“No economic case:” Global experts say nuclear has role in some countries, but makes no sense in Australia
Giles Parkinson, Oct 12, 2026, https://reneweconomy.com.au/no-economic-case-global-experts-say-nuclear-has-role-in-some-countries-but-makes-no-sense-in-australia/
As Australia’s ultra conservative political parties embark on a headlong race towards nuclear and away from renewables, a major new report by global experts says nuclear has a role in some countries, but makes no sense and will only cause delays and increased costs in Australia.
The new report from the Energy Transitions Commission, a think-tank comprising dozens of energy experts around the world, including those in the nuclear industry, says nuclear capacity could double over the next three decades or so, but it will stay play a relatively minor role in the overall transition away from fossil fuels.
And, they point out in the report – “The Role of Nuclear in the Energy Transition: Complementary but Limited” – it will only make sense in a few countries – a situation the report suggests will not be greatly changed by the hype and interest generated by AI and the push for massive energy-hungry data centres around the world.
For countries like Australia, rich in lower cost renewable resources like wind and solar, the report says nuclear makes no economic sense at all, and trying to build a system around them will simply lead to delays and increased costs.
“In these countries, which include most of Africa, and much of Latin America and Australia, renewables (particularly solar) and batteries will provide the fastest and cheapest option for scaling electricity supply at suitable increments to align with financing availability and system needs,” the report says.
“In these markets, investing in nuclear concentrates scarce capital in a small number of centralised projects, committed roughly a decade before operations, during which the power system could change substantially.
“Developing nuclear would deliver no total system cost benefit, and would require a reliance on foreign nuclear supply chains, which would reduce energy security. Pursuing nuclear programmes in these countries would divert resources from cheaper alternatives, and nuclear shares should remain close to 0%.”
These conclusions, of course, are well understood by the energy industry in Australia, from the Australian Energy Market Operator, the CSIRO, policy makers and regulators, the network operators, the renewables industry and the major utilities who currently burn coal and gas for a living.
But the global fossil fuel and climate denial industry still has its tentacles around the conservative parties in Australia – particularly One Nation and its less popular sidekicks in the Liberals and Nationals – all of whom are determined to slow or even stop the renewable transition in Australia, legalise nuclear and have the government invest countless billions into the tech.
The Energy Transitions Commission highlights the folly of such an approach, and the report would make sobering reading for those politicians, assuming they would be bothered to read it.
Like the World Nuclear Status report released more than a week ago, it punctures a major hole in the nuclear hype, including the assumption that small modular reactors (SMR) will somehow change the game.
- “Small modular reactors remain 1-2 decades away from wide deployment, despite attracting large investment and political attention amid surging AI-driven power demand,” the report notes.
“Early US cost estimates range from ~$US140–$US270 per MWh, well above the large reactor cost range of $US40–$US190 per MWh. Similar reactor designs can cost 4–9 times more to build in the US and Europe than in China and South Korea – financing costs are key factor.”
The report also notes that depending on nuclear power would intensify supply chain risks, rather than easing them. Russia, it notes, controls 40% of global uranium enrichment capacity in 2025, and key nuclear equipment manufacturing is concentrated in just six countries.
“Nuclear supply chain concentration poses the greatest risk, rather than safety and waste management,” the report says.
The report looks at the recent commitment to treble nuclear capacity across the globe by 2050 to around 1,500 gigawatts of capacity. This it says, would require around 500 GW of nuclear extensions (although that itself might be too optimistic), and it struggles to see how 1,000 GW of new capacity could be built.
It says that would require a six-fold increase in contraction compared to recent years. And even if it was delivered, it wouldn’t reduce the need for new wind and solar, which would still have to be built at a rate of 1,500 GW each year, rather than over the next 25 years.
“While this contribution to the energy transition is useful in targeted countries, even this scale of nuclear buildout would be dwarfed by the required scale of investment in renewables to transition to low-carbon energy systems,” the report says.
“An investment of $200 billion per year in new nuclear build is likely to be less than 10% of the $2,200 billion per year needed in renewables, grids and storage.”
The report is at pains to note that nuclear technology may make sense in some countries, those with limited renewable resources and also those with billions already invested in the nuclear industry, including those with nuclear weapons.
More importantly, nuclear’s system value is highest where land is scarce and solar and windresources are weakest
AUKUS Inquiry exposes the great submarine deception
My own submission, ‘AUKUS is a boondoggle’, grappled with the problem of the afterlife of defence ministers. “Boondoggle” is an American word used to describe a government program that is expensive and wasteful yet continues to be funded because it is paid from the public purse, which fits AUKUS perfectly.
By John Jiggens | 5 October 2026, https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/aukus-inquiry-exposes-the-great-submarine-deception,21620
AUKUS critics warn the $500 billion submarine deal is sacrificing Australian sovereignty and social priorities to deeper integration with the U.S. war machine, writes Dr John Jiggens.
This article is the second part of a two-part story. Read part one HERE.
Members of the Queensland “peace not war” community, including myself, attended the Brisbane session of the AUKUS Public Inquiry on 25 August. Many academics, unionists and activists from other peace groups attended, too.
At the Brisbane session, only two of the five Commissioners were physically present: Peter Garrett and retired Admiral Chris Barrie, a former head of the Australian Defence Force. Two other Commissioners beamed in via the internet: Dr Carmen Lawrence, the first woman to become Premier of an Australian state and Karina Lester, a Yankunytjatjara woman whose people’s country had been poisoned by the UK Government in nuclear tests in the 1950s.
As lead Commissioner, Peter Garrett judicially ran the Public Inquiry, introducing the evidence-givers and reading the questions of the online Commissioners. His rockstar charisma enveloped him in a kind of awe, while his career as a powerful voice for change gave him enormous presence and credibility.
Sharing the bench with him was Chris Barrie. They seemed an odd couple: the peacenik and the former chief of Defence, but AUKUS had united them.
The Queenslanders who presented to the Public Inquiry at the Brisbane hearing included Marianne Hanson, an academic representing the International Campaign against Nuclear Weapons (ICAN); Margaret Pestorius from Wage Peace; Adrian Skerritt, a unionist, ALP member and housing activist; and Professor Warwick Powell from QUT, among others.
Pestorius argued that AUKUS wasn’t a Defence program: it was an economic program that aimed to enmesh Australia in the U.S. military-industrial complex to enable the flow of money to corporate warmongers who had an appalling record of destruction, genocide and ecocide.
Pestorius said former Defence Minister Christopher Pyne, now a military exports consultant and arms dealer, reshaped Australia’s involvement in the weapons industry. This pathway was prefigured by other defence ministers who joined the board of major weapon manufacturers, such as Kim Beazley, who joined Lockheed Martin, and Brendan Nelson, who became CEO of Boeing Australia.
At the end of Margaret Pestorius’s evidence, Admiral Barrie asked her about several Australians employed by U.S. think tanks to profit from AUKUS:
I wonder if you know about American Global Strategies.
It’s an organisation based in Washington, DC, and I wondered if you knew that Scott Morrison is the vice president of American Global Strategies, and he’s assisted by a former ambassador and Liberal Senator, Arthur Sinodinos, and a former head of the Office of National Intelligence, Nick Warner.
The Brisbane session
My own submission, ‘AUKUS is a boondoggle’, grappled with the problem of the afterlife of defence ministers. “Boondoggle” is an American word used to describe a government program that is expensive and wasteful yet continues to be funded because it is paid from the public purse, which fits AUKUS perfectly.
The Americans have another word, which explains why boondoggles go ahead, even though they are such incredibly expensive and wasteful uses of public money. That word is “grifter”.
In politics, the word “grifter” refers to people who use the political process to enrich themselves from the public purse and profit from the extraordinary waste of public money created by boondoggles, such as AUKUS.
Prime Minister turned grifter
When Morrison became Prime Minister in 2018, the Future Submarine Project was running well behind time, and American voices were whispering about ditching the French deal and accepting the worst deal ever.
In his 2022 book, Morrison’s Mission, journalist Paul Kelly reveals that Mike Pompeo, the U.S. Secretary of State, was the U.S. voice who collaborated with Morrison in planning AUKUS. Evangelical Christians, the two men spoke every week about Jesus while plotting AUKUS. As they drew closer, Morrison, a geostrategic lightweight, became Pompeo’s pupil, who was co-opted by Pompeo into the U.S. strategic architecture.
In his role as Chair of the Strategic Advisory Board at the Hudson Institute, Mike Pompeo invited Morrison to join the Strategic Advisory Board at the Hudson Institute in November 2022.
The major originator of the AUKUS strategy was Mike Pompeo, who hijacked Australia’s Future Submarine Project and rebuilt it as AUKUS. His strategy was to lock Australia into a global war allied with the U.S. and UK against China, not an Australian-based strategy to deter invasion.
Adrian Pisarski, a veteran housing advocate and former CEO of National Shelter, championed purchasing the cheaper conventional submarines instead of AUKUS nuclear submarines, and using the hundreds of billions saved for addressing Australia’s major housing crisis and other social policies.
Pisarski said:
We could do free dental and Medicare for that sort of money quite easily.
We could have cheaper university education. Commonwealth rent assistance is something else that we could also lift very easily and start to assist people.
I caught the train down from the Sunshine Coast this morning and on the way, I observed no fewer than six homeless camps along parklands etc. We’ve just had a council to the north of Brisbane set up a permanent camp for homeless people. We haven’t seen these conditions in Australia since the 1940s. We are in a genuine housing crisis.
The sort of money that we are talking about for AUKUS would solve our housing crisis.
Admiral Chris Barrie followed this up. He had spoken to colleagues who suggested that for $78 billion Australia could get 12 conventional submarines, not the eight nuclear submarines for circa $500 billion from AUKUS.
Carmen Lawrence asked Mr Skerritt:
“As a fellow ALP member, why do you think the Labor Government has embraced AUKUS rather than prioritising social needs that you have identified?”
Mr Skerritt replied:
I don’t know. I find it particularly unfathomable that when there was a change of government, and this being signed up to by a previous government, that there was no proper inquiry or government-led initiative to question whether this was in Australia’s best interests in the long term.
In my view, it’s not in our best interest and I would have really appreciated the Australian Government performing a proper inquiry that looked at those questions.
Another witness was Professor Warwick Powell, who argued that Australian foreign policy has long been trapped between two deep psychological anxieties: a fear of our own Asian geography and a persistent fear of being abandoned by a distant transatlantic protector.
For over a century, these twin fears have led us to seek security from Asia, rather than security in Asia.
Powell said:
AUKUS tells us that Australia is small, vulnerable, frightened and incapable of surviving in its own region without huddling beneath an overseas nuclear umbrella…
We do not need to choose between being a vassal state or shutting ourselves off from the world and building a fortress. We need the courage to be a sovereign middle power.
The Morrison-Pompeo AUKUS deal changed the Future Submarine Project from providing for the defence of Australia to providing a base for U.S. and UK nuclear submarines in Australia for forward attack operations by the U.S. military against China.
