the same time. The first Columbia submarine is to be delivered in October 2027, the second in April 2030, the third in August 2032, the fourth in September 2032, and the fifth in August 2033. At the same time those same shipyards will be pumping out Virginia Class submarine for the US Navy, and Australia. As the fifth Columbia is being delivered, Australia will get its first second hand Virginia Class submarine.
Both shipyards are currently collectively punching out 1.4 Virginia class boats per annum. By 2028 it is expected that the yards will be collectively be producing 2 per annum. That will meet US Navy requirements, but AUKUS takes the required production rate to 2.33 per annum. When the Columbia submarines are added to the mix, the US submarine industrial base needs to be producing 1+2.33 submarines per annum.
AUKUS funding to be used
In the meantime, Australia has agreed to contribute US$3B (AUD$4.7B) to “the US industrial base to support increased production and maintenance capacity to ensure there is no capability gap for Australia in acquiring Nuclear Powered Submarines.”
The latest Congressional Research Service report on the Columbia class program makes to clear that the Australian commitment is to generic US submarine industrial base funding; covering construction for both the Virginia and Columbia submarine programs.
“Building up the industrial base’s capacity to a 1+2.33 capacity will require investing several billion dollars for capital plant expansion and improvements and workforce development at both the two submarine-construction shipyards and submarine supplier firms.
Some of this funding has been provided in FY2023 and prior years, some of it is requested for FY2024, some of it would be requested in FY2025 and subsequent years, and some of it would be provided, under the AUKUS proposed Pillar 1 pathway, by Australia.”
Parliament in the dark on nuclear funding
To be perfectly clear, Australian AUKUS funding will support construction of a key delivery component of the US nuclear strike force, keeping that program on track while overall submarine production accelerates.
This fact has not been shared with the Australian public or Parliament.
Greens Defence Spokesperson Senator David Shoebridge said, “When will the Albanese government start telling the whole truth about AUKUS and how Australians will be paying to help build the next class of US ballistic missile submarines?”
Of course, the Government hasn’t exactly been upfront about a number of things in the AUKUS program, with Michael West Media being left to reveal (in contrast to statements made by Defence Minister Richard Marles) that Australia will be taking nuclear waste from the US and UK under the program.
Price Waterhouse Cooper’s (PWC’s) $8m nuclear submarine payday revealed
18 DECEMBER 2023, By: Liam Garman, https://www.defenceconnect.com.au/naval/13341-pwc-s-8-million-nuclear-submarine-payday-revealed
Talking points prepared for Vice Admiral Jonathan Mead, director general of the Australian Submarine Agency, on the Nuclear-Powered Submarine Taskforce’s engagement with the embattled professional services firm have come to light following a freedom of information request from former independent senator Rex Patrick.
Information seen by Defence Connect have detailed two separate contracts between the Nuclear-Powered Submarine Taskforce and the consulting firm via the Defence Support Services Panel.
In total, Defence spent $8,055,928.56 with PwC between 2021 and 2023, with one contract phase costing Defence $560,142.57 for just 12 weeks of consulting work.
The revelation comes as PwC grapples with the fallout of the widely reported tax scandal in early 2023, which saw senior partners at the firm share confidential Commonwealth information with clients to avoid paying tax.
Leaked internal emails from PwC showed that confidential tax information was shared with over 50 of the company’s partners, some of whom then used the information to approach 14 global companies.
The talking points sourced by former South Australian independent senator Rex Patrick were developed for the head of the ASA, Vice Admiral Mead, for budget estimates, who justified the engagements, outlining that “value for money was a core consideration in the Nuclear-Powered Submarine Taskforce’s engagement of PwC”.
The ASA has not engaged with PwC since its creation on 1 July 2023.
Speaking to Defence Connect, an ASA spokesperson explained the taskforce’s engagement with PwC: “The Nuclear-Powered Submarine Taskforce entered into two contracts with PwC, during the 18-month consultation period.
At no time was PwC briefed into any security compartment, nor were they part of any development of the Optimal Pathway during the 18-month consultation period.”
