Around the world, global solidarity and cooperation are remarkably popular
June 1, 2026, by Lawrence Wittner, https://peaceandhealthblog.com/2026/06/01/around-the-world-global-solidarity-and-cooperation-are-remarkably-popular/
One of the curious ironies of our time is that, although many politicians spout heated nationalist rhetoric, rail against foreign nations, and belittle international cooperation, this approach to international affairs is not at all what most people want.
The climate of aggressive nationalism is clear enough. In nations around the globe, demagogues (usually of a rightwing variety) whip up xenophobia, preach superpatriotism, demand vast military buildups, and―if holding public office―often launch invasions of other nations under the banner of restoring an allegedly glorious national past.
But what is often overlooked is that, across the planet, most people favor a very different way of engaging with the world.
In late 2025, Focaldata, a major research company commissioned by the Rockefeller Foundation, conducted a landmark survey of 36,405 people across 34 countries. The resulting report, Demanding Results: Global Views on International Cooperation, revealed that 55 percent of people worldwide “believe their country should cooperate on global challenges even if it means compromising on national interests.” If international cooperation was proven to solve global problems, public support jumped to 75 percent. Respondents viewed such cooperation as essential for food and water security, jobs, health, trade, and climate.
Other opinion surveys confirm the widespread nature of internationalist sentiment. An Ipsos poll conducted between February and April 2026 found a substantial increase over the previous year in support for global solidarity and cooperation, with net disagreement shifting to net agreement. Among the more than 22,000 adults in the 31 countries surveyed, nearly two-thirds now supported the claim that, “for certain problems, like environmental pollution, international bodies should have the right to enforce solutions.” Some 42 percent (a plurality) agreed with the idea that “my taxes should go towards solving global problems.” And nearly four out of ten respondents (a plurality) endorsed the statement: “I consider myself more a world citizen than a citizen of the country I live in.”
Another measure of the worldwide support for international cooperation is provided by polling on public attitudes toward international organizations. The Rockefeller Foundation-Focaldata study reported that public trust was strong for the United Nations (58 percent) and the World Health Organization (60 percent), although weaker for international financial institutions. The global popularity of the United Nations was also attested to by a Pew Research Center survey that appeared in September 2025. Covering 31,938 adults in 25 countries, it found that a median of 61 percent of adults had a favorable view of the world organization, while only 32 percent had an unfavorable one.
Even proposals for new, avant garde global institutions have attracted more public support than opposition. Commissioned by Democracy Without Borders, Nira Data conducted a global survey in September 2025 of public attitudes toward the election of a citizen-elected world parliament to handle global issues. The survey, released in January 2026, drew upon 117,000 people in 101 countries that held 90 percent of the world’s population. The finding was that 40 percent of respondents approved of the world parliament idea, while only 27 percent opposed it.
But what about the United States? Surely in this flag-waving nation, engulfed in the rabid “America First” rhetoric of the Trump administration and its MAGA acolytes, we might expect that the ideals of global solidarity and cooperation would be supported by no more than a small minority.
But that’s not the case at all.
One of the most striking findings of the Rockefeller Foundation-Focaldata survey is that 61 percent of U.S. respondents believed that the United States should cooperate on global challenges even it meant compromising on some national interests.
When it came to the United Nations, the Pew Research Center report revealed that 57 percent of Americans held a positive view of the world organization, as compared to 41 percent with a negative one. Moreover, it found that positive views of the United Nations had increased by 5 percent over the preceding year.
A study by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, issued in September 2025, reported an even more favorable public attitude toward the United Nations. Two-thirds of the Americans surveyed, it noted, said that the United States should be more willing to make decisions within the framework of the United Nations, even if this meant that the country would sometimes have to go along with a policy that was not its first choice.
Admittedly, opinion surveys found that the level of support for international cooperation varied significantly from country to country. Thus, for example, the backing for international cooperation when that meant compromising on some national interests was greater in India (81 percent) and South Korea (73 percent), the countries highest on the scale, than in Argentina (41 percent) and Japan (34 percent), the countries at the bottom of the scale.
Furthermore, there was often a political dimension to worldwide public attitudes toward foreign affairs. According to the Pew Research Center, “people who place themselves on the left of the ideological spectrum are more likely than those on the right to have a positive view of the UN.”
This political division was particularly wide in the United States, where, as the Pew report maintained, “81% of liberals―versus 34% of conservatives―have a favorable opinion” of the United Nations. When it came to the issue of support for cooperation with other nations, the surveys by Rockefeller-Focaldata and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs both found substantial differences between the attitudes of Democrats (quite positive) and Republicans (far more negative).
Even so, in most countries, including the United States, support for international solidarity and cooperation is very substantial, and growing. Consequently, political activists and politicians shouldn’t be reluctant to speak out for them. Indeed, given the popularity of this internationalist approach to global affairs, it might even prove a winning political issue.
Lawrence S. Wittner (https://www.lawrenceswittner.com/ ) is Professor of History Emeritus at SUNY/Albany and the author of Confronting the Bomb (Stanford University Press).
Wildfires devastating richer areas but fewer hectares burned globally – study
Ajit Niranjan, June 26, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/01/wildfires-devastating-richer-areas-but-fewer-hectares-burned-globally-study
‘Megafires’ in California, Canada, South Korea and Europe in 2025, but changes to farming slowed spread in parts of Africa.
“Devastating” wildfires ripped across the wealthier parts of the world in 2025, a study has found, even as globally, the area ravaged by flames fell.
Catastrophic blazes claimed lives, homes and jobs last year in California, Canada, Europe and South Korea. But the 335m hectares burned was the second-lowest since 2002, the review found, largely owing to the expansion of African farms that have fragmented landscapes and hampered the spread of large savannah fires.
The disasters in 2025 included a Scottish “megafire” that torched more than 100,000 hectares – contributing to the UK breaking its record for burned area – and the Palisades and Eaton fires in Los Angeles, which were among the most destructive in US history.
Record-breaking blazes in Spain and Portugal burned more than half a million hectares, while South Korea had its biggest and deadliest wildfire season on record.
Fires accounted for more than 38% of insured losses from weather disasters in 2025, the study found.
“2025 shows that a ‘quiet’ fire year globally can still be devastating,” said Matthew Jones, a climate scientist at the University of East Anglia and lead author of the study. “We are seeing a growing disconnect between total area burned and real-world impacts.”
Changes in land use mean wildfires burn less of the planet than they have historically done, but global heating is creating conditions allowing them to spread, increasing the danger at what researchers call the wildland-urban interface, where people are most at risk.
Adverse weather, inflamed by carbon pollution, turned some of last year’s fires into explosive infernos.
In southern California and South Korea, the researchers found, high winds and dry vegetation pushed fires through densely populated areas, causing “exceptional mortality, mass evacuations, and major infrastructure losses”. In the Mediterranean, meanwhile, drought and extreme heat drove severe blazes, from Portugal to Turkey.
“These conditions do not cause the fires, but in the event of a fire, we have material that is more flammable than usual – because it is drier – and wind conditions that fan the flames,” said David Garcia, an applied mathematician at the University of Alicante, who was not involved in the study. “This makes large fires more likely to occur.”