The claim that AUKUS is about the defence of Australia is a lie disguised by Orwellian misuse of language. The Government’s pretence is that U.S. and UK nuclear submarines won’t be based in Australia. Instead, they say that the U.S. and UK nuclear submarines will be “rotated” through Australia.
To assist this “rotation”, the Australian Government is building accommodation for 2,000 US. military personnel at the Stirling Naval Base in Western Australia. This base is only 20 kilometres south of Fremantle and it will be a nuclear target if the coming war with China eventuates.
The extraordinary cost of the project, its clear strategic misdirection from a defence of Australia policy to participating as a vassal in a U.S. war on our main trading partner, China, and the high probability we will never see these submarines were just a few of the many faults of this far-fetched and highly implausible deal discussed at the Brisbane Hearing of the Public Inquiry into AUKUS.
Hegseth calls US-built nuclear submarines the ‘apex predator’ of the seas. But are they right for Australia?
Ben Doherty.4 Oct 26, https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/oct/04/hegseth-apex-predator-nuclear-submarines-right-for-australia-aukus-ntwnfb
Some experts argue Virginia-class submarines government is buying second hand are good for fighting American wars, but not for defending Australia
On stage for his “arsenal of freedom tour”, the US secretary of defense – who prefers the appellation “secretary of war” – was ebullient.
“This Virginia-class submarine is a paragon of American engineering and fighting spirit,” Pete Hegseth roared, standing at Newport News shipyards where those boats are being built.
“It is the apex predator of the undersea domain, the most advanced and lethal submarine ever built.”
There are few who would argue with the Virginia’s lethality. Australia is set to buy three of these boats, secondhand, from the US navy, beginning in 2032.
But is it the right submarine for Australia?
Hegesth’s words, for all of their rhetorical bellicosity, were revealing: “American … fighting spirit”; “apex predator”; “ensuring America is free and safe and powerful”.
Virginia-class submarines – nuclear-powered and conventionally armed – are very good at travelling undetected fast and staying underwater for a very long time (limited, essentially, only by the capacity of the crew to stay submerged).
They are an attack submarine, an outstanding offensive platform for hunting and destroying a far-distant adversary, able to traverse thousands of miles of deep ocean undetected.
But Australia’s National Defence Strategy, released this year, says the nation’s “strategy of denial” – which aims to deter conflict before it begins – was “focused on safeguarding Australia’s interests in our primary area of military interest”. This includes the immediate region encompassing the north-east Indian Ocean through maritime south-east Asia into the Pacific as well as Australia, its populated offshore territories and its northern approaches.
A growing chorus of naval experts is arguing that the Virginia-class submarines are the wrong boats for this country.
The waters to the north of the Australian continent – from where any potential threat is overwhelmingly likely to approach – are shallow, best suited to a submarine far smaller than Virginia’s nearly 8,000 tonnes of displacement, some say.
A smaller, more nimble submarine, quieter when operating under battery, is a better platform for that role, they say. In addition, smaller submarines are cheaper and easier to crew: Australia could afford more of them, increasing the potency of its force.
The argument runs thus: the Virginias, and the even larger Aukus-class submarines set to follow, are nuclear-powered submarines perfectly suited to fighting a distant war on behalf of the US. But they are the wrong boats to defend Australia.
Defence or ‘projecting power’?
Dr Andrew Gaczol spent a decade as an international political analyst and policy officer at the Australian Department of Defence. He told an independent inquiry into Aukus coordinated by the Australian Peace and Security Forum that the Australian public had been provided only two arguments in support of the Aukus deal, “and neither stand up to serious scrutiny”.
The primary argument put forward is that of defence of Australia.
Gaczol told the inquiry it was unnecessary to have submarines with unlimited range to defend the nation’s waters or conduct defensive operations in the region.
“The latest state-of-the-art Air Independent Propulsion (AIP) conventional diesel-electric submarines are more suitable as they are smaller, quieter when submerged and better suited to the relatively shallow waters of the Australian continental shelf and the waters to Australia’s north,” he said.
The second argument propounded for Aukus is the need for Australia – as a nation reliant on trade – to maintain open sea lanes around it.
Given the small number of attack submarines the Aukus deal will ultimately provide, critics argue they will not be able to protect Australia’s seaborne approaches.
Navies around the world operate on “the rule of threes”, which states that for every three of a complex platform you possess, only one can be relied upon to be operational at any given time. Essentially, of three submarines, one is on active deployment, one is training or conducting exercises, and one is in maintenance, dry dock or recovering from operations.
Australia plans to buy three Virginia-class submarines from the US, to be supplemented – when they are designed and built – by up to five submarines of the Aukus class. By the end of the 2040s, eight submarines would give Australia, at any time, a fleet of two, perhaps three submarines on active deployment.
“I can’t see how such a small number of vessels will be able to keep open all of Australia’s trade routes all of the time,” Gaczol told the inquiry.
“As a counterpoint, I note that the US navy has over 60 nuclear submarines and are currently unable to force open the strait of Hormuz.”
Gaczol says he supports Australia having submarines, but that the Virginia and Aukus-class boats were not ideal for Australia’s defence. The benefit of Australia’s geography – a vast landmass protected by thousands of kilometres of ocean – mean “the chances of Australia being actually sort of invaded are virtually nil”.
The oceans to Australia’s north are also relatively shallow – under 200 metres deep across parts of the Indonesian archipelago and South China Sea – meaning large nuclear submarines “are more easily detected” than smaller and quieter conventional boats.
As deep-water boats that can travel anywhere around the globe at high speed, nuclear submarines are unnecessary for defending Australia, Gaczol says, and are instead about “projecting power into another part of the world”.
“To put it colloquially, that’s not protecting our patch. That’s going into someone else’s patch and poking them in the eye,” he says.
Gaczol believes the acquisition of Virginia-class submarines suits US imperatives, not Australia’s.
“The only scenario I can really see these boats being applicable for is to chase Chinese submarines in the South China Sea should it come to a conflict there. Effectively, our force will be an adjunct of the US Navy.”
‘Best deal on offer’
Former South Australian senator Rex Patrick, an ex-submariner and resolute Aukus critic, is familiar with the aphorism “quantity is a quality of its own”.
He says while there was undoubted advantage to buying large attack submarines – greater payloads, more torpedoes, more capability to transport special forces soldiers – “there’s always a trade-off”.
“If the cost of buying one large nuclear submarine is that you could buy four other submarines for the same price, that’s a trade-off you have to consider.”
Aukus is forecast to cost up to $368bn by the 2050s – $33m a day for 30 years on a conservative estimate. Few, if any, major defence projects of this complexity run on time, or on budget.
And Aukus is dependent not only on Australia’s efforts to build a nuclear-powered submarine fleet from scratch: it is reliant on the US – beset by tenaciously laggard boat-building – to construct enough Virginia-class boats to spare three for Australia; and it needs the UK’s sole submarine-building yard to design and build the first of the new Aukus-class boats on which Australia’s domestically built boat will be constructed.
For far less than the slated cost of the Aukus deal, Australia could buy 20 conventionally powered air independent propulsion submarines, Patrick says.
“If you had 20 submarines, you’d have seven boats in the water, in seven different locations, and seven times the magnitude of problem for the other commander,” he says.
Patrick notes Canada, with the longest coastline in the world and facing many of the same geopolitical challenges as Australia, recently announced it would buy 12 air independent propulsion submarines from German shipbuilder TKMS for a reported $33bn.
The Australian government, though, insists Aukus is “the best deal on offer”.
In June, the defence minister, Richard Marles, told the Shangri-La dialogue Australia had made the deliberate choice to increase the weight of its naval spending: more than 40% of Australia’s defence budget is now directed towards the country’s maritime domain.
“For a three-ocean nation, this is a strategic necessity,” Marles said. “Ninety-eight percent of Australia’s traded goods passes through Australian ports. Ninety percent of our fuel is imported. Our economic sovereignty, in the most basic sense, is a maritime proposition.”
And Marles argued an increasingly militarised region demanded a collective response.
“The free and open passage of goods, energy and data across the seas is not just Australia’s economic lifeblood – it is the economic lifeblood of this entire region.”
In a Lowy essay, former special envoy for defence Luke Gosling wrote that nuclear submarines will give the Australian defence force “a regionally superior capability that will help it to deter war and, if it must fight a war, to win”.
“Threatening to aggressors, lethal if provoked, but not overtly provocative, nuclear submarines are the ‘goldilocks’ long-distance capability.”
Amid a rising drumbeat of concern over Aukus, Labor senator Raff Ciccone rose in the Senate in June to argue Australia’s strategic environment had changed dramatically and the country “must respond to the world as it is”.
“Nuclear-powered submarines are the only platforms that can provide Australia with the ability to deter threats to our maritime supply chains, on which our way of life depend,” he said.
“They alone have the speed, the endurance and the stealth necessary to effectively provide this deterrence. They are the bolt cutters that will ensure that we are never wrapped in chains.”
Submission to AUKUS Inquiry -AUKUS deal is a catastrophic misjudgment – Leo Kerr
No Exit Clause Without Penalty: Australia has committed to this path with limited
ability to withdraw without incurring substantial sunk costs and diplomatic damage.
The deal’s structure locks Australia into decades of expenditure regardless of changing strategic circumstances.
The AUKUS deal will transform Australia into a permanent repository for high-level
nuclear waste—a burden the nation is entirely unprepared to manage.
Accepting Foreign Waste: Most alarmingly, the deal permits the US and UK to
dispose of low- and intermediate-level nuclear waste from their own submarines in
Leo Kerr n.103
Subject: Opposition to AUKUS Pillar I (Nuclear Submarines) on Grounds of Cost,
Sovereignty, Nuclear Waste, and Strategic Miscalculation
- Executive Summary
The AUKUS agreement, particularly Pillar I concerning nuclear-powered submarines,
is fundamentally not in Australia’s national interest. While framed as a necessary
response to strategic challenges, the deal imposes crippling financial costs, creates
an unresolved nuclear waste legacy, severely compromises national sovereignty,
rests on unrealistic delivery timelines, and damages Australia’s regional relationships.
This submission argues that AUKUS represents a profound misalignment of strategic
priorities that will leave Australia less secure, financially weaker, and more dependent
on foreign powers for generations.
2. Prohibitive and Unsustainable Financial Cost
The AUKUS submarine program is the most expensive defence project in Australian
history, with estimated total costs of $368 billion over several decades. This figure
does not include the substantial additional costs of base upgrades, workforce
training, and nuclear safety regulation.
Opportunity Cost: $368 billion represents an extraordinary concentration of defence
spending that will inevitably crowd out investment in more agile, relevant capabilities.
Cyber defence, long-range strike missiles, unmanned aerial and maritime systems,
and enhanced intelligence capabilities would deliver more immediate and flexible
security benefits for Australia’s unique geographical circumstances.
Distortion of Defence Budget: The submarine program will consume approximately
40% of the defence capital investment budget for decades, starving other services
and capabilities. The Royal Australian Air Force and Army face significant
modernisation needs that will be compromised.