The contracts were awarded to support the development of a domestic nuclear-powered submarine industry and included $5,275,135.90 for the development of Program Management Office (PMO) artefacts, scheduling support, program development and management, and “governance mechanisms”.
The second contract, valued at a total $2,780,792.66, was for the delivery of an enterprise-wide solution on the reporting of workforce demographics, and supported the development and implementation of a workforce support concept development plan.
At its time of writing, the talking points detailed that the Australian Submarine Agency had five ongoing consulting contracts valued at $2.756 million with KPMG and Deloitte.
More to follow.
Over 700 American AUKUS personnel to be based in Western Australia, with radioactive storage facility also planned
by defence correspondent Andrew Greene, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-12-18/aukus-americans-western-australia-radioactive-storage-facility/103239924
Defence expects more than 700 American personnel could live in Western Australia to support up to four US nuclear submarines being stationed at HMAS Stirling, where a “low-level radioactive waste management” facility is also being planned.
Key points:
- Western Australia will host the first submarines from 2027
- British personnel are also expected to join rotations but without families
- Radioactive waste will be stored at Defence sites including a new management facility in Perth
The projections are contained in comprehensive briefing notes prepared by the newly created Australian Submarine Agency (ASA) which also detail how a one-off Australian government payment of $US3 billion ($4.45 billion) will be spent by the United States.
Under the optimal pathway announced by AUKUS leaders earlier this year, the Submarine Rotational Force – West (SRF-West) would first begin hosting Royal Navy Astute-class and US Navy Virginia-class submarines at HMAS Stirling from 2027.
A Virginia-class submarine carries a crew of 132 according to the US Navy, while an Astute-class boat deploys with almost 100 Royal Navy submariners on board.
“This workforce will then move to support our enduring nuclear-powered submarine program and will be a key enabler for SRF-West,” the ASA states in documents obtained under Freedom of Information by former Senator and submariner Rex Patrick.
“In addition to these 500-700 Australians at its height, we estimate that over 700 United States Personnel could be living and working in Western Australia to support SRF-West, with some also bringing families,” the ASA predicts.
According to the ASA, SRF-West will be established as early as 2027 and expand in subsequent years to support up to four US and one UK nuclear-powered submarine, with the Australian government investing $8 billion to expand HMAS Stirling outside Perth.
The ASA notes there will also be “a small United Kingdom contingent living in Perth” but most British personnel supporting SRF-West “will be in Australia for shorter rotations, meaning they will not be bringing families with them”.
Planning begins for low-level radioactive waste management
Decisions on where Australia will eventually dispose of its nuclear submarine reactors are not expected for many years, but planning has begun for “low-level radioactive waste management” at HMAS Stirling to support SRF-West.
“Expertise to manage low-level operational waste arising from nuclear-powered submarine operations and sustainment will be an important part of Australia building the necessary stewardship capability to operate and maintain its own submarines.”
More details emerge on Australia’s multi-billion dollar payment
Inside the almost 200 pages of ASA briefing notes are further details of how a $US3 billion ($4.45 billion) Australian contribution to the US submarine industrial base will be spent, including on enhancing facilities and pre-purchasing components and materials.
“Australia’s commitment to invest in the US submarine industrial base recognises the lift the United States is making to supporting Australia’s acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines.”
“Pre-purchasing submarine components and materials, so they are on hand at the start of the maintenance period – saving time” and “outsourcing less complex sustainment and expanding planning efforts for private sector overhauls, to reduce backlog”.
Australia’s AUKUS nuclear submarines could fuel regional arms race despite assurance
“AUKUS is designed to shore up American power in East Asia, not de-escalate tensions,”
By Su-Lin TanDec 4, 2023, https://johnmenadue.com/australias-aukus-nuclear-submarines-could-fuel-regional-arms-race-despite-assurance/
Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy says Australia is not worsening the arms race and gives assurance about the submarines’ nuclear reactors. The deal could still spark a defence build-up in Asia-Pacific while Australia lacks the facilities to deal with nuclear waste, analysts say.