An attribution study Garcia co-authored last year found the extreme weather fuelling the flames in Portugal and Spain last year was made 39 times more likely by climate breakdown. “If we continue to warm the planet, large-scale fires will continue to increase,” he said.
The overall reduction in global burned area led to a drop in carbon dioxide emissions to their third-lowest level on record.
In Canada, though, extreme wildfire emissions were recorded for the third year in a row. Since 2023, boreal forests in North America have emitted close to 4bn tonnes of CO2, exceeding the total emissions of the preceding 15-year period.
As well as heating the planet, the pollutants in wildfire smoke lead to huge numbers of people dying from breathing dirty air. The toxic particles spewed by Canadian wildfires in 2023 killed 82,000 people, according to a study published in September, with smoke even choking cities in the US, Europe and Africa.
Adrián Regos, a landscape ecologist at the Biological Mission of Galicia, Spain, who was not involved in the study, said last year’s events illustrated how a relatively small number of extreme fires could dominate the ecological, social and economic consequences of an entire fire season.
“The broader pattern highlighted by this study is consistent with what we are observing across southern Europe: while total burned area may fluctuate from year to year, climate change is increasing the likelihood of extreme fire-weather conditions, and fuel accumulation associated with rural abandonment is making many landscapes more vulnerable to large, fast-moving fires,” he said.
“The challenge is therefore not only reducing the number of fires, but increasing the resilience of landscapes and communities to extreme events.”
AUKUS. From ‘best’ we’ll never get to second hand subs
Meanwhile, Defence Minister Richard Mares maintains the facade. He’s either dishonest or dumb. Time will tell which one it is.
by Rex Patrick | Jun 1, 2026, https://michaelwest.com.au/aukus-from-best-well-never-get-to-second-hand-subs/
Defence Minister Marles announced a change to the AUKUS submarine program: second-hand subs! What’s the scam?
The scam is, at an enormous cost of (at least) $368B, we now only get second-hand subs from the US while we wait for the promised nuclear subs on the never-never.
In May 2023, Admiral Mead, the head of the Australian Submarine Agency, told the Senate that the first two Virginia-class subs that would be transferred to Australia would be second-hand, and the remaining subs would be brand new. He repeated it a year later.
But the reality is and always has been different. The US is only building about 1.2 subs per annum and needs to get to a built rate of 2.0 to meet US needs, and 2.3 to meet theirs and ours. They have no way of getting there.
We’ve sent $2.8B non-refundable taxpayers’ dollars to the US over the past two years to try to shift the build rate dial, and it’s done nothing, other than drain our Treasury.
Anyone who bothers to read the US Congressional Research Service’s advice to Congress on AUKUS knows we will not get subs from the US. Anyone who has bothered to read the recently released UK Parliamentary report on AUKUS knows we will not get subs from the UK.
The Albanese Government has embarked on an all-eggs-in-one-basket program where,
“the US hens are not laying enough eggs, and the UK chooks are headless?.
Meanwhile, Defence Minister Richard Mares maintains the facade. He’s either dishonest or dumb. Time will tell which one it is.
Rex Patrick is a former Senator for South Australia and, earlier, a submariner in the armed forces. Best known as an anti-corruption and transparency crusader, Rex is also known as the “Transparency Warrior.”
Royal Commission under fire for excluding Palestinian perspectives
Many have noted that Zionism has become like Nazism, imprisoning, killing and torturing the Palestinians.
Worldwide, many Holocaust survivors and their children have been horrified by and denounced Israel for its treatment of Palestinians. Many Jewish people with family connections to the Holocaust have marched in the streets carrying Palestinian flags and banners.
By Lyn Bender | 1 June 2026, https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/royal-commission-under-fire-for-excluding-palestinian-perspectives,21114
The Royal Commission into Antisemitism has sparked debate over free speech, protest rights and the place of Palestinian perspectives in public discourse, writes Lyn Bender.
IS CONCERN for Palestine and the Palestinian people the new McCarthyism?
Named for the Republican Senator who spearheaded (literally) the hunting down of suspected communist “infiltrators” and “sympathisers”, within the film industry, educational institutions, the government and even the army. No stone was left unturned in the search to uncover this threat to America.
The current identification of antisemitism as any criticism of Israel bears a stark resemblance to the search for the communist peril.
Protesting genocide has become a criminal offence in parts of Australia. People in Australia can be arrested for peacefully protesting ethnic cleansing and war crimes.
Thus far in the current Royal Commission into Antisemitism, the accused – by inference, Palestinians – cannot bear witness or plead their case.
The Australian Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN), a peak Palestinian body, has been denied permission to present at the Commission.
The Crucible, written in 1953 by Arthur Miller, reflected the communist purge in America of that time. Anyone could stand accused by the House Un-American Activities Committee of being communist sympathisers. Hundreds of those in the film industry lost their jobs or were boycotted by association. This list included Charlie Chaplin, who became an exile from America.
The Crucible is a play about the hysteria generated in a community in 1693 in Salem, America, regarding accusations of witchcraft. The Salem witch trials were an allegorical device used by Miller.
The Bondi shootings were a terrible trauma for the Jewish community, especially those directly impacted. But the insistent call for a royal commission was a massive error. The shock and fear had not been processed, nor had the motivation of the alleged assailants been investigated. In fact, the Commission may be hampered by this being a case under investigation.
Bondi is an iconic Aussie meeting place for many Australians.
Bondi belongs to all Australians.
The surfers, the swimmers, the lifesavers, the joggers, the sunbathers, the tourists lured by its beauty and those who come to enjoy a coffee overlooking its waters may all lay claim to Bondi. But Bondi’s unique status as a safe place for all has been assaulted. That is a deep wound.
Despite its clearly narrow agenda, I decided to offer a submission to the Royal Commission into Antisemitism.
I struggled with the decision to make a submission to this Royal Commission, but felt compelled to add my voice as a Jewish person who is horrified by the suppression and failure even to acknowledge Palestinian suffering.
In fact, it seemed that somehow the protests against the genocide of the Palestinians were being unjustly implicated in this terrible act. Despite the facts thus far known, that no Palestinians were involved in the massacre, the measures against protestors intensified, especially in NSW.
Protesters have also been criminalised in Britain.
Police became heavier-handed with protesters. The media cited the protests but seemed less interested in highlighting what the protests were about. Bombing and displacement in Gaza and settler violence that we could see on our iPhones every day.
Phrases became officially condemned. Saying “Free Palestine” could get you banned or moved on. It was more acceptable to utter almost any curse other than intifada. Intifada is Arabic for shaking off or resisting. Which human would not wish to rid themselves of a brutal apartheid occupation? If a person states this idea, they are accused by the Israeli narrative machine of being supporters of Hamas or antisemitic or both. If you are Jewish, you are denounced as a self-hating Jew or traitor.
Some appearing at the Commission have claimed that the display of the Palestinian flag traumatises them.
Transgenerational trauma is on display.
I can attest both personally and in my previous practice as a psychologist that transgenerational trauma is a psychological phenomenon. Growing up in a traumatised community or family imparts the trauma. Fears, beliefs and responses can be passed on non-verbally and behaviourally as well as verbally.