Subsidising Foreign Industries: A significant portion of Australian spending will
directly support US and UK shipyards, supply chains, and workforce development.
Australia is effectively paying to solve the industrial capacity problems of allied
nations while receiving no firm guarantees on delivery timelines. This represents an
unequal arrangement where Australian taxpayers bear enormous risk while allied
defence contractors secure long-term revenue.
No Exit Clause Without Penalty: Australia has committed to this path with limited
ability to withdraw without incurring substantial sunk costs and diplomatic damage.
The deal’s structure locks Australia into decades of expenditure regardless of
changing strategic circumstances.
3. Catastrophic and Unresolved Nuclear Waste Liability
The AUKUS deal will transform Australia into a permanent repository for high-level
nuclear waste—a burden the nation is entirely unprepared to manage.
Sovereign Responsibility for High-Level Waste: Under the agreement, Australia
accepts sole and permanent responsibility for all nuclear waste generated by its
submarine fleet, including highly radioactive spent fuel that remains dangerous for
hundreds of thousands of years. There is no existing permanent high-level nuclear
waste storage facility anywhere in the world. The United States and United Kingdom,
which have operated nuclear submarines for over 60 years, have still failed to
develop permanent storage solutions.
Accepting Foreign Waste: Most alarmingly, the deal permits the US and UK to
dispose of low- and intermediate-level nuclear waste from their own submarines in Australia. This provision makes Australia a designated dumping ground for other
nations’ toxic military legacies with no reciprocal benefit.
No Domestic Waste Management Plan: Australia currently has no permanent,
community-agreed solution for even its existing low-level medical and research
waste. Successive governments have failed for nearly three decades to site a single
waste facility in the face of sustained opposition from communities and Traditional
Owners. Recent legislative attempts to compel facility construction have been widely
criticised for granting government the power to unilaterally designate sites without
proper consultation or consent.
Intergenerational Inequity: The nuclear waste problem will remain dangerous for millennia, far beyond the lifespan of any government or institution. Current decision-
makers are imposing a permanent environmental and security burden on all future generations of Australians without their consent and without any credible plan formanagement.
4. Severe Erosion of National Sovereignty
AUKUS fundamentally subordinates Australian defence and foreign policy to United
States strategic interests, compromising hard-won independence in national
decision-making.
Lack of Independent Operational Control: Australian commanders will not have
independent control over these submarines. The vessels, their nuclear reactors, their
weapons systems, and their support infrastructure are so deeply integrated with US
military systems that the concept of independent Australian operation is illusory.
Critical maintenance, refuelling, and weapons replenishment can only occur at US
facilities, meaning Australia cannot sustain these submarines without continuous US
approval and support.
Enmeshment in US Conflict Decisions: The agreement’s emphasis on
“interchangeability” and “integrated deterrence” strongly implies that AustraliaEnmeshment in US Conflict Decisions: The agreement’s emphasis on
“interchangeability” and “integrated deterrence” strongly implies that Australia would be compelled to support the United States in any future conflict involving
China—including over Taiwan. The AUKUS framework does not preserve Australia’s
right to make independent decisions about war and peace. Rather, it assumes
Australian participation as a condition of the alliance.
Ceding Control of Australian Territory: AUKUS requires significant expansion of
Australian military facilities, including HMAS Stirling in Western Australia for
submarine basing and RAAF Tindal in the Northern Territory for nuclear-capable B-52
bomber rotations. These expanded facilities will host US military personnel,
equipment, and potentially nuclear weapons. Australia has a longstanding policy of
not confirming or denying the presence of nuclear weapons on its territory, meaning
the public and Parliament will have no assurance about what is being hosted on
Australian soil.
Vulnerability to US Domestic Politics: The entire AUKUS project is vulnerable to the
whims of US electoral politics. In 2025, the Pentagon initiated a review of the
agreement to ensure compliance with the “America First” policy agenda. This
demonstrates that US interests will always take precedence. If a future US
administration decides the agreement no longer serves American interests—or
demands Australian participation in a conflict Australians do not support—Australia
will have no meaningful recourse. Our strategic future is held hostage to US political
volatility.
Explicit Opt-Out Rights for Allies: Both the United States and the United Kingdom
have explicit opt-out rights under the agreement, allowing them to withdraw if their
own national requirements are not met. Australia has no equivalent protection. A
senior Australian Defence official has conceded that if the US or UK walked away,
Australia’s “Plan B” is non-existent.
5. Unrealistic Delivery and Capability Gaps
The timeline and technical assumptions underlying AUKUS are deeply unrealistic,
leaving Australia with a dangerous capability gap.
Decades-Long Delivery Timeline: Even under the most optimistic projections, the
first Virginia-class submarines will not be delivered until the early 2030s, and the final
Australian-built SSN-AUKUS submarine will not enter service until the 2050s—
approximately 40 years from the agreement’s announcement. This timeline exceeds
the planning horizons of any government or military strategy.
Ailing Allied Industrial Bases: Both the US and UK submarine industrial bases are in
poor condition. The UK has experienced periods where it could not deploy a single
operational submarine due to maintenance backlogs. Its skilled workforce and supply
chains have atrophied. The US Navy faces its own pressures to maintain fleet
numbers and has warned that diverting submarines to Australia could degrade
American undersea capabilities. US law prohibits the sale of nuclear submarines if it
would “degrade the United States’ undersea capabilities,” giving Congress a
permanent veto over deliveries to Australia.
Collins Class Capability Gap: Australia’s existing Collins-class submarines are
scheduled to begin retirement from the 2030s. Even optimistic AUKUS timelines leave
a gap of 5–10 years with no submarine capability. The government has no credible
interim solution. Plans to extend Collins-class service life face significant technical
challenges and workforce constraints. The gap leaves Australia without a
fundamental strategic capability at precisely the time proponents claim the strategic
environment is most dangerous.
Unproven Technology: The SSN-AUKUS submarine design does not yet exist. No
nuclear-powered submarine has ever been designed and built in Australia. The fusion
of British design and American propulsion technology has no precedent and faces
immense technical, regulatory, and safety hurdles. Every nuclear submarine program
in history has experienced significant cost overruns and delays.
- Damaging Impact on Regional Relations and Economic
Security
AUKUS has damaged Australia’s standing in Southeast Asia and the Pacific while undermining our most important economic relationship.
Provocative and Exclusionary: Regional neighbours, including Indonesia, Malaysia,
and Pacific Island nations, have expressed serious concerns about AUKUS. It is widely
perceived as a provocative, exclusionary military pact designed for great power
confrontation. This undermines ASEAN-centred regional architecture, which has been
built on principles of inclusivity, consultation, and non-confrontation. AUKUS risks
triggering a regional nuclear arms race, which would make Australia less safe, not
more.
Damage to Relations with China: AUKUS has been explicitly framed as a response
to China’s rise. While prudent deterrence is legitimate, the manner in which AUKUS
was announced—without prior consultation with regional partners and in a manner
designed to exclude and confront—has poisoned the strategic atmosphere. The
agreement has reduced mutual trust in the bilateral relationship with Australia’s
largest trading partner. China accounts for approximately 25% of Australian exports,
and a stable, functional relationship is essential for Australian prosperity. A growing
number of Australians question the logic of sacrificing economic well-being for
uncertain strategic guarantees from an ally with divergent interests.
Strategic Contradiction: Australia is simultaneously pursuing the most expensive
military buildup in its history while relying on China for export income that funds
government services, infrastructure, and social programs. This contradiction is
unsustainable. If Australia genuinely believes China poses a direct military threat
requiring nuclear submarines, then continued deep economic integration is
strategically incoherent. If China does not pose such a threat, then AUKUS represents
a catastrophic misallocation of resources.
Marginalising Pacific Concerns: Pacific Island nations have consistently identified
climate change as their primary security threat. AUKUS diverts attention, diplomatic
energy, and financial resources away from climate action and towards military
competition. This damages Australia’s reputation as a responsible regional partner
and cedes influence to other powers that are more responsive to Pacific priorities.
7. A More Prudent Path Forward
It is not too late to change course. A growing number of former defence officials,
diplomats, and strategic analysts have called for Australia to fundamentally revisit the
AUKUS decision.
Immediate Recommendations:
- Commission an independent cost-benefit analysis of AUKUS against alternative
defence investments, including an updated conventionally-powered submarine
program, long-range strike capabilities, and enhanced cyber and space assets. - Reject the nuclear waste provisions and maintain Australia’s longstanding policy of
not accepting foreign nuclear waste on its territory. - Reassert parliamentary sovereignty over war and peace decisions, clarifying that
no alliance commitment overrides the Australian Parliament’s exclusive authority to
authorise military action. - Redirect defence investment toward capabilities more suited to Australia’s
geography, including long-range maritime patrol aircraft, unmanned underwater
vehicles, distributed sensor networks, and precision-strike missiles. - Pursue genuine strategic independence by diversifying defence partnerships and
avoiding exclusive reliance on any single ally for critical capabilities.
8. Conclusion
The AUKUS submarine deal represents a catastrophic misjudgment. It imposes an
unprecedented financial burden, creates a permanent and unresolved nuclear waste
liability, erodes Australian sovereignty, rests on unrealistic delivery assumptions, and damages our most important regional relationships. The justification for AUKUS
relies on an exaggerated threat perception and blind faith in allies who have placed
their own interests first—explicitly, in writing, in the agreement’s opt-out clauses.
Australia does not need nuclear submarines to be secure. We need a defence
strategy appropriate to our geography, our budget, and our democratic values—not
one designed by foreign industrial lobbies and imposed under the guise of alliance
solidarity. For these reasons, I urge this Committee to recommend that the Australian
Government withdraw from the AUKUS Pillar I submarine agreement and pursue a
more independent, proportionate, and responsible defence posture.
No Exit Clause Without Penalty: Australia has committed to this path with limited
ability to withdraw without incurring substantial sunk costs and diplomatic damage.
The deal’s structure locks Australia into decades of expenditure regardless of changing strategic circumstances.
The AUKUS deal will transform Australia into a permanent repository for high-level
nuclear waste—a burden the nation is entirely unprepared to manage.
Accepting Foreign Waste: Most alarmingly, the deal permits the US and UK to
dispose of low- and intermediate-level nuclear waste from their own submarines in
Leo Kerr n.103
Subject: Opposition to AUKUS Pillar I (Nuclear Submarines) on Grounds of Cost,
Sovereignty, Nuclear Waste, and Strategic Miscalculation
- Executive Summary
The AUKUS agreement, particularly Pillar I concerning nuclear-powered submarines,
is fundamentally not in Australia’s national interest. While framed as a necessary
response to strategic challenges, the deal imposes crippling financial costs, creates
an unresolved nuclear waste legacy, severely compromises national sovereignty,
rests on unrealistic delivery timelines, and damages Australia’s regional relationships.
This submission argues that AUKUS represents a profound misalignment of strategic
priorities that will leave Australia less secure, financially weaker, and more dependent
on foreign powers for generations.