Australia may have asserted that its acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines under AUKUS is not aggravating the “arms race”, but the deal and the three-nation alliance could still fuel a defence build-up in the Asia-Pacific and heighten regional tensions, security analysts say.
At the national press club in Canberra on Tuesday, Australian Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy reiterated the importance of the submarines to the country’s defence while debunking “myths” about the trilateral deal struck with Britain and the United States, which is largely seen as a countermeasure targeting China.
“The arms race is the greatest it’s been since 1945, and that is why I reject assertions … that Australia is somehow fuelling that arms race,” he said, adding that rising tensions in the Asia-Pacific had posed the most challenging strategic environment for Australia since World War II. “We are responding to it in a responsible and mature manner, like Australian governments should.”
Australia will own at least eight submarines over the next three decades through the A$368 billion (US$243 billion) deal. First announced in 2021 and finalised earlier this year, the controversial pact has raised concerns in the region.
Collin Koh, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, said Conroy’s comment was not a surprise as countries including China and others in Asia-Pacific often couched their arms acquisitions in “defensive terms”.
Most countries would do so in the name of national security interests but it did not mean such actions ensured peace or safety, he said.
Even before AUKUS was announced in 2021, China and other regional countries had already embarked on significant military build-up since the 1990s, Koh said.
“Conroy may not be necessarily wrong to say AUKUS responds to this already ongoing condition, yet at the same time, it’s also not wrong to say that AUKUS … may not only be used by Beijing to legitimise its naval build-up, it also could be exploited as a justification for other regional countries’ military build-up programmes,” Koh said.
Australia’s acquisition of the submarines might trigger new problems as other countries could argue that they should also acquire similar capabilities, said Maria Rost Rublee, a nuclear politics expert at Monash University.
These countries are not limited to “dangerous actors”, for instance, in South Korea where the majority of its people have expressed a desire for their country to own nuclear weapons, Rublee added.
“Just having this type of technology in the hands of a country where you have strong popular support for nuclear weapons could be an issue,” she said.
In an analysis earlier this month, Ankit Panda, the Stanton Senior Fellow in the Nuclear Policy Programme at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, warned the accumulation of weapons such as missiles could potentially lead to unintended attacks.
“The Indo-Pacific region has entered a new missile age … each nation individually seeking deterrence while as a whole steering the region into ever more dangerous waters,” he said. “A particular risk concerns the prospects of attacks on the nuclear forces of countries like North Korea and China, by US or allied forces in ways that may not be intended.”
By the 2030s, the Indo-Pacific region would be “full of thousands of new missiles that can be expected to be used widely in the context of a major regional war”, Panda said.
Responding to Conroy’s comments, the national convenor of Labor Against War in Australia, Marcus Strom, said: “If your answer to growing regional tension is to add offensive weaponry, you create a logic towards war.
“AUKUS is designed to shore up American power in East Asia, not de-escalate tensions,” he added.
While Conroy has given assurances about the safety of sealed nuclear reactors within the submarines, analysts argued that the lack of facilities in Australia for the eventual disposal of these reactors is worrying.
“The strength of this agreement is that the reactor module comes to us sealed. It comes sealed, designed to be never opened over the life of a submarine. You don’t have to refuel it, you don’t have to insert new fuel rods … [over] the life of the submarine,” Conroy said.
But nuclear waste expert Ian Lowe said in an analysis on The Conversation website earlier this year that Australia has failed for decades to find long-term storage solutions for small quantities of low- and intermediate-level nuclear waste.
Even Australia’s allies and AUKUS partners, the US and the UK, do not have long-term solutions for nuclear waste storage, according to Lowe.
“This should be concerning. To manage the waste from our proposed nuclear submarines properly, we’ll have to develop systems and sites which do not currently exist in Australia,” Lowe said.
Australian states such as Victoria, Queensland and South Australia have said they would not accept a nuclear waste facility within their borders.
While it will be another 30 years before Australia has to worry about dumping the submarine’s nuclear reactors, it is not a long time, Rublee said.
“If they take their nuclear stewardship obligations seriously, they must immediately begin working on the long-term storage of high-level nuclear waste,” she added.
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.
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 