For some, trauma may lead them to have empathy for the suffering of others. For others, they may seek to become like the aggressor to escape victimhood. Bruno Bettelheim (who had been imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps) and other analysts named this as identification with the aggressor. It’s a defence mechanism of those in traumatic and extremely powerless situations.
Many have noted that Zionism has become like Nazism, imprisoning, killing and torturing the Palestinians.
Worldwide, many Holocaust survivors and their children have been horrified by and denounced Israel for its treatment of Palestinians. Many Jewish people with family connections to the Holocaust have marched in the streets carrying Palestinian flags and banners.
I found the boundaries specified for submitting almost squeezed me as the writer into delineating incidents of antisemitism. The saving grace was the question of social cohesion and how this might be impacted.
I responded that, firstly, I had received far more abuse and “antisemitism” from Zionists and pro-Israel Jewish people.
My view is that the Royal Commission is harming social cohesion. Claiming that criticism of Israel is antisemitic, as proposed by the Envoy, Jillian Segal, is actually crazy. That in failing to allow the “accused” Palestinians a voice at the Commission, it has fostered extreme social disunity.
I was not able to say all that I knew mattered. Even participating in this Commission feels as though I am part of a corrupted process.
My experience growing up in a community of Holocaust survivors was that we were indoctrinated, as in the U.S., with the belief that Israel was part of Jewish identity, a place of safety for Jewish people. That Israel could do no wrong. Jewish people were entitled to the land from the river to the sea.
Oh, the irony that Palestinian supporters are criminalised for using that expression. The absurdity of the assertion that Jewish people of European background somehow have the right of return while the Indigenous people expelled in the 1948 Nakba do not.
I am a supporter of the Jewish Council of Australia, which advocates for human rights for all and is opposed to the maltreatment of all abused groups, including Australia’s Indigenous people.
The absurdity of asserting that Jews are somehow one homogenous group.
But as I imbibed in my Jewish education, it is forbidden to kill. It is forbidden to steal. But Israel proudly proclaims its right to do both.
Claiming these atrocities on behalf of all Jewish people may account for a perceived rise in antisemitism.
Finally, we are all diminished when a tragedy, such as the Bondi shootings, is weaponised for political purposes.
Peter Garrett to head independent inquiry into the Aukus submarine pact
By Tom McIlroy Political editor, June 2, 2026, https://www.inkl.com/glance/news/peter-garrett-to-head-independent-inquiry-into-the-aukus-submarine-pact?first_login=true§ion=personalized
he former environment minister Peter Garrett will lead an independent inquiry into the Aukus defence pact, launched by a group of Labor veterans and public figures concerned proper scrutiny has never been applied to the $368bn defence plan.
Garrett, the Midnight Oil frontman and longtime environmental campaigner, will be the lead commissioner on the five-month community-based investigation, being launched on Tuesday.
It will hold public hearings and take written submissions before delivering a final report by 30 October.
Labor agreed to support the deal for Australia to acquire nuclear submarines in collaboration with the US and the UK, negotiated under the Morrison government and announced in 2021. As part of the agreement, Australia is funding upgrades to the US defence industrial base and will start receiving secondhand nuclear submarines in 2032.
The UK parliament held a year-long review into the trilateral partnership and, after an inquiry by the Pentagon in 2025, Donald Trump agreed to support it.
But some within Labor, including the former prime minister Paul Keating, as well as civil society groups believe Aukus is not in Australia’s best interest.
Garrett said the new inquiry – supported by trade unions and non-profit organisations – would consider if the subs can be delivered on time and on budget, how nuclear waste will be managed and if Australia’s defence and strategic interests are well served by the deal.
He has previously lashed Aukus, saying the plan “stinks” and represents “the most costly and risky action ever taken by any Australian government”.
“This inquiry is doing the job that a proper parliamentary inquiry should be doing,” Garrett told Guardian Australia.
“How is it that there’s been inquiries about the submarine program in other countries and we haven’t had a full parliamentary inquiry here?”
A group of commissioners will be named to lead the inquiry, convened under the auspices of the Australian Peace and Security Forum.
Critical to its deliberations will be the rise of China and the prospect of conflict in the Indo-Pacific region.
Nuclear non-proliferation issues, employment and environmental consequences are also among the inquiry’s terms-of-reference.
Despite the Albanese government expressing confidence since winning government in 2022, on Sunday the defence minister, Richard Marles, announced Australia would buy three secondhand American Virginia-class submarines, instead of at least one brand new vessel from the US.
He said the change – announced after talks between Marles and his US counterpart, Pete Hegseth, in Singapore – was about Australia placing “a premium on simplicity” and not about challenges in submarine production for the US navy.
Marles conceded there would be no “fundamental” shift in the cost but operating two models of the American-made submarines would be more costly and complicated.
The government’s preferred measure of the total cost is 0.15% of GDP over the lifetime of the deal.
The first Virginia-class nuclear sub from the US is due to arrive in Australia in 2032, with another arriving every four years, before the Australian-built model is ready for operations. The bespoke SSN Aukus model is due to come online in 2042.
Australia has not identified a permanent storage site for the nuclear waste generated by the submarine fleet, including the high-level radioactive waste from the reactor core and spent fuel, which will remain toxic for thousands of years.
In 2023, Marles committed to publicly outlining a process for identifying a waste site “within 12 months”. But no plan, or site, has yet been identified.
Starting as early as 2027, US and UK nuclear-powered submarines will begin rotations at HMAS Stirling in Western Australia. An east coast base is also expected to be built.
To cover capability gaps before the Aukus fleet arrives, Australia is extending use of 30-year-old Collins-class submarines for an extra 10 years.
As part of the second pillar of the agreement, Marles announced plans for the three countries to develop new weapons systems and sensors for underwater drones, to protect undersea cables, conduct surveillance and strike enemy targets.
Husic breaks ranks to demand rethink of Labor’s support for AUKUS
Phillip Coorey and Nicola Smith, 2 June 26
In a move which sparked speculation of a wider internal insurrection, Husic, during Tuesday’s caucus meeting, and at a press conference afterwards, said Labor should reconsider its support for AUKUS, which was hastily given when it was in opposition.
“The reality is this deal has changed. It’s not the deal that we agreed to way back when. And the reason the deal is changing is because … in the US, they cannot produce at the rate that they want to, and at the rate we need them to – that is the reality.”
Labor’s support for AUKUS has long been internally contentious and is bound to feature once more when the party holds its triennial national conference in Adelaide in July.
Labor Against War convenor Marcus Strom, who led a revolt at the last national conference in Brisbane, backed Husic.
Now that dodgy Pete Hegseth has again changed the AUKUS deal, it’s right that Ed Husic has called for a caucus vote on the nuclear subs pact,” he said, referring to the US secretary of defence. “Who pays the same price for a used car that they’d pay for a new one? Caucus should follow logic – and their conscience – to reject AUKUS altogether.”
“The best time to dump AUKUS was in 2022 when Labor won office. The next best time is now.”