2. Prohibitive and Unsustainable Financial Cost
The AUKUS submarine program is the most expensive defence project in Australian
history, with estimated total costs of $368 billion over several decades. This figure
does not include the substantial additional costs of base upgrades, workforce
training, and nuclear safety regulation.
Opportunity Cost: $368 billion represents an extraordinary concentration of defence
spending that will inevitably crowd out investment in more agile, relevant capabilities.
Cyber defence, long-range strike missiles, unmanned aerial and maritime systems,
and enhanced intelligence capabilities would deliver more immediate and flexible
security benefits for Australia’s unique geographical circumstances.
Distortion of Defence Budget: The submarine program will consume approximately
40% of the defence capital investment budget for decades, starving other services
and capabilities. The Royal Australian Air Force and Army face significant
modernisation needs that will be compromised.
Subsidising Foreign Industries: A significant portion of Australian spending will
directly support US and UK shipyards, supply chains, and workforce development.
Australia is effectively paying to solve the industrial capacity problems of allied
nations while receiving no firm guarantees on delivery timelines. This represents an
unequal arrangement where Australian taxpayers bear enormous risk while allied
defence contractors secure long-term revenue.
No Exit Clause Without Penalty: Australia has committed to this path with limited
ability to withdraw without incurring substantial sunk costs and diplomatic damage.
The deal’s structure locks Australia into decades of expenditure regardless of
changing strategic circumstances.
3. Catastrophic and Unresolved Nuclear Waste Liability
The AUKUS deal will transform Australia into a permanent repository for high-level
nuclear waste—a burden the nation is entirely unprepared to manage.
Sovereign Responsibility for High-Level Waste: Under the agreement, Australia
accepts sole and permanent responsibility for all nuclear waste generated by its
submarine fleet, including highly radioactive spent fuel that remains dangerous for
hundreds of thousands of years. There is no existing permanent high-level nuclear
waste storage facility anywhere in the world. The United States and United Kingdom,
which have operated nuclear submarines for over 60 years, have still failed to
develop permanent storage solutions.
Accepting Foreign Waste: Most alarmingly, the deal permits the US and UK to
dispose of low- and intermediate-level nuclear waste from their own submarines in Australia. This provision makes Australia a designated dumping ground for other
nations’ toxic military legacies with no reciprocal benefit.
No Domestic Waste Management Plan: Australia currently has no permanent,
community-agreed solution for even its existing low-level medical and research
waste. Successive governments have failed for nearly three decades to site a single
waste facility in the face of sustained opposition from communities and Traditional
Owners. Recent legislative attempts to compel facility construction have been widely
criticised for granting government the power to unilaterally designate sites without
proper consultation or consent.
Intergenerational Inequity: The nuclear waste problem will remain dangerous for millennia, far beyond the lifespan of any government or institution. Current decision-
makers are imposing a permanent environmental and security burden on all future generations of Australians without their consent and without any credible plan formanagement.
4. Severe Erosion of National Sovereignty
AUKUS fundamentally subordinates Australian defence and foreign policy to United
States strategic interests, compromising hard-won independence in national
decision-making.
Lack of Independent Operational Control: Australian commanders will not have
independent control over these submarines. The vessels, their nuclear reactors, their
weapons systems, and their support infrastructure are so deeply integrated with US
military systems that the concept of independent Australian operation is illusory.
Critical maintenance, refuelling, and weapons replenishment can only occur at US
facilities, meaning Australia cannot sustain these submarines without continuous US
approval and support.
Enmeshment in US Conflict Decisions: The agreement’s emphasis on
“interchangeability” and “integrated deterrence” strongly implies that AustraliaEnmeshment in US Conflict Decisions: The agreement’s emphasis on
“interchangeability” and “integrated deterrence” strongly implies that Australia would be compelled to support the United States in any future conflict involving
China—including over Taiwan. The AUKUS framework does not preserve Australia’s
right to make independent decisions about war and peace. Rather, it assumes
Australian participation as a condition of the alliance.
Ceding Control of Australian Territory: AUKUS requires significant expansion of
Australian military facilities, including HMAS Stirling in Western Australia for
submarine basing and RAAF Tindal in the Northern Territory for nuclear-capable B-52
bomber rotations. These expanded facilities will host US military personnel,
equipment, and potentially nuclear weapons. Australia has a longstanding policy of
not confirming or denying the presence of nuclear weapons on its territory, meaning
the public and Parliament will have no assurance about what is being hosted on
Australian soil.
Vulnerability to US Domestic Politics: The entire AUKUS project is vulnerable to the
whims of US electoral politics. In 2025, the Pentagon initiated a review of the
agreement to ensure compliance with the “America First” policy agenda. This
demonstrates that US interests will always take precedence. If a future US
administration decides the agreement no longer serves American interests—or
demands Australian participation in a conflict Australians do not support—Australia
will have no meaningful recourse. Our strategic future is held hostage to US political
volatility.
Explicit Opt-Out Rights for Allies: Both the United States and the United Kingdom
have explicit opt-out rights under the agreement, allowing them to withdraw if their
own national requirements are not met. Australia has no equivalent protection. A
senior Australian Defence official has conceded that if the US or UK walked away,
Australia’s “Plan B” is non-existent.
5. Unrealistic Delivery and Capability Gaps
The timeline and technical assumptions underlying AUKUS are deeply unrealistic,
leaving Australia with a dangerous capability gap.
Decades-Long Delivery Timeline: Even under the most optimistic projections, the
first Virginia-class submarines will not be delivered until the early 2030s, and the final
Australian-built SSN-AUKUS submarine will not enter service until the 2050s—
approximately 40 years from the agreement’s announcement. This timeline exceeds
the planning horizons of any government or military strategy.
Ailing Allied Industrial Bases: Both the US and UK submarine industrial bases are in
poor condition. The UK has experienced periods where it could not deploy a single
operational submarine due to maintenance backlogs. Its skilled workforce and supply
chains have atrophied. The US Navy faces its own pressures to maintain fleet
numbers and has warned that diverting submarines to Australia could degrade
American undersea capabilities. US law prohibits the sale of nuclear submarines if it
would “degrade the United States’ undersea capabilities,” giving Congress a
permanent veto over deliveries to Australia.
Collins Class Capability Gap: Australia’s existing Collins-class submarines are
scheduled to begin retirement from the 2030s. Even optimistic AUKUS timelines leave
a gap of 5–10 years with no submarine capability. The government has no credible
interim solution. Plans to extend Collins-class service life face significant technical
challenges and workforce constraints. The gap leaves Australia without a
fundamental strategic capability at precisely the time proponents claim the strategic
environment is most dangerous.
Unproven Technology: The SSN-AUKUS submarine design does not yet exist. No
nuclear-powered submarine has ever been designed and built in Australia. The fusion
of British design and American propulsion technology has no precedent and faces
immense technical, regulatory, and safety hurdles. Every nuclear submarine program
in history has experienced significant cost overruns and delays.
- Damaging Impact on Regional Relations and Economic
Security
AUKUS has damaged Australia’s standing in Southeast Asia and the Pacific while undermining our most important economic relationship.
Provocative and Exclusionary: Regional neighbours, including Indonesia, Malaysia,
and Pacific Island nations, have expressed serious concerns about AUKUS. It is widely
perceived as a provocative, exclusionary military pact designed for great power
confrontation. This undermines ASEAN-centred regional architecture, which has been
built on principles of inclusivity, consultation, and non-confrontation. AUKUS risks
triggering a regional nuclear arms race, which would make Australia less safe, not
more.
Damage to Relations with China: AUKUS has been explicitly framed as a response
to China’s rise. While prudent deterrence is legitimate, the manner in which AUKUS
was announced—without prior consultation with regional partners and in a manner
designed to exclude and confront—has poisoned the strategic atmosphere. The
agreement has reduced mutual trust in the bilateral relationship with Australia’s
largest trading partner. China accounts for approximately 25% of Australian exports,
and a stable, functional relationship is essential for Australian prosperity. A growing
number of Australians question the logic of sacrificing economic well-being for
uncertain strategic guarantees from an ally with divergent interests.
Strategic Contradiction: Australia is simultaneously pursuing the most expensive
military buildup in its history while relying on China for export income that funds
government services, infrastructure, and social programs. This contradiction is
unsustainable. If Australia genuinely believes China poses a direct military threat
requiring nuclear submarines, then continued deep economic integration is
strategically incoherent. If China does not pose such a threat, then AUKUS represents
a catastrophic misallocation of resources.
Marginalising Pacific Concerns: Pacific Island nations have consistently identified
climate change as their primary security threat. AUKUS diverts attention, diplomatic
energy, and financial resources away from climate action and towards military
competition. This damages Australia’s reputation as a responsible regional partner
and cedes influence to other powers that are more responsive to Pacific priorities.
7. A More Prudent Path Forward
It is not too late to change course. A growing number of former defence officials,
diplomats, and strategic analysts have called for Australia to fundamentally revisit the
AUKUS decision.
Immediate Recommendations:
- Commission an independent cost-benefit analysis of AUKUS against alternative
defence investments, including an updated conventionally-powered submarine
program, long-range strike capabilities, and enhanced cyber and space assets. - Reject the nuclear waste provisions and maintain Australia’s longstanding policy of
not accepting foreign nuclear waste on its territory. - Reassert parliamentary sovereignty over war and peace decisions, clarifying that
no alliance commitment overrides the Australian Parliament’s exclusive authority to
authorise military action. - Redirect defence investment toward capabilities more suited to Australia’s
geography, including long-range maritime patrol aircraft, unmanned underwater
vehicles, distributed sensor networks, and precision-strike missiles. - Pursue genuine strategic independence by diversifying defence partnerships and
avoiding exclusive reliance on any single ally for critical capabilities.
8. Conclusion
The AUKUS submarine deal represents a catastrophic misjudgment. It imposes an
unprecedented financial burden, creates a permanent and unresolved nuclear waste
liability, erodes Australian sovereignty, rests on unrealistic delivery assumptions, and damages our most important regional relationships. The justification for AUKUS
relies on an exaggerated threat perception and blind faith in allies who have placed
their own interests first—explicitly, in writing, in the agreement’s opt-out clauses.
Australia does not need nuclear submarines to be secure. We need a defence
strategy appropriate to our geography, our budget, and our democratic values—not
one designed by foreign industrial lobbies and imposed under the guise of alliance
solidarity. For these reasons, I urge this Committee to recommend that the Australian
Government withdraw from the AUKUS Pillar I submarine agreement and pursue a
more independent, proportionate, and responsible defence posture.
US turning Australia into military base
“Over more than a decade, the United States has been preparing the capacity for high-tempo warfighting operations with China, springboarding from Australia. From a Chinese perspective, Australia is not so much hosting US bases on its territory, it’s a US base in its own right… Australia is a serious piece of real estate in the US warfighting machine.”
Wed, 09 Sep 2026 , https://www.sott.net/article/508329-US-turning-Australia-into-military-base-Guardian
USA • Australia military eventThe US is turning Australia into a forward base for potential military operations in the Pacific, with American forces and defense contractors controlling or having access to roughly two-thirds of the country’s military facilities,The Guardian reported on Sunday.
Citing data compiled by the Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability, the newspaper identified 110 facilities across Australia with some form of US military or corporate presence out of 168 surveyed.
The US military directly controls 17 facilities, including the Pine Gap intelligence complex in central Australia, which plays a major role in US surveillance and military operations. The facility tracks missile launches, intercepts communications and provides targeting information for American forces around the world.
Other installations include a naval communications station in Western Australia used to communicate with submerged US submarines and RAAF Base Tindal in the north, which is being expanded to accommodate nuclear-capableB-52 Stratofortress bombers.
The Guardian wrote:
“These aircraft are able to land on Australian soil carrying nuclear weapons. The US government won’t tell Australia if and when they are. The Australian government won’t ask.”
Beyond the facilities it directly controls, the US military has access to dozens of Australian installations, while American defense contractors, including Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, operate at others. According to the Nautilus data, 41 of the 168 facilities surveyed have no significant US presence, while the status of another 17 remains unresolved.
The American footprint is also expanding. In June, AFP reported that the US was preparing to establish a permanent stockpile of battle-ready weapons, ammunition, and equipment for the Marine Corps in Australia, with the facility expected to reach full capacity by 2028.
An honorary professorial fellow at the University of Melbourne, Richard Tanter, the author of the Nautilus database, told The Guardian:
“Over more than a decade, the United States has been preparing the capacity for high-tempo warfighting operations with China, springboarding from Australia. From a Chinese perspective, Australia is not so much hosting US bases on its territory, it’s a US base in its own right… Australia is a serious piece of real estate in the US warfighting machine.”
Canberra maintains that the growing American presence strengthens Australia’s security.Defense Minister Richard Marles said in June that the expanding US footprint was important both for building the country’s military capabilities and for its national security.
Marles also argued that the US presence helped counter what he described as China’s “very significant military buildup” in the region.
Former Australian Defense Minister Christopher Pyne has similarly said the 2021 AUKUS pact between Australia, the US, and UK goes beyond Canberra’s acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines. He described the arrangement as establishing “a new United States submarine base in the Indian Ocean” that would provide Washington with a “massive strategic advantage.”
Tanter criticized Canberra’s approach, calling it:
“A massive institutional failure in Australia, a kind of learned incapacity at a political, parliamentary and bureaucratic level.”
Comment: Tanter is right: Trust and comfort never convey the total picture, nor be they the appropriate guardians of sovereign control.
First nuclear-capable B-52s deploy to Australia
By Bill Gertz – The Washington Times – Thursday, September 10, 2026
A task force of nuclear-capable B-52 bombers has deployed for the first time to Australia in a show of regional force located to the south of China.
The bombers arrived last week at an upgraded Royal Australian Air Force Base Tindal. Local reports called it a new era in Australia’s military alliance with the U.S.
A Pacific Air Forces spokesman confirmed to Inside the Ring that the bomber task force is underway Down Under………….
The exact number of the strategic bombers from the 2nd Bomber Wing at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, was not disclosed. Most task forces include up to six B-52s.
An Air Force photo of the deployment stated in a caption that the bombers arrived Sept. 1. “Operating from RAAF Base Tindal marks our ability to project, sustain, and regenerate decisive airpower across an expanding extended network,” the caption stated.
The long-range bombers can deliver nuclear bombs or conventional precision-guided weapons.
The Tindal base has been upgraded with new hangars and ramps for the bombers. It is located in northern Australia about 200 miles south of the northernmost coastal city of Darwin and about 2,000 miles from the tense South China Sea.
The base also hosts Australian F-35 stealth jets and MQ-4C Triton surveillance drones.
Currently, U.S. Marines are based in Darwin and a submarine rotational force was set up near Perth, with about 1,000 Navy personnel set to deploy in support of Virginia-class submarine deployment. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2026/sep/10/first-nuclear-capable-b-52s-deploy-australia/
Australia’s continued enmeshment with the US could make it a nuclear target, former Labor minister warns
“This makes Australia a priority nuclear target for any adversary of the United States,”
“An adversary would target Australia before targeting the US directly since to do so would invite immediate retaliation.”
Former Labor minister Melissa Parke has warned that Australia’s close military ties to the United States make it a priority nuclear target that adversaries would likely strike before attacking the US directly.
By Tegan George, Tue 8 Sep 2026 , https://thepoint.com.au/new/260908-australias-continued-enmeshment-with-the-us-could-make-it-a-nuclear-target-former-labor-minister-warns
Former Labor minister Melissa Parke has warned that Australia’s close military ties to the United States make it a priority nuclear target that adversaries would likely strike before attacking the US directly.
Speaking on the Australia Institute’s After America podcast, Ms Parke said Australia’s increasing enmeshment with the US was even more reason for it to join the “groundbreaking” Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).
“It’s the first treaty to comprehensively and categorically prohibit nuclear weapons and anything to do with them: developing, possessing, testing, using, threatening to use, sharing, deploying, et cetera,” she said.
Ms Parke, now executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), said more than half the world’s countries had joined as states parties or signatories, including almost all of Australia’s neighbours in Southeast Asia and the South Pacific.
While Labor has committed in its national platform to joining the treaty since 2018, the Albanese government is yet to sign on the dotted line.
The commitment was moved by Anthony Albanese and seconded by Richard Marles, now Prime Minister and Defence Minister.
Defence Minister Richard Marles recently travelled to the US to meet his counterpart, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, as the countries marked the 75th anniversary of the ANZUS alliance.
Following the meeting, they agreed to “accelerate force posture initiatives” at Australian bases but didn’t say whether that would mean more American troops heading down under.
The growing US military presence includes the rotation of nuclear-powered submarines through HMAS Stirling and nuclear-capable B-52 bombers at RAAF Base Tindal in the Northern Territory, alongside existing joint facilities such as Pine Gap.
“This makes Australia a priority nuclear target for any adversary of the United States,” said Ms Parke.
“An adversary would target Australia before targeting the US directly since to do so would invite immediate retaliation.”
She argued other countries in the region had joined the treaty without damaging their US relationship, pointing to Palau, New Zealand, the Philippines and Thailand.
Ms Parke said she understood the Albanese government was concerned about “upsetting” the US but cited former prime minister Paul Keating’s remark that “we couldn’t get rid of the Americans even if we wanted to”.
“Our own former foreign minister, Gareth Evans, says that reliance on US nuclear deterrence is both dangerous because it makes us a nuclear target and absurd because the US would never sacrifice one of its cities for ours.”
She said the treaty also provided victim assistance and remediation of affected environments.
“There’s a bit of a myth out there that nuclear weapons have only ever been used twice in Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” she told the podcast.
“But in fact, nuclear weapons have been exploded more than 2000 times around the world, mostly on colonised Indigenous and vulnerable communities.”
That includes Australia, where the British conducted 12 major nuclear detonations and hundreds of radiological trials in Western and South Australia between 1952 and 1963.
The tests caused severe radioactive contamination and prompted a royal commission into their lasting health and environmental impacts.
The treaty’s first review conference is due to be held in New York from 30 November to 4 December, but Ms Parke said some affected communities would not attend because they “don’t feel safe” under the Trump administration.
Ms Parke accused the US of doing “enormous damage” to international institutions and appearing willing to violate and discard any rule or norm of international law.
“When we only negotiate bilaterally with a hegemon, we negotiate from weakness,” she said.
“We accept what’s offered. We compete with each other to be the most accommodating. This is not sovereignty. It’s the performance of sovereignty while accepting subordination.”
SUBMISSION: AUKUS PUBLIC INQUIRY – Friends of Port River
Many in our community feel that too much is being asked of our small Peninsula and that local residents will bear the costs with few benefits. I’d encourage you to highlight the current
environmental harms and further risks, with these heightened by the declaration of the
Osborne SDA.
Friends of Port River (FPR), and its predecessor the Estuary Care Foundation (ECF), have been
concerned about the fate of the Port River and Barker Inlet Estuary and advocating for its care
for ten years. Our concerns have included the surrounding area and community, given
- The significant demands on land, the River and services, from industrial development
especially the AUKUS development - The Estuary is home to the Adelaide Dolphin Sanctuary, is the southern end of the Adelaide
International Bird Sanctuary, is crucial as breeding grounds for prawns and fish, contributes
carbon abatement via blue carbon and provides numerous other ecosystem services. - The nature of the SA planning system which deals individually with each new project,
without due regard for the cumulative impact. - The well documented risks of sea level rise, storm surges and flooding commencing with
the 2005 Port Adelaide Seawater Stormwater Flooding Study1 - The low levels of stormwater protection on the Peninsula, including vulnerable areas east
of Victoria Road opposite AdBri, and heavy reliance on pumping stormwater to the Port
River, which could be more challenging as we experience more ‘unprecedented’ weather
events - The lack of open space in many areas of the Peninsula, which limits community amenity
and the potential to divert stormwater - State Government’s urban infill strategy which seems to pay no regard to risks such as
stormwater protection and exposure to AdBri’s emissions, nor to the quality of life for new
and existing residents. The most recent residential developments facilitated by Renewal SA
around the Port River have very limited open space and almost no community facilities for
thousands of new residents.
Current environmental harm
Over the last ten years ECF/FPR have witnessed significant environmental harm, and/or failure
to minimise harm in the Estuary and Peninsula, by the SA Government including
- Poor regulation of the Dry Creek Saltfields and failure to prevent the operator pumping
hypersaline brine into some cracked ponds, leading to the loss of over 24 hectares of vegetation (mangroves and saltmarsh) and with the catastrophic impact continuing - unchecked.
- Failure to maintain the seawall at Mutton Cove, (now situated within the AUKUS footprint),
which led to the seawall failing in May 2016 and the banks progressively eroding. Mutton
Cove abuts the northern end of the ASC, Mersey Road, and the southern end of the
extended AUKUS development. Despite ANI, Flinders Ports, the City of Port Adelaide
Enfield, and the Department of Environment, contributing $20K each towards an analysis of
coastal risks and identification of adaptation options, the 2021 report of that study has not
been provided to the funding partners and the State Government has continued to allow
the seawall and banks to fail. - Failure to remove from the Peninsula, on both sides of the Port River, extensive areas of
Penrice waste, which the State Government allowed Penrice to dump on Government land
prior to the company’s liquidation in 2014. - Failure to develop strategies to protect the community from harm from sea level rise, storm
surges and flooding, despite numerous studies and apparently ongoing work, by the City of
Port Adelaide Enfield and the Coast Protection Board. - Loss of TEC saltmarsh and risks to wetlands at Gillman from a recent State Government
development at Gillman. Compounding the risks Renewal SA has faulty tidal gates, that
cannot be shut to limit high tide impacts from the Estuary to the wetlands, or impede
stormwater discharges. - Trucks will take spoil 24×7 from the Torrens to Darlington road works to Gillman from Q3,
2026 to 2031 and while this is currently impacting local roads there’s been no known notice
to local residents. - Contact with Commonwealth and State agencies
- About eight years ago ANI reached out to Port Adelaide Residents Environment Protection
- Group (PAREPG) and FPR, as part of their efforts to secure their social licence in the
- community, and we met regularly with them around their infrastructure plans, the future of
- Mutton Cove etc.