Husic broke ranks on the same day Midnight Oil frontman and former Labor MP Peter Garrett, along with former admiral Chris Barrie and former West Australian Labor premier Carmen Lawrence, launched an independent crowd-funded inquiry into AUKUS.
They were backed by the teal independents.
At a weekend defence ministers meeting in Singapore, the AUKUS nations – Australia, the UK and US – agreed on an updated plan to contain costs and simplify the historic security pact, revealing that the first three Australian purchases of US-built nuclear-powered submarines would now be confined to used vessels, instead of two
used and one new.
Under pillar 1 of AUKUS agreed in March 2023, Australia was set to buy at least three new and used Virginia-class submarines from the US Navy from 2030, to plug a gap between the retirement of Collins-class vessels and the new SSN-AUKUS models coming off production lines in the 2040s.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese played down the importance of the change, claiming that when Labor inherited AUKUS from the Morrison government, there was “very little real detail on what it entailed”.
Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy said there were no details about the Virginia submarine purchases when Labor was in opposition, with this needing to be worked out in government. He said the caucus vote was about whether Labor would support nuclear-propelled submarines being built in Australia.
Opposition defence spokesman Senator James Paterson seized on the Labor rift to question the government’s commitment to the nuclear-powered submarine agreement, pointing to the groundswell of “prominent former Labor figures” sharing Husic’s scepticism about the program’s progress.
“It’s former Labor prime ministers like Paul Keating, it’s key Labor unions, it’s Labor branches. It’s very clear that the Labor grassroots is questioning this government’s ability to deliver AUKUS, and even going as far as questioning whether or not we should proceed with AUKUS at all,” he said………………………………………
Defence experts have raised concerns the development could risk a capability gap as the second-hand craft have a shorter lifespan.
Under pillar 1 of the security pact, the Australian navy would not take delivery of its first domestically built SSN-AUKUS submarines until the early 2040s, after the acquisition of the Virginia-class craft.
“I think we do need to have a public conversation about contingency plans prudently made for any capability gaps that might arise,” said Paterson. “It could open up that could leave Australia exposed, and I think we need to look at supplementary capabilities that could help fill that gap.” https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/husic-breaks-ranks-to-demand-rethink-of-labor-s-support-for-aukus-20260602-p6036q
Richard Marles accepts used submarines in AUKUS setback
“There’s a reason people like to get new cars rather than old cars, and the same applies to multibillion-dollar submarines.”
“If that’s a win, I’d hate see what happens when we get fleeced by [US President Donald] Trump.”
Jessica Gardner and Paul Karp, AFR, May 31, 2026
Defence Minister Richard Marles has defended the purchase of three used Virginia-class submarines from the US, arguing it will improve the simplicity of Australia’s pathway to nuclear-powered subs and be significantly cheaper.
The change was laid out in a joint statement issued by Marles, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and UK Defence Secretary John Healey following a meeting at the US Embassy in Singapore on Saturday.
However, Michael Shoebridge, director of defence and security think tank Strategic Analysis Australia, says the revised deal does not advantage Australia.
“The reason they’re giving us old ones, is that the new ones are more powerful submarines. This isn’t good news for Australia. This is the US showing its ability to dictate priorities.”
Australia, Britain and the US also announced they would work together to develop unmanned undersea vehicles for service by 2027 under pillar 2 of the AUKUS pact, which aims to develop advanced defence technology.
Under pillar I of AUKUS agreed in March 2023, Australia was to buy at least three new and used Virginia-class submarines from the US Navy from 2030, to plug a gap between the retirement of Collins-class vessels and the new SSN-AUKUS models coming off production lines in the 2040s.
On Saturday, however, the ministers said they “welcomed the proposed approach to streamline Australia’s acquisition of Virginia-class submarines” with three in-service rather than a mix of new and in-service submarines.
On Sunday Marles told reporters in Singapore the Albanese government was “really pleased with this outcome”, arguing that three used submarines were better for Australia because “we need to place a premium on simplicity”…………………………………….
Australia has already pumped $US2 billion ($2.8 billion) of a planned $US3 billion into the US industrial base to help lift output. But the dependency on US production rates and the decision of an unknown future US president to proceed with the sales has always left an element of risk over the plan for Australian taxpayers, who will spend $368 billion on AUKUS in the coming decades.
Marles said that buying three used Virginia-class subs “will be more cost-effective … and [the difference] will be significant”.
However, Shoebridge rejected that explanation, saying that new Virginia-class subs are “designed to be easier to maintain”.
“The idea that used Virginias are somehow going to streamline maintenance is wrong,” he said.
“The whole idea is to have a jointly integrated fleet. We’ll have all the different models turning up in Stirling [navy base in Western Australia] and being maintained there.
“If the Virginia-class submarines are all in-service, they will be at least nine years old and they’re designed for a 33-year service life. There’s a reason people like to get new cars rather than old cars, and the same applies to multibillion-dollar submarines.”
……………………………….The Greens defence spokesman, David Shoebridge, said Labor could not spin that Marles had “come back with a handful of second-hand subs”. “If that’s a win, I’d hate see what happens when we get fleeced by [US President Donald] Trump.”
Marcus Strom, the national convenor of rank-and-file member group Labor Against War, said: “Richard Marles is selling the fact he’s been dudded – forced to take dodgy Pete Hegseth’s second-hand subs – as ‘significant savings’.”
………………………….. “Australia is stepping up,” Hegseth said in a speech to the forum. “Together, we are expanding the rotational presence of US forces and collaborating to ensure our defence industrial base build and sustain weapons required for a high-end fight. We appreciate Australia’s investment in real combat power and the commitment to integrate more deeply with the US joint force.”………………………………………… https://www.afr.com/world/asia/no-freeloading-hegseth-praises-australia-for-stepping-up-20260530-p602bp
Labor MP Ed Husic challenges Albanese to reconsider AUKUS submarine deal
Labor MP Ed Husic has challenged Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to reconsider the AUKUS deal.
Plans for Australia to receive a new Virginia-class submarine changed, sparking a new wave of concern about the agreement.
Senior Labor ministers remain supportive of the AUKUS deal.
This is how billionaires buy the news
Gina Rinehart emerged as the hidden money behind a near 10% stake in Southern Cross Media – owner of Seven Network, Triple M, and West Australian Newspapers. Kerry Stokes already holds 20%. There is no public interest test. There is no regulator with the power to ask why.
The reason this keeps happening is that most people never find out until it’s too late. Media ownership stories are complex, dry, and easy to bury – and the outlets covering them are often owned by the same people the stories are about.
This video [on original]cuts through that. Watch it, and if it makes you angry, share it – because the Prime Minister will only move on media reform when enough Australians are demanding it loudly enough that staying silent costs more than acting. We’re not there yet. Sharing this is how we get there.
Right now, a key watchdog meant to hold our media to account is funded by those same media owners. It has no real independence, no real teeth – and no power to do anything about billionaires like Rinehart quietly extending their reach into our newsrooms.
The reforms we are calling for would change that: a genuinely independent standards authority, fast complaints with real remedies, and action on concentration.