- From December 2023, we met with ASA representatives and from May 2024 those meetings
- became monthly with ANI and ASA reps.
- In February 2025, representatives of the Office of AUKUS, Department of Premier and Cabinet
- joined the meetings, and we were advised of State Government planned to develop a Lefevre
- Masterplan, with consultants engaged to develop the Plan. So that the community could be
- consulted we arranged for the consultants to address a Port Adelaide Environment Forum
- meeting and feedback was submitted from the Forum to the DP&C. We understood that the
- draft Lefevre Masterplan would be presented at another Forum meeting this year, but that has
- now been superseded by the Osborne State Development Area process (see below).
Some of the key themes that were raised at the Forum consultation included:
- Locals’ aspirations for the Peninsula including holistic approach, greening, restoration of
and access to the River, fostering social connections - Opposition to AUKUS and/or reservations about its impact on our community
- Negative impacts already on environment and community including Harmful Algal Bloom,
poor canopy cover, AdBri and traffic emissions, - How the local community might benefit since for example only a small proportion of
residents (17.2%) both live and work2
locally - Lack of infrastructure including water, stormwater, electricity
- Major problems currently with transport and lack of infrastructure to deal with the
proposed workforce growth and other demands - Suggestions for social infrastructure and housing developments
- Suggestions for environmental improvements including protection of Biodiversity Park and
implementation of the ECF Vision for the Estuary.
Assessment of the AUKUS development
The Friends of Port River was able to directly compare the application of Commonwealth and
State development assessment processes when ANI submitted an EIS to the State
Government for the AUKUS development and ASA provided a Strategic Impact Assessment
Report (SIAR) to the Commonwealth Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment
and Water (DCCEEW). (Radiation matters were separate to this process).
As outlined in this blog FPR made written submissions to both. The experience confirmed
FPR’s perception of the many weaknesses in State development assessment processes,
including the failure to include mitigation or best practice measures, proposed by
environmental consultants, to address identified potential risks and the lack of public
reporting e.g. as to whether environmental monitoring has occurred, whether any required
safeguards are applied.
Commonwealth approvals confirm that the community will lose public access to Mutton
Cove, which after losing Falie Reserve, means “a reduction of approximately 50 percent of
accessible public open space within the northern end of the Lefevre Peninsula”. Three and a
half (3.5) hectares of seagrass will be removed.
FPR acknowledges that the Commonwealth approval processes (unlike the State) set
Environmental Outcomes that are to be met throughout the life of the Sub Yard.
There is also much greater visibility and accountability through Commonwealth requirements.
ASA must, within 3 months, develop an Assurance Plan (including as to how the Outcomes will
be met). Biennial reports to DCEEW and independent audits are to be conducted, and
submitted, to DCEEW every six years. Importantly the Assurance Plan, biennial reports and
independent audits are to be made publicly available.
State use of special legislation
Community concern about the State Government’s lack of regard for the natural world, and
our environmental assets, has been heightened by its recent actions in the Adelaide Parklands
and by the declaration of the State’s first State Development Area (SDA) across the Peninsula
and Gillman. In both instances, special legislation has been passed to expedite development.
In the Adelaide Parklands this has meant hundreds of trees being removed, for LIV golf, with
more at risk for a motorcycle grand prix circuit, the State Government ignoring its own
‘significant tree’ safeguards and not referring its proposed actions to the Commonwealth re
EPBC provisions. Adelaide City Council and community concerns have been ignored, despite
more than 50,00 signatures on a public petition.
The Osborne SDA is the first SDA in SA under the State Development Coordination and
Facilitation Act 2025 (SDCF Act). While the Coordinator General explained at a recent
workshop for City of Port Adelaide Enfield Councillors, that his office wouldn’t necessarily step
into the decision making-role of other agencies, the threat is clearly there that he could do so if
presumably time frames for decisions, or the decisions themselves, do not meet political
imperatives. This could be disastrous for the Estuary in relation to the roles of the EPA, the
Coast Protection Board and the Department of Environment (as landowner and guardian of the
Adelaide Dolphin Sanctuary).
While community consultation is ‘open’ about the proposed boundaries for the Osborne SDA,
the Coordinator-General (CG) advised that the SDA would look at all the State’s existing land
holdings and seek their most productive use.
Since the proposed boundaries include Mutton Cove, Biodiversity Park, the local golf club, the
Royal SA Yacht Squadron, the Port Adelaide Rowing Club, the Girl Guides etc the CG’s
statements are naturally alarming community members about the fate of Biodiversity Park and
Mutton Cove and troubling organisations that lease State land.
Given the State’s focus is on “Shaping the future of one of South Australia’s premier industrial
regions” and there are no stated Objectives for the SDA, the community want to know what
regard will be given to public safety (e.g. access to and from the Peninsula) and quality of life
and health and well-being of residents (e.g. traffic pollution, loss of further open space) and
the prevention of further degradation of the natural environment.
Many in our community feel that too much is being asked of our small Peninsula and that local
residents will bear the costs with few benefits. I’d encourage you to highlight the current
environmental harms and further risks, with these heightened by the declaration of the
Osborne SDA.
Catherine McMahon
Convenor
Friends of Port River
Submission to AUKUS Public Inquiry – Eileen Whitehead
When we look in detail at the Pillar II advanced capabilities involved with AUKUS, however, it becomes clear that these will have profound consequences not only for the Australian military, but for the whole of the Australian people in their everyday lives.
698 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Zp9kXdUp0AV2B8U5sIhNKFROKGRnr_dG/view
Originally we were searching for submarines whose primary role was to protect Australia’s
coastline, which had been the Collins’ role. A tender process between German, Japanese and
French contenders resulted in the French Attack class (renamed from Barracuda class) submarine
being chosen. The original design of this class was for it to be nuclear powered, but the design
allowed for it to be conventionally powered by diesel-electric – but convertible to nuclear power
should future owners so desire. At A$50 billion, this was Australia’s biggest ever defence
contract
When we look in detail at the Pillar II advanced capabilities involved with AUKUS, however, it
becomes clear that these will have profound consequences not only for the Australian military,
but for the whole of the Australian people in their everyday lives.
These consequences include the privatisation (by stealth) of the Australian Defence Forces, the
growth of a significant local military industrial complex in Australia, to add to the domination of
the Australian economy by US and European arms manufacturers, giving away Australian
research, data and capital to the US and UK military forces, a further integration of the
Australian military into United States military operations around the globe, and the diversion of
Australian know-how, research and creativity to assist the continued growth of the US military –
industrial complex, rather than in the service of useful and sustainable industries in Australia.
Detail of plans for the development of AUKUS Pillar II is sketchy and hidden from public gaze.
Expansion of the military-industrial complex into Australia
The “military industrial complex” was identified as a real threat to democratic control of
government decisions by US President Eisenhower in 1961 – “This conjunction of an immense
military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. . . .Yet we
must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. . . . In the councils of government, we must
guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the
military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and
will persist.” This threat is even more serious in the US today.
1
In Australia, researchers such as Michelle Fahy have identified the same process growing here – with a “revolving door” of people swapping between weapons corporations, Defence Department positions and political positions. AUKUS development will make this threat of undue influence far worse in Australia.
. AUKUS emphasis is on “dual use technology development” – in other words companies that develop commercially useful applications that also are useful in defence industry. For example,
Australian national security information will be stored in Amazon’s “High Security” cloud.3
In spite of huge private capital needed, significant government investment is also projected to
develop PII industries. For example the $3.6 billion earmarked for the new Advanced Strategic
Capabilities Accelerator.
4 Australian capital and research will be given to US military
4 Australian capital and research will be given to US military
The Pillar II focus on sharing technologies between partners means in practice a mostly one-way
sharing towards the US – that Australian research and IP and Australian government capital will
be provided to build up the US defence industry. AI training of algorithms requires vast amounts
of data sourced from the high tech corporations such as Google and Amazon. Data from
Australians will be swept up in these data collections without any consent – effectively ceding
sovereignty to US tech and military firms.
5 Australian defence industry will continue to be dominated by US defence corporations,
Comments by Richard Marles show that “Our ultimate goal is to supplement and strengthen U.S.
industry and supply chains, not compete with them.”
6. Australian Defence Force will become a US defence contractor
“Interchangeability” means that weapons can be used interchangeably – in practice that means
Australian weapons will be an adjunct to the US weapons arsenal, except that their enormous
price tag will be paid for by Australian taxpayers!
7. Australian people and data they generate will be used to train AI algorithms to help US
become dominant in AI – instead of building AI as a useful tool at the service of all countries.
8. Australian industry is in effect integrated into the US military industrial complex –
serving needs of US government and US military rather than Australia.
AUKUS involves:
● Increased porting, involving servicing and maintenance, of US and UK nuclear
submarines at HMAS Stirling.
● Australia’s purchase of 3-5 second hand Virginia class nuclear subs from the US in the
2030s.
● Building of up to 5 AUKUS nuclear submarines of UK design but eventual construction
at Osborne Shipyard, deliverable from the 2040s.
● The above at a projected cost of A$ 368 billion, (which is already at least double that).
● AUKUS pillar II involving advanced technologies in electronic and maritime warfare.
● AUKUS pillar II involving advanced technologies in electronic and maritime warfare.
SUBMISSION to AUKUS Public Inquiry – Slava Volin
Were the public told the truth? Is Australia getting what was promised? Should any
government commit this country to a nominal cost approaching AU$900 billion,
including a multi-generational nuclear waste liability that it refuses to disclose, without a
single independent public audit?
30 June 2026
RE: AUKUS: Moving Beyond Procurement Accountability to the Structural Case for
Contractual Renegotiation or Cancellation
THE DECISION WINDOW: BEYOND THE PROCUREMENT TRAP
Mainstream public analysis regarding AUKUS has focused systematically on delivery
timelines, transparency lapses, and the recent transition to an exclusively second-hand
Virginia-class fleet [1.1].
Other than a hot war, AUKUS is the single most important strategic, fiscal, and
welfare issue in the history of the Commonwealth of Australia.
The underlying metrics and statutory frameworks reveal a deeper structural failure.
AUKUS is not a delayed procurement; it is a fundamentally flawed, legally asymmetrical
pact that subordinates Australian fiscal and operational sovereignty to the statutory
vetoes of United States domestic law [1.1, 1.4]. The fundamental architecture of the
deal compromises Australia’s national independence, cannibalises existing naval
capability, invites strategic aggression, and permanently erodes the tax base and
essential public services of our citizens, completely independent of the final delivery
schedule [1.4].
This submission provides this independent Public Inquiry with the specific financial and
statutory metrics required to expand the terms of national debate. It demonstrates that
the current framework leaves the Commonwealth exposed to absolute foreign vetoes,
multi-generational uncosted liabilities, and a permanent reduction in independent
strategic decision-making [1.4].
THE FRAMING THAT MUST CHANGE: ELEVATING THE CRITIQUE
Focusing civic and parliamentary scrutiny strictly on delivery schedules and cost
updates risks engaging in a narrow project management debate that the Executive can
easily neutralise with revised timelines or minor disclosures. To establish an
unassailable framework for the final Inquiry report, the critique must shift from
procurement tracking to structural capture, targeting how the legal and financial terms of
the pact compromise Australian independence regardless of the physical delivery date.
THE MULTI-FACETED CASE: STRUCTURAL ENTRAPMENT
- FISCAL REALITY: Uncosted liabilities push the true nominal cost past AU$917
billion…………………………………………………………………………………………………… - WELFARE IMPLICATIONS: Structural Opportunity Costs and Public Service
Erosion………………………………………………………………………………………… - 3. LEGAL ASYMMETRY: Structural Vetoes Under United States Law……………………………………………………………………………………….
- STRATEGIC DISPLACEMENT: The Wrong Weapon for the Wrong War………………………………………
- OPERATIONAL HOLLOWING: The Maritime Workforce Crisis……………………………………………….
- SOVEREIGN EXPOSURE: Industrial and Engineering Dependence…………………………………………
- INDUSTRIAL FRAGILITY: The Vulnerable British Supply Pipeline……………………………………………..
ACTIONABLE STRATEGY FOR THE INQUIRY FINAL REPORT
Based on the statutory asymmetries, fiscal overruns, and industrial constraints compiled
in this evidence baseline, the Inquiry is urged to adopt the following three-tiered
framework as primary recommendations in its final report on 30 October 2026 [P3]:
Recommendation 1: Order an Immediate Forensic Audit and Formal Suspension……….
Recommendation 2: Execute the 12-Month Notice Provision to Cancel the
Submarine Component………………………………………………………………………
Recommendation 3: Brief the Executive on Preliminary Findings to Facilitate a
Managed Strategic Off-Ramp
The Inquiry Commissioners should formally engage the Prime Minister and the Minister
for Defence with a confidential briefing of these evidence-backed preliminary findings
prior to the publication of the final report on 30 October 2026 [P1, P3]. This private
briefing should be executed as a collaborative intervention to assist the government in
managing a rational strategic pivot, utilizing a distinct three-part psychological and
political framing:………………………………………………………………………………….
CROSS-EXAMINATION TRIGGERS FOR THE PUBLIC HEARINGS…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
THE 2028 QUESTION
Were the public told the truth? Is Australia getting what was promised? Should any
government commit this country to a nominal cost approaching AU$900 billion,
including a multi-generational nuclear waste liability that it refuses to disclose, without a
single independent public audit?
This Independent Public Inquiry possesses the unique civic mandate and strategic
separation from major-party factional consensus to ask these questions plainly,
providing an unassailable, evidence-backed reference framework for the future of the
nation.
THE AUKUS MASTER CITATION INDEX (74 VERIFIED SOURCES)…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BLukBDqSKjRkp3YNaneLAM8rSG9B3Nus/view
AUKUS makes Australia a nuclear target, top experts warn
Rob Harris, September 3, 2026 —https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/aukus-makes-australia-a-nuclear-target-top-experts-warn-20260902-p60tnk.html
Australia is significantly more likely to be dragged into a destructive conflict with China — and potentially targeted with nuclear weapons — under the AUKUS security pact, two former senior national security figures have warned.
Michael Keating, a former Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet secretary, and former public servant Jon Stanford argue that the federal government’s current defence posture has “sacrificed considerable sovereignty” to the United States while leaving the country uniquely vulnerable without a guaranteed security safety net.
The pair will front a crowd-funded public inquiry into the AUKUS submarine pact on Thursday, urging the federal government to immediately redesign its national strategy, cancel plans to acquire American Virginia-class and British-designed SSN AUKUS nuclear-powered attack submarines, and pivot to low-enriched uranium vessels sourced from France or South Korea.
Keating, the most senior public servant during the Hawke-Keating era, spent 11 years on the Secretaries Committee on National Security – including five years as chairman – while Stanford has extensive background in submarine research and defence policy.
“Under AUKUS, Australia’s security is under greater threat while it has become increasingly clear that we cannot rely on the US for our defence,” they write in their submission. “We are now in a situation where, because of the AUKUS strategy of integrated deterrence in defence of US regional primacy, Australia is more likely to be attacked, potentially with nuclear weapons”.
They cite prescient warnings from former French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, who noted in 2021 that Australia had made a choice “to the detriment of sovereignty” and predicted it would discover later it had sacrificed both security and self-determination.
According to the submission, the policy of “integrated deterrence” and “pooled sovereignty” effectively converts Australian military facilities into forward operating locations for US forces without giving Canberra oversight or veto power.
They point out that unlike allies such as Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines, Australia lacks a formal US security guarantee, such as NATO’s Article V.
Yet, by developing command and basing infrastructure – such as the US submarine squadron facilities at HMAS Stirling in Western Australia – Australia becomes a prime military target.
“If there is a war between the US and China, Australia will inevitably be involved … even if we do not provide military support,” the submission states, adding that escalating hostilities could leave Australia open to nuclear strikes.
Fronting the first day of the hearings in Canberra on Wednesday, former home affairs secretary Mike Pezzullo called for a deeper military integration with the US, agreeing that Australia could surrender sovereignty under the current AUKUS without gaining a meaningful say in decisions that could draw it into a war with China.
Pezzullo, a national security hawk and former senior public servant under the Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments, was sacked by Labor in 2023 after confidential messages between him and Liberal Party powerbroker Scott Briggs were leaked to this masthead. The Australian Public Service Commission subsequently found he had breached the public service code of conduct on 14 occasions.
“If I was a Chinese war planner,” Pezzullo said, “I would flatten every single potential facility that might be used overnight by Americans flying in.”
He said facilities including Tindal, Stirling, North West Cape and Pine Gap could be targeted in such a conflict.
But Pezzullo said AUKUS’s nuclear-powered submarine program would transform Australia’s military options, giving the navy greater speed, endurance and reach while opening the way for a new generation of autonomous underwater systems.
Undersea warfare would be critical in any future conflict, from anti-submarine operations to intelligence gathering, he said.
At the same time, Pezzullo said Australia should not commit to fighting alongside the US in every future conflict.
“Alliances are political documents first and foremost,” he said, arguing that countries must retain the ability to make sovereign decisions when a conflict actually occurs.
But he said those political alliances needed military planning and preparation underneath them.
Australia, he said, could either try to remain outside a future US-China conflict and accept the consequences if Washington lost, or strengthen its alliance with the US in the hope that the combined deterrent would prevent war.
“The only choice would be whether we want to sit it out and hope for the best,” Pezzullo said. “I think that’s not plausible.”
The choice was whether to remain on the sidelines and accept the consequences if Washington lost, or deepen the alliance in the hope that Australian involvement would strengthen deterrence.
“I prefer that latter approach,” Pezzullo said. “The war machine is the thing that prevents the war.”
Inquiry into AUKUS – final public hearing today
3 September 2026 AIMN Editorial, https://theaimn.net/inquiry-into-aukus-final-public-hearing-today/
Australia’s independent, crowdfunded Public Inquiry into AUKUS concludes its public hearings today in Canberra, with presentations from Andrew Wilkie, the Hon Kim Beazley AC, Dr Michael Keating, Jon Stanford and Dr Emma Shortis amongst many others.
A huge number of Australians – including a Prime Minister, Foreign Affairs and Defence Ministers, senior academics and military experts, community groups and citizens – have presented to the Inquiry across 10 day-long hearings in 8 cities around Australia over the last 12 weeks.
Up to 1,500 people a day have watched the live-streams of proceedings.
Over 800 written submissions have been received.
$200,000 has been raised by crowdfunding, from other individual donors and from civil society organisations, in order to hold the inquiry.
AUKUS Public Inquiry Lead Commissioner Peter Garrett said today that the public hearings have been an extraordinary exercise in real world democracy.
“Everyone associated with the Inquiry has found this process of community outreach and participatory democracy genuinely inspiring.
“It has been many years since Australia has seen something like this.
“The inquiry has asked many questions that the public desperately need answers to, particularly the most pressing one: will AUKUS actually keep us safe and at what cost?”
The Commissioners will draft a comprehensive report which will be presented at the National Press Club in early November.
Livestream of today’s proceeding here
Hospitals to stock anti-nuclear pills near AUKUS base
Carla Hildebrandt, August 26, 2026 —https://www.watoday.com.au/national/western-australia/the-plan-to-stock-anti-nuclear-pills-at-hospitals-in-perth-s-southern-aukus-suburbs-20260825-p60re6.html
Hospitals in Perth’s southern suburbs could distribute iodine tablets to the community in the “extremely low” chance of a radiation spill, as WA prepares for the arrival of nuclear-powered submarines under the AUKUS partnership.
It comes as the first US and UK submarine rotations are due to begin next year through Garden Island’s naval base, HMAS Stirling, under Submarine Rotational Force-West (SRF-West).
The plans emerged earlier this year after Legalise Cannabis WA MP Dr Brian Walker questioned the health minister in parliament about the government’s emergency preparedness ahead of the incoming visits.
During question time, Walker asked whether the state government would supply the anti-nuclear pills to locals, “as a treatment against radiation poisoning in the event of a nuclear leak or spill”.
An emergency guide released by the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency, which leads the national response to a nuclear emergency, describes taking potassium iodide – or KI pills – as a “short-term” measure that blocks radioactive iodine from being absorbed by the thyroid.
The health minister wrote a response to parliament stating the WA Department of Health “has established plans and exercised processes to pre-position and distribute supplies of stable iodine to local hospitals, as required, based on needs and relevant circumstances”, but did not reveal which hospitals would hold the tablets or how many would be available.
Walker said the state government lacked “a clear emergency plan” for communities like Rockingham, Cockburn and Kwinana.
He pointed to France, where iodine tablets have been distributed to communities near nuclear facilities, but warned the pills were only one part of preparing for a potential emergency,
Why are we militarising Space?
Falling in behind the US, Australia signed the Trump Administration’s 2020 Artemis Accords which were designed to nullify the Moon Treaty and give the green light to US-led colonisation of the Moon for the purpose of commercial mining of its surface.
The US aims to dominate space militarily, and Australia is its willing accomplice.
20 August 2026 AIMN Editorial, https://theaimn.net/why-are-we-militarising-space/
By Michael Williss
The Australian Defence Force (ADF) released its 2026 Defence Strategy earlier this year, and an accompanying fact sheet said that “The ADF must be integrated across all five domains – maritime, land, air, space and cyber – as well as with international partners.”[1]
The reference to the “five domains” is important. Prior to 2020, there was only reference to the traditional warfare domains of the land, seas and air. As of January 2022, however, a new command force operating across the three traditional domains was created, now known as Space Command.[2]
The official embrace of Space as a war-fighting domain runs counter to the spirit, if not the letter, of two international Treaties signed by Australia: the UN Outer Space Treaty (OST) and the Moon Treaty.