US to send only used nuclear subs to Australia in amended defence deal
Sunday, 31 May 2026 https://www.thestar.com.my/aseanplus/aseanplus-news/2026/05/31/us-to-send-only-used-nuclear-subs-to-australia-in-amended-defence-deal
SINGAPORE: Australia will receive only used nuclear-powered submarines from the United States as part of an agreement to “streamline” the AUKUS deal, with the move branded on Sunday (May 31) as a “cost-effective” measure by Defence Minister Richard Marles.
The two nations — together with the third partner in their security pact, Britain — met at Singapore’s Shangri-La Dialogue, which brings together top defence officials and experts from about 45 countries.
Under the 2021 AUKUS deal, Australia is expected to receive at least three so-called “Virginia-class” nuclear-powered submarines from the United States within 15 years.
Australia had been expecting to receive two used submarines and one new one, but the countries announced Saturday that all three will now be in-service vessels from the US Navy stock.
When asked why Canberra was now receiving only used equipment, Marles, who is also deputy prime minister, told reporters on Sunday it would be more cost-effective.
“In the context of a very complicated endeavour, we need to place a premium on simplicity,” said Marles, who added that the submarines will also be the same model.
“I cannot overstate the significance of that, both in terms of the submariners who are operating them, but also the people who are working on them to sustain those submarines,” Marles said.
“It is definitely cost-effective. And to be clear, this is a very expensive programme… and so we are trying to find every cost-effective option as we walk down this path.”
In a joint statement on Saturday, Marles, US Minister for Defence Pete Hegseth, and the UK Secretary for Defence John Healey confirmed the tweak to the submarine agreement.
“The deputy prime minister and secretaries welcomed the proposed approach to streamline Australia’s acquisition of Virginia-class submarines (VCS), simplifying supply chain management, operational and maintenance requirements, and maximising cost efficiencies,” the statement said.
“This approach would enable Australia to acquire three in-service VCS in lieu of a mixture of new and in-service VCS variants.”
The US Navy has 24 Virginia-class vessels but American shipyards are struggling to meet production targets set at two new boats each year.
In the United States, critics have questioned why Washington would sell nuclear-powered submarines to Australia without stocking its own military first.
The AUKUS submarine programme lies at the heart of Australia’s defence strategy and could cost up to US$235 billion over 30 years, according to government forecasts. – AFP
Sunday, 31 May 2026 |
6 June – WEBINAR -Get Inspired by Protests Against Military Bases!
WEBINAR – https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_QOJuFnibTF6eUmBt-tL8-A Jun 7, 2026 12:00 AM in Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney
As militarization pushes itself into almost every corner of our lives, as weapons become more powerful, as military bases across the world become nuclear armed, we know this is not about defense. This is about imperialism hand in hand with capitalism. It is about land grabs, resource extraction, pollution and climate change. It is about turning our communities into targets and deforming the future of our children.
Many brave women across the world have stood firm to defy this onslaught of aggression. We bring you the voices of meaningful protest from some of those standing in the front line of defiance.
Saturday – June 6, 2026 – appr. 2 hrs including Q&A
16.00 Central European time (CET) – 10.00am New York time – 23.00 Tokyo time – 24.00/midnight Australia time
Speakers
· South Korea – Sung-Hee Choi – Women Cross DMZ – “People’s protests against the naval base and militarization of Jeju”
· Philippines – Corazon Fabros – IPB – protests against US military bases.
· New Zealand – Liz Remmerswaal – active in WILPF, World BEYOND War – videoclip/protests against US military bases
· Australia – Margaret Prestorius – Wage Peace – videoclip/ protests against US military bases
· Italy – Patrizia Sterpetti – WILPF – Public Prosecutor complaint/illegal
· Japan – tba possession and transfer of nuclear bombs
· UK – Sophie Bolt – Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament/CND – protests at military bases
· Germany – Kristine Karch – Stopp Air Base Ramstein – Peace week camp and demonstration at the base, June 2026
· Spain – Juan José Ruiz – active for peace – Neither Yankees nor Spaniards, bases out!
· France – Marie Sigogneau – Sortir du nucléaire pays nantais – Nuclear Exit Nantes Region – Protests against nuclear facilities
· Ireland – Veterans for Peace, Irish Peace and Neutrality Alliance – Edward Horgan – weekly protests at Shannon airport in 2025 and 2026
· Netherlands – tba
Organised by
Global Women for Peace United Against NATO – GWUAN
Supported by
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND)
No to War – No to Nato network
Stop Airbase Ramstein
Mujeres de Negro/Women in Black Madrid
WIPLF Italy
Sortir du Nucleaire Pays Nantais, France
Women for Peace – Finland
IWA – International Women’s Alliance
World Beyond War
United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC)
Host and moderator
Hosted by: UNAC
Moderator: Annachiara Canetta, World BEYOND War
on behalf of Global Women United for Peace against NATO
One linktree for all our media https://linktr.ee/WomenAgainstNATO
Joe Hockey says he is nervous about AUKUS – and wants Albanese to cold-call Trump
Matthew Knott, May 26, 2026, https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/joe-hockey-says-he-is-nervous-about-aukus-and-wants-albanese-to-cold-call-trump-20260526-p600oa.html
Former ambassador to Washington Joe Hockey says he is worried about the possibility the United States will not supply nuclear-powered submarines to Australia as promised under the AUKUS pact because of faltering American production rates.
The former treasurer also urged Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to make a habit of cold-calling US President Donald Trump to improve their relationship and influence his thinking on world affairs.
Under the AUKUS plan, the US is supposed to sell three Virginia-class attack submarines to Australia, starting from 2032.
But senior US navy officials have warned that US shipyards must start pumping out significantly more submarines to have any spare for Australia, raising the possibility of the defence force being left with a capability gap.
Hockey, who served as Australia’s top diplomat in Washington from 2016 to 2020, told the National Press Club that “for the first time, I’m a little nervous about the Virginias, and that’s after a few conversations on the Hill”.
The US, he said, “just has not got the production of the Virginia up to speed”.
Hockey’s remarks are notable because he runs a Washington-based lobbying firm that represents major defence companies and he has been a passionate champion of AUKUS.
His remarks differ from Richard Marles, Defence Minister, who told this masthead last week that there was “zero possibility” of AUKUS coming unstuck.
Asked whether there was a growing danger the sale of Virginia-class submarines could be delayed or pared back, Hockey said: “I think the risk has increased, and we need again to have a full court press on the ground in Washington.”
He said that “we’ve got to prove that we’re ready for the Virginias here and display the physical capability to house them and to support their presence here, not to give the Americans any hook not to deliver”.
Hockey did not join calls for Australia to develop a “plan B” for AUKUS, saying it was not like Albanese could “go down to Bunnings” and buy a fleet of alternative submarines.
Hockey singled out US Deputy Secretary of War Steve Feinberg as a powerful official that Australia needed to court to ensure Trump’s vow that AUKUS is going “full steam ahead” is followed through.
“We’ve got to get political buy-in, more political buy-in, so that the people who are actually making the decisions on US procurement are keeping us at the top of the list,” he said.
Urging Australia to seek closer integration into US supply chains, Hockey said there was “no problem at a military-to-military or bureaucracy-to-bureaucracy level, it’s just a question of whether they can actually build the Virginias fast enough”.
Trump’s former acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, agreed with Hockey that it would be “really, really, really difficult” for the US to build enough submarines to provide any to Australia, despite strong bipartisan support for AUKUS in Washington.
“There’s going to be technical difficulties building that many submarines,” he said.
The US Navy’s chief of naval operations, Daryl Caudle, said last year: “The only way we’ll ever make good on the AUKUS agreement is that we get to the 2.3 [build rate], and it is my goal to make good on that.”
The US is currently producing around 1.2 boats a year, meaning production will need to increase significantly to hit the 2.3 build rate figure.
Hockey said US allies were “really missing” a figure like the former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, who developed a close relationship with Trump in his first term and spoke to him regularly on the phone.
Hockey lamented that among world leaders, “there’s no one that picks up the phone, they’re afraid almost to pick up the phone to the president [and] have a conversation.
“I mean, he answers phone calls from random journalists around the world, and it’s not hard to get his cell number, and he answers it,” he said.
“I’d encourage the prime minister to ring him occasionally. I mean, what have you got to lose? Australian prime ministers have been confidants of US presidents more than people realise, and I think the president of the United States is missing that back channel of advice.”
It has become something of a running joke among American journalists about how easy it is to obtain Trump’s phone number and call him for stories.
Albanese last year said he had Trump’s phone number after he remarked during an election debate that he’s “not sure that he has a mobile phone” and that texting a fellow world leader is “not the way it works”.
Nuclear-related news – not the corporate versions
Some bits of good news –The largest ever private sector school meals commitment will feed 366,000 children across East Africa.
British beavers stop underground station flooding – As floods get worse,Britain Tries a new solution: beavers.
The French City That Champions Its Trees
TOP STORIES.
An Open Letter to Chancellor Friedrich Merz – for peace in Ukraine – Jeffrey Sachs.
Arming for extinction: Barbarism With Better Software: Pope Leo Warns of the AI Future
The climate cost of militarism – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2ZUrzGohCI
The Trump administration’s reckless attack on radiation protection will have long-term consequences for public safety.
Climate Global heating is making hajj ever more dangerous, report finds. Global temperatures to reach near-record highs in next five years, report finds. Extreme Heat Headlines Obscure The Scale Of The Crisis.
AUSTRALIA.
- Nuclear powers are expanding their arsenals instead of disarming- Australia doesn’t have to be complicit in this.
- The Sound of Silence: Australia’s Complicity in the Face of Evidence.
- The Suicide Note: How Australia is Dismantling the Journalism it Needs to Survive.
- “Don’t mention the genocide”
NUCLEAR-RELATED ITEMS
| CLIMATE. Wildfire Crews Race to Keep Fierce California Blaze From Former Nuclear Reactor Site. ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2026/05/28/1-b1-wildfire-crews-race-to-keep-fierce-california-blaze-from-former-nuclear-reactor-site/ |
| CIVIL LIBERTIES. New breed of political prisoner arises in Britain as anti-protest sentences rise. |
| ECONOMICS. Nuclear Power and Other People’s Money. |
| ENERGY. Nuclear needs to build up to 8,000 SMRs just to catch up with wind and solar- By 2035, they might have 5. Energy Department takes steps toward allowing plutonium, historically used in weapons, in nuclear fuel. |
| ETHICS and RELIGION. The culture of power, and normalization of war in the time of artificial Intelligence -extract from Pope Leo’s Encyclical. How do you justify a war? |
| EVENTS. 1 June Webinar – The High Cost of Nuclear Power – Register 2 June Beyond Nuclear and Nuclear Information and Resource Service present an expert briefing on nuclear energy 6 June – WEBINAR -Get Inspired by Protests Against Military Bases! |
| HEALTH. Nuclear test veterans hope for justice as secret files are released -ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2026/05/28/1-b1-nuclear-test-veterans-hope-for-justice-as-secret-files-are-released/ |
| HISTORY. 128 years of US exploitation, degradation of Cuba continues on steroids. |
| HUMAN RIGHTS. Yet Another Escalation In The Empire’s War On Activism And Journalism. |
| INDIGENOUS ISSUES. Federal appeal court upholds First Nations victory to protect wildlife at planned nuclear waste site – ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2026/05/30/2-b1-federal-appeal-court-upholds-first-nations-victory-to-protect-wildlife-at-planned-nuclear-waste-site/ |
| LEGAL Anti-nuclear group take on Sellafield for the second time in legal row . Israel Ramps Up Demolitions of Palestinian Homes Ahead of Fall Elections. Legal Victory for Kebaowek First Nation and Allies vs. Proposed Radioactive Megadump. |
MEDIA.
- Warmongers Keep Generating AI Atrocity Propaganda About Iran.
- From Occupation to Erasure: How Legacy Media Failed Gaza.
- With .potential Iranian deal on the horizon, MAGA media’s drawing red lines
- Trump’s government-wide NDA (non disclosure agreement) seeks to silence whistleblowers.
| PERSONAL STORIES. Bully Trump pivots from strong Iran to weak Oman – Walt Zlotow |
| PLUTONIUM. U.S. Turns Cold War Plutonium Into Nuclear Fuel. Trump plan to give start-ups plutonium harvested from Cold War–era nuclear weapons is risky, experts say. |
POLITICS.
- Inside the broligarchy: Is big tech running US politics? Carole Cadwalladr talks to DW News.
- The False Promise of Nuclear Power: Why Scotland Doesn’t Need New Nuclear.
- The Israeli Knesset just voted to dissolve itself, but this won’t end the Gaza genocide
- It’s the genocide, stupid.
- Israel has a master plan to relocate thousands of Palestinian Bedouins to a giant ghetto .
POLITICS INTERNATIONAL and DIPLOMACY.
Can the Imperial Core Be Reformed? Chris Hedges and Aaron Maté on the Collapse of the Global Order.
Cuba Is Not a Failed State – It Is a Besieged State.
Time for US to deescalate confrontation with China over Taiwan.
Trump’s Retaliatory Withdrawal: America Punishes Europe for Refusing to Join Its War with Iran.
| TECHNOLOGY. A troubled nuclear future. |
| WASTES. Europe could source half its critical materials from waste by 2050, study finds. |
| WAR and CONFLICT. Even American war hawks now admit Iran is defeating the US – and it will change the world. Memorial Day: The Glorification of War, Not War’s Victims. |
| WEAPONS and WEAPONS SALES. Norway becomes ninth country to come under French nuclear deterrence scheme. Deadly drone dangers. Huge injection of public money to build nuclear submarines at Barrow-in-Furness. |
“Don’t mention the genocide”
27 May 2026 AIMN Editorial , https://theaimn.net/dont-mention-the-genocide/
Australia needs to shake off the oppressive chains of the Zionist Israeli lobby. Social cohesion and Australian’s faith in their parliament has been trashed in the mad scramble to appease the Zionist Israeli lobby. The perverse and cowardly leadership by Australia’s political class is blatant, disgusting, particularly unAustralian, an affront to common decency, and an attack on humanity itself. Being unequivocally against Zionist Israel’s genocide is what was needed. Instead, Australia got obfuscation and complicity that is tearing at the heart of Australians egalitarian moral compass. The rush to push through Parliament the new antisemitism laws – with minimal scrutiny and major rule of law flaws like vague definitions, retrospective reach and expanded executive powers – risks undermining our rights, due process, and democratic accountability. These laws are proving that bad laws are the worst form of tyranny.