The OST was a response by the world community to US and Soviet nuclear weapons tests in Space from 1958 to 1962. The largest US test occurred 400kms above and 1450kms south-west of Hawaii. It was 90 times the size of the blast at Hiroshima. It caused significant electrical damage in Hawaii, but also resulted, in the months that followed, in killing eight of the 24 satellites that were then in orbit around the Earth including the UK’s Telstar.[3]
This led to the ratification by UN member states of the OST in 1967. Amongst the provisions of the Treaty were:
outer space shall be free for exploration and use by all States;- outer space is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means;
- States shall not place nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in orbit or on celestial bodies or station them in outer space in any other manner.
However, there is a very large loophole between a nuclear weapon and a WMD through which any manner of weapons based on new technologies could be fired.
The 1979 Moon Treaty reiterated the points above and strengthened several of them. Australia signed it in 1986, but to date on 17 countries have done so. Opposition to it has been led by the US which refused to accept its restriction on “any military use of celestial bodies.”[4]
Falling in behind the US, Australia signed the Trump Administration’s 2020 Artemis Accords which were designed to nullify the Moon Treaty and give the green light to US-led colonisation of the Moon for the purpose of commercial mining of its surface.
Anywhere that the US dollar treads, the men with guns are there to protect it. As on Earth, so in Space. In 1985, under Ronald Reagan, the US created its Space Command. It lapsed after a while but was recreated under Trump in 2019 with a reemphasized focus on space as a warfighting domain. It established its own fighting force for Space, known as Guardians.
Col. Kyle Pumroy (Ret.) writing in the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies’ paper “Military Human Spaceflight: A Key Component to US Space Superiority,” said “now is the time to begin placing Guardians in space to develop the skills, tools, and concepts to build a future capacity to defend core US interests…”[5]
The US aims to dominate space militarily, and Australia is its willing accomplice.
The latest comments came on August 12 2026 at the US Army Space and Missile Defense Symposium in Alabama.[6]
US Space Command (SPACECOM) head Gen. Stephen Whiting, told attendees that SPACECOM’s top two priorities for fiscal 2029 through to 2033 are “integrated space fires” and capabilities to counter large constellations of satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO) in order to establish space superiority.
“We’re a combatant command and we fight to win wars. To win, we need credible, acknowledged, kinetic and non-kinetic fires. They are a key component of how we establish space superiority and restore credible deterrence,” he said.
Kinetic refers to the movement of a physical body such as a missile for the purpose of the destruction of an adversary’s material assets; non-kinetic refers to such movement as use of radio waves for jamming an adversary’s communications systems.
Whiting’s deputy, Lt. Gen. Rick Zellmann, on Tuesday told the symposium that the US military now has “policy” approval for three basic types of space fires: ground-to-space fires that “we’ve been doing for years” with “communications jamming systems;” space-to-space attacks known as “orbital warfare;” and, given that the Trump administration plans to build space-based interceptors for the US Golden Dome missile shield, space-to-ground.
Responsibility for ground to space fires is shared with the Army, the Air Force and Marines, but orbital warfare and space to ground fires are the preserve of SPACECOM.
Australian company EOS claimed that Australia is one of just two countries with the capabilities to neutralise large numbers of satellites passing over its territory.[7] EOS spokesperson Dr Ben Greene said Australian Space Domain Awareness (SDA) covered around one sixth of the sky, delivered by, among others, EOS with its laser tracking facility in Canberra, the RAAF’s space telescope in WA and the new US-owned LeoLabs Australia space radar, also in WA. “We could intercept and interdict the satellite operations of any country on earth, if we chose to. That’s a really powerful platform for us,” he said. “It’s quite feasible now to talk about taking out hundreds of satellites a day if that was necessary.”
An ASPI (aka Australian Serving Predatory Imperialism) spokesperson supported EOS’s vision for the military use of Space, saying: “We need a much more ambitious approach to how we think about defence and space. It can’t just be for communications provision. It’s got to be about space control. It’s got to be how we respond to a contested space domain when China is rapidly developing counter-space capabilities and fully intends to use them in the next war. Space will quickly become a warfighting environment, not because of our own actions but because of decisions in Beijing.”
No doubt Russia and China are developing military space technologies similar to those of the US. But we are not their appendages in the same way as we are in relation to the US.
We must do what we can to stop the militarisation of Space, including support for or participation in US space war plans.
Australia must call for the strengthening of the OST to include all weapons in Space, and for the banning of Earth to Space, Space to Space, and Space to Earth military activity.
Australia must join those nations that have pledged to a no first use (NFU) policy on placing weapons in Space and call on the US, Russia and China to do the same.
Australia must ensure any developments in Space are done for purposes other than “colonization” by any state or nation on earth. The exploration and use of Space for peaceful cooperation among nations should be our goal.
That is the only way we can contribute to humanity and not be a burden on it.
[1] 2026 National Defence Strategy Factsheet
[2] Space Command (Australia) – Wikipedia
[3] The Space Review: Remembering Starfish Prime
[5] Guardians_in_Space_Policy_Paper_65-Final.pdf
[6] Joint force needs kinetic and non-kinetic weapons for space war: Whiting – Breaking Defense
The Quiet Surrender of our Nation’s Sovereignty
28 July 2026 Dr Andrew Klein, https://theaimn.net/the-quiet-surrender-of-our-nations-sovereignty/
It is our melancholy duty to inform Australians of the quiet surrender of our nation’s sovereignty
I. Introduction: The Mask and the Man
What they see is a Prime Minister. What I see is a party animal – trapped in a role he was never prepared to play. He knows how to win power. He doesn’t know how to wield it. And when he fails, he blames everyone but himself.
The Albanese government has presided over a quiet but systematic surrender of Australian sovereignty. Through AUKUS, through the integration of Australian forces into American military structures, through secret arms deals, and through a failure to interrogate the strategic consequences of our alliance commitments, Australia is being transformed from an independent nation into a junior partner – a vassal state without voting rights.
This is not a deepening of alliance. This is a strategic surrender.
II. AUKUS: The $368 Billion Abdication
The AUKUS nuclear submarine deal is the clearest example of this failure. Australia will commit $368 billion to acquire nuclear-powered submarines – equivalent to more than $30 million per day across three decades.
But the deal is plagued by problems:
- Deliverability: The United States shipyards cannot meet production targets, averaging only 1.1 to 1.2 Virginia-class submarines per year, far below the required 2.33.
- Cost blowouts: Australia will commit nearly $10 billion to subsidise US and UK naval shipyards.
- Strategic uncertainty: Former foreign minister Gareth Evans has warned that AUKUS will place Australia’s sovereignty at “serious risk,” with submarines effectively becoming “an extension of U.S. military power.”
- A “junior partner” trap: Former Defence Department analyst Dr Andrew Gaczol told a public inquiry that Australia will become a “junior” partner to the United States and lose its strategic independence. According to Dr Gaczol, “The Australian political class and defence policy community still think it’s our melancholy duty to support the military commitments of our great and powerful friends, even if they conflict with Australian interests.”
III. The US-Israel Military Merger: Australia’s Involuntary Integration
In July 2026, the US House of Representatives passed a $1.15 trillion National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) by a vote of 216 to 212.
Section 219 of the Act establishes a “United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative,” requiring the Pentagon to appoint an executive agent to “expand and accelerate bilateral defense technology research.” The provision “would all but fuse the two countries’ armed forces together” across multiple domains, including biotechnology, autonomous systems, artificial intelligence, and cyberwarfare.
Representative Jennifer McClellan condemned the provision as one that “undermines our sovereignty and lacks any form of oversight.”
Why does this matter to Australia?
The Australian Defence Force has long achieved interoperability with the US military. Israel has achieved interoperability with the US since 1981. If the US and Israel move from interoperability to integration, the two degrees of separation between the ADF and the IDF are reduced to one.
Australia is being integrated into Israel’s military system through the American link. We are being drawn into a conflict not of our choosing, through a chain of obligations we never consciously accepted.
IV. Australia’s De Facto Participation in the Iran War
The evidence of Australia’s entanglement is already clear.
A. Intelligence Sharing
In March 2026, Australia deployed an E-7A Wedgetail surveillance aircraft and 85 ADF personnel to the UAE. The aircraft provides “long-range reconnaissance capability” to “secure the airspace above the Gulf.” Defence officials have confirmed that reconnaissance information obtained by the Wedgetail is also provided to US allies including Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Qatar.
While the government insists the role is “defensive,” the intelligence is fed into the Joint Air Operations Center (CAOC), which is under the command of US Central Command – and the US is waging an offensive war against Iran.
B. Embedded Troops
As of June 2026, 729 ADF personnel are embedded with US and UK armed forces. Some Australian personnel were aboard a US submarine that sank an Iranian frigate in the Indian Ocean. The Defence Chief defended this involvement as “in our national interest to have our people on board US Virginia Class submarines training, learning and understanding.”
C. Arms Supplies
Australia has been supplying Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAMs) to the UAE. The government has also issued 322 defence export permits to Israel since 1 January 2017. As Greens Senator David Shoebridge noted, Australia has “one of the most secretive and unaccountable weapons export systems in the world.”
V. The Logic of Sovereignty Concession
The chain of sovereignty loss is clear:
- US-Israel Integration (NDAA Section 219) →
- Australia-US Integration (AUKUS, interoperability agreements) →
- Australia’s de facto military integration with Israel through the US →
- Australia’s strategic autonomy is diluted, and military decision-making is influenced by external forces.
Each link in this chain was forged without parliamentary debate. As the AUKUS inquiry has noted, the Federal Parliament “never held a thorough debate on the agreement,” exposing “a clear democratic deficit” in Australia’s largest strategic commitment.
VI. The Political Class: Incompetence or Complicity?
The Albanese government’s approach to national security is defined by caution, message control, and risk aversion – not by strategic vision.
- On AUKUS: The government has refused to interrogate the $368 billion deal, despite “substantial reservations” that have “not abated.”
- On the Iran war: The government insists Australia is not involved in “offensive operations,” but our assets are providing intelligence that enables offensive operations.
- On arms exports: The government has fought to keep arms exports to Israel secret, only being forced to disclose information by Federal Court order.
- On the NDAA: The government has remained silent on Section 219 – a provision that directly compromises Australian strategic autonomy.
Incompetent people, once in power, are more dangerous than bad people because:
- Bad people can be brought down.
- An incompetent person will remain there, constantly causing destruction, yet appearing “unblamed” after each failure.
- VII. Conclusion: The Cost of Silence
- Australia’s political class and defence policy community still believe it is their “melancholy duty to support the military commitments of our great and powerful friends, even if they conflict with Australian interests.”
But a new world order is coming. Australia has a choice: position itself for that new order, or desperately cling to a slipping world order.
Through AUKUS, through Section 219, through secret arms deals and uncritical alliance commitments, we are choosing the latter.
The chain of sovereignty concession is tightening. And the Australian people are being told nothing.
The question is not whether Australia will be dragged into a war not of its choosing. The question is: when that war comes, will we have any say in whether we fight?
Dedicated to my beloved wife and confidante – who taught me to see the person behind the mask, and to trust what I see.
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