Noting that in 2025 the Federal Court made the line explicit: Criticism of Israel or Zionism is not antisemitism. One targets a state and an ideology. The other targets a people. Conflating them is legally wrong and constitutionally dangerous, and as such our politicians have let us down.
The independence of the Australian democratic system must now be in question. Australia and the West will pay a high price for Zionist Israel’s war on liberty (not USS Liberty), justice, and humanity itself.
Zionist interference and manipulation of Australian politicians and media is out of control. When the Zionist Israeli lobby is more powerful than the Australian peoples’ democratic rights then something has gone radically wrong. The proof of this overbearing influence is laid out in the examples of Labor leader Anthony Albanese not allowing debate on the genocide in Gaza at the Labor national conference, the removal of Fatima Payman from Labor by Albanese for standing up for Palestinians and Labor values, the cancelling of Pulitzer prize winning journalist Chris Hedges from the National Press Club, the cancelling of the visa for internationally recognised podcaster Candice Owens by Tony Burke, the unlawful sacking of Antoinette Lattouf from the ABC and the fiasco of the forever tarnished Adelaide Writers Festival exacerbated by the Labor premier’s interference. These are just a few examples of our politicians (and media) acting as lapdogs to the Zionist Israeli lobby. Australia, it would seem, is becoming part of Greater Israel.
How has it come to this, that antisemitism is now a far more heinously egregious affront to common human decency than the blatantly obvious orchestrated and systemic genocidal apartheid of a disempowered nation and the mass slaughter of that nations most innocent: the children? Australian politicians should note that the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing (as the saying goes).
The antisemitism envoy’s demands/report was criticised, pilloried and lampooned before the events in Bondi. Now they are flagged to be law and Australian’s freedoms and values are negated while a specious royal commission that will not attempt to address the “cause and effect” elephant in the room, a genocidal humanitarian disaster perpetrated by an apartheid regime, will go ahead to appease those with objectionable motives, unscrupulous morals and hidden agendas. Who really have been the victims of the Bondi shootings when the truth is now hate speech and is criminalised by our government?
Why are those protesting for peace blamed by the NSW premier for the events in Bondi? Australians are better than those who seek to divide and control us, like Chris Minns.
Hate speech is being used by our politicians when the NSW premier says that mosques are “factories of hate” and the PM says that Palestinian children are “taught to hate” but not a word mentioned about the hate being perpetrated upon the Palestinian people.
It is evident that Australia – like the US – has been infiltrated by traitorous unChristian paid Zionist Israeli goose stepping foot soldiers masquerading as patriotic Australian politicians who trash international laws and conventions while enabling war criminals.
Brave young Australians made the ultimate sacrifice to protect our collective freedoms and values. Now a foreign regime has the ability to deny and nullity those freedoms and values. Why?
Ask yourself why this specific group were targeted?
Why was the ex-IDF security so ineffective?
Like the October 7 attack on Zionist Israel, and like the 1994 false flag bombing of the Israeli Embassy in London by Mossad, there are a lot of questions about the events that occurred at Bondi that need to be answered.
In actuality it has been a pyrrhic victory for Zionist lobbyists, although with that in mind surely now the question must be have Australians democratic rights become the sixteenth victim of the Bondi shootings?
The Suicide Note: How Australia is Dismantling the Journalism it Needs to Survive
The first and only person imprisoned in connection with alleged Australian war crimes in Afghanistan is not a soldier accused of an unlawful killing. It is the lawyer who helped expose them.
The first and only person imprisoned in connection with alleged Australian war crimes in Afghanistan is not a soldier accused of an unlawful killing. It is the lawyer who helped expose them.
27 May 2026 David Tyler AIM Extra
“I am an invisible man.” Ralph Ellison begins his masterpiece with a declaration that has never lost its charge or its dark, grievous wit. Not a ghost. Not a metaphor. A man of flesh and bone, fully present yet completely eclipsed: unseen because society had organised itself, through custom and law and the quiet violence of institutional habit and the tyranny of low expectations, to refuse him the dignity of being perceived.
The invisibility was not in him. It was in them.
I want to honour that frame by applying it here, to Australia Felix, a paradise on earth, if you are white. Or the place where they came to take the children away: the Stolen Generations, children who never saw their parents again. This is not to appropriate Ellison’s own naming of the horror, but to acknowledge that he understood invisibility with the authority of a man who lived, suffered and chronicled it.
What Ellison understood applies with uncomfortable precision to the condition of independent journalism in Australia in 2026: you can be fully visible, pilloried, prosecuted, extensively spied on, your home raided, your underwear drawer wrenched open on national TV (an emblem of violation if ever there was one), your files seized, your phone data extracted, your legal bills compounding at a rate that will ruin you, your name in every paper.
Yes. All of this, and you will still be invisible. Seen by everyone. Acknowledged by none. Your democratic function rendered officially non-existent by the same state that has the hide to appear at international conferences and deliver speeches about the importance of a free press.
That is the particular genius of what Australia has built. Not suppression in the crude sense that leaves marks anyone can photograph. Something more refined: suppression by process, suppression by cost, suppression by the slow, grinding, spirit-breaking machinery of a legal system deployed not to establish guilt but to establish a price.
The price of telling the truth in Australia is now higher than it has ever been. Set deliberately high. Set to deter. Pour encourager les autres, as the colonialists up the road in New Caledonia would say, as they hanged indigenous men and women in public to terrify their relatives into submission.
The Oldest Penal Colony in the Southern Hemisphere
There is an additional irony if you care to look at a history book, and in Australia, increasingly, that takes courage.
Australia began as a penal colony. Not metaphorically. As a matter of founding fact. The British Empire, having misplaced one set of colonies and needing somewhere to dispose of the people it wished to be rid of, selected a continent already occupied by several hundred thousand people it did not intend to consult, and began shipping its unwanted there. Convicts, radicals, the insubordinate, the poor who had become inconvenient: all transported to the edge of the known world, from which return was impossible and silence was enforced.
Two hundred and thirty-eight years later, we imprison military lawyers for informing the public about alleged war crimes. We prosecute tax office whistleblowers for exposing illegal debt recovery practices. In an extension that Kafka would relish, we are pursuing through the courts the lawyers of those we have already pursued. Not the accused. The lawyers.
The penal colony never really ended. It merely changed its dress code.
Franz Kafka wrote a story about a penal colony. In it, there is a machine called the Harrow. The Harrow’s function is to inscribe the law on the body of the condemned: with needles, over many hours, in a script of increasing intricacy and pain. The condemned does not know, before the process begins, what law they have broken. They are not told. They are not shown. The law is written on their body as the punishment is administered, and this, the officer in charge explains to a puzzled visiting Explorer, is itself the point:
“Enlightenment comes to the most dull-witted. It begins around the eyes. From there it radiates.”
David McBride now knows what the Harrow writes. So does Richard Boyle. So does Bernard Collaery. So did Julian Assange, for years, in Belmarsh Prison, while the government that issued his passport looked at its shoes and said, quietly, that the matter was receiving attention at the appropriate levels.
The Australian Harrow does not use needles. It uses bail conditions, suppression orders, national security legislation, counter-terrorism statutes and the slow drip of pre-trial process that can run for years before a single day in open court. Those condemned do not bleed visibly. They become, over time, financially destroyed, publicly invisible, professionally erased. And the lesson to everyone watching is legible without being stated. The machine speaks for itself. That, as Kafka’s officer understood, is precisely the elegance of it.
The Honour Roll of Those the Machine Has Processed
Here is what the Harrow has been writing.
David McBride was a military lawyer. Decorated. Distinguished. Decent. McBride did two tours of Afghanistan, where he witnessed alleged war crimes being buried while lesser misconduct was prosecuted for the sake of appearance. He raised his concerns with his commanding officer. He was ignored. He went to oversight bodies. The oversight bodies did what Australian oversight bodies reliably do: they provided the appearance of accountability while protecting the system that appoints and funds them. As a last resort, having exhausted every other avenue of appeal, he gave documents to the ABC.
Those documents became the Afghan Files. They forced a reckoning with conduct the chain of command had classified into permanent darkness. The journalism was unimpeachable. The public interest was unambiguous. The democratic function of the free press, the function Australia claims to revere in every ministerial doorstop, every press freedom statement, every appearance at every international forum, was served.
For this, McBride was sentenced to six years in prison in 2024. The public interest defence was rejected by the trial judge. The conviction was upheld on appeal. The first and only person imprisoned in connection with alleged Australian war crimes in Afghanistan is not a soldier accused of an unlawful killing. It is the lawyer who helped expose them.
The law the Harrow inscribed on McBride’s body was not you permitted atrocities. It was you told people about them.
Witness K revealed that Australia’s intelligence services secretly bugged the cabinet rooms of Timor Leste during oil and gas negotiations, conducted shortly after that newly independent nation had barely drawn its first post-colonial breath. He received a suspended sentence.
His lawyer, Bernard Collaery, decorated Canberra barrister, former ACT Attorney-General, a man whose standing in his profession is impeccable, was prosecuted separately. Not for spying. Not for theft. Not for violence. For the act of defending his client. The prosecution ground on for years before the Albanese government finally dropped it, by which time it had accomplished its real work: financial ruin, reputational attrition, and a message delivered, in a language every lawyer in the country could read, to anyone considering the defence of the next person who knew too much.
The Harrow does not require a conviction to work. The process is the punishment. Kafka understood this. So does the Department of the Attorney-General.
Richard Boyle exposed predatory and illegal debt-recovery practices inside the Australian Tax Office. Independent inquiries later confirmed what he had said. He raised concerns internally and was ignored. He went to oversight bodies and was spurned. He went to journalists as a final resort. He is now facing charges that could see him locked up for decades. The Tax Office whose illegal conduct he exposed faces no charges at all.
The Harrow writes asymmetrically. It always has.
In 2019, AFP officers raided the home of News Corp journalist Annika Smethurst, seizing data from her phone and laptop. The High Court later unanimously ruled the warrant invalid and the search unlawful. The following day, those same officers raided the Sydney offices of the ABC, fossicking through thousands of files, article drafts, graphics, digital notes and raw footage in an operation the ABC’s news director said should send a chill down every citizen’s spine.
It did not send enough of a chill.
The government of the day faced no political consequence. There was an inquiry. An inquiry is what Canberra holds instead of a reckoning.
An Australian citizen, Julian Assange watched WikiLeaks publish classified documents about American military conduct in Iraq and Afghanistan: documents that revealed, among other things, the killing of civilians and Reuters journalists in a helicopter gunship attack that the military had classified as something else entirely. For publishing classified information in the public interest, which is what investigative journalism must remain or the word democracy becomes a lie, Assange spent years in Belmarsh Prison in conditions the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture described as meeting the threshold of psychological torture.
Australian governments said, for the better part of a decade, as near to nothing as a government can approach while still technically occupying the treasury benches. They were, at all times, raising the matter privately. Through appropriate channels. The appropriate channels led nowhere, but they were, at all times, appropriate.
DAWE: Now, Julian Assange is an Australian citizen who has spent years in a British maximum-security prison. What has the government done?
CLARKE: We have been raising this matter at the highest levels.
DAWE: Which levels, specifically?
CLARKE: The highest ones. I can’t stress that enough……………………………………………………………………………………..
When Assange was finally freed, it was through a plea deal requiring him to admit guilt for doing what journalists have done since Gutenberg handed them a press and the powerful discovered, to their permanent and only-partially-concealed fury, what it was actually for.
He spent years in a high-security British prison for publishing things that were true. The governments that claimed to represent him continued attending functions……………………………………………………………………..
The Australian whistleblower follows the rules. Raises matters internally. Proceeds to oversight when internal processes fail. Approaches journalists as a last resort, as the system’s own guidelines suggest. Does everything right. And then discovers that doing everything right was itself the trap: the record of compliance now establishes that the process was followed, the process failed, and the failure is therefore not the system’s. It is the individual’s, for having the temerity to continue.
The machine was never designed to protect him. It was designed to process him.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..The independent Australian journalists and whistleblowers who have survived the Harrow (those who have not been imprisoned, bankrupted or ground into silence) are something like this. Underground. Throwing stolen light. Invisible to the official apparatus that would prefer them to stay that way, and visible to the readers who need them, who know where the basement is, who keep showing up..
……………………………………………………….Dissent is the lifeblood of democracy. Not comfortable dissent, not licensed dissent, not dissent that has been reviewed by a QC and cleared by the risk-management committee: actual dissent, the kind that names names, follows money, holds power to account even when power would very much prefer to be left alone, even when the preference of power is backed by counter-terrorism legislation, defamation solicitors, intelligence agencies and the quiet withdrawal of every oxygen molecule that kept the truth teller breathing. A democracy that loses the institutional and economic capacity for that kind of dissent is not a democracy that has matured. It is a democracy in the early stages of something that has a name, and the name is not maturity.
The question, the only question that now matters, is whether enough people read the note before it becomes an epitaph. Whether enough people are furious enough, and organised enough, and willing enough to be visible: genuinely, inconveniently, undeniably visible. To tear it up. https://theaimn.net/the-suicide-note-how-australia-is-dismantling-the-journalism-it-needs-to-survive/
1 This month.
Australians deserve the truth
about
AUKUS – https://aukuspublicinquiry.com/
30 July – WEBINAR (Free) – Is Nuclear Power the Solution to Climate Change? https://my.acaw.org.au/event/acaw-is-nuclear-power-the-solution-to-climate-change
18:30 – 19:45 ACST
19:00 – 20:15 AEST
PETITION – To: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Australian Labor Government
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
Antinuclear 