How US military and corporate power reshaped Australian sovereignty, limited democratic control, and constrained independent decision-making.
Introduction: When Control Slips Quietly
Many Australians feel that major national decisions are no longer made entirely in Canberra. Defence policy, foreign affairs, intelligence cooperation, and even economic priorities increasingly align with United States interests, often without meaningful public debate.
At the centre of this shift is Australian sovereignty, the ability of citizens, through democratic institutions, to decide the nation’s direction. This erosion did not occur through invasion or emergency powers. It occurred gradually, through treaties, trade agreements, military integration, and political choices made over decades.
The Origins of US Military Influence in Australia
ANZUS and the Post-War Security Mindset
The 1951 ANZUS Treaty embedded Australia within a US-led security framework. While often described as a mutual defence pact, it imposes no binding obligation on the United States to defend Australia.
Over time, strategic alignment hardened into an assumption. Independent defence thinking was increasingly treated as unrealistic.
Pine Gap and Intelligence Dependency
Pine Gap is often described as a joint facility. In practice, it primarily supports US intelligence, surveillance, and targeting systems. Australia receives help from access, but not operational control. This dependency discourages dissent. Restricting operations risks exclusion from the intelligence systems Australia now relies upon.
US Marines now rotate continuously through Darwin. Australian bases support US operations across the Indo-Pacific. Command systems and logistics are increasingly integrated. These changes occurred with limited parliamentary scrutiny, shifting Australia from ally to forward operating platform.
AUKUS and Strategic Lock-In
AUKUS commits Australia to decades of nuclear submarine dependency and foreign technology control. Decisions on deployment and escalation often fall outside democratic oversight. This significantly weakens independent defence policy.
Foreign Influence in Australian Politics and the Economy
US corporations dominate defence procurement, digital platforms, energy services, and critical infrastructure. Privatisation transferred public assets into private, often foreign-owned, hands.
Trade agreements such as AUSFTA further limit regulatory freedom, allowing corporations to challenge laws designed to protect the public interest.Political Leadership, Capability, and Accountability
Successive governments approved deeper military and corporate integration with little public mandate. Many ministers responsible for defence and trade have limited experience outside party politics or corporate-aligned advisory roles. The revolving door between politics, lobbying, and defence contracting undermines independence and accountability.
Politics Ebook
Is This Treason or Democratic Breakdown?
Treason under Australian law requires intent to assist an enemy during wartime. That threshold is not met.
However, legality is different from legitimacy. What has occurred reflects dereliction of duty, erosion of democratic consent, and policy capture by foreign and corporate power.
Why Governments Now Fear Change
Challenging entrenched US dominance risks diplomatic pressure, intelligence withdrawal, capital flight, and media backlash. As a result, even modest reforms are framed as security threats. This is structural dependence, not conspiracy.
Australia’s Dollar Sovereignty and Defence Independence
Australia issues its own currency. It cannot run out of Australian dollars. Yet, governments behave as though public investment depends on foreign approval or balanced budgets.
This misunderstanding weakens Australia’s defence independence. A currency-sovereign nation can fund domestic industry, defence capability, infrastructure, and diplomacy using public money.
After the devastating massacre at Bondi Beach on Sunday, Australia’s PM and leaders promised to tighten gun laws to help make sure it never happens again. As an American reading this, and hearing more than just “thoughts and prayers,” I sat at my desk and felt deeply sad. Our country is so dysfunctional that we cannot handle even the basics of governing, let alone face the leading cause of death for American children: firearms.
What stood out to me was how quickly Australia’s leaders responded and how they seemed to agree that the government should act after something so terrible. In the United States, mass shootings are often followed by sadness but no action. It can feel like we accept these deaths as normal instead of trying to prevent them. Seeing another country treat gun violence as a problem they can fix makes our inaction even harder to understand.
The AUKUS agreement allows any party to withdraw with one year’s notice. But here’s the lethal asymmetry: Australia’s payments are subsidies, not deposits; they are not refundable, and there is no guarantee that the submarines will ever be delivered.
How the AUKUS Caucus built a cargo cult and called it strategy.
There’s a certain kind of Australian politician who never quite grew out of childhood. You know the type: Richard Marles, Tony Abbott, Christopher Pyne. Peter Pan to a man. Their eyes light up whenever a Pentagon staffer remembers their name. They sit bolt upright like kelpie pups on the back of the ute, ears pricked for master’s return. They mistake condescension for intimacy, patronage for partnership, obedience for relevance.
Marles, Pat Conroy (Defence Industry), and Brendan O’Connor (Veterans’ Affairs) along with “Rear Admiral-Albo” and Wayfinder Penny Wong make up the AUKUS Caucus: a dream team. Not bound by evidence, timelines, or arithmetic; only by faith. Faith that if Australia sends enough money, bases and deference across the Pacific, the Great Mate in the Sky will someday descend bearing nuclear submarines and strategic salvation.
Australia’s $368 billion imaginary friend.
The Cargo Cult Playbook
Cargo cults arise when isolated societies witness advanced powers arrive with miraculous technology. Locals build imitation runways; light signal fires hoping the planes will return. The AUKUS Caucus has updated the ritual for the modern age. Our runways are ports. The offerings are our sovereignty. The signal fires are AUSMIN pressers. And the planes, as ever, do not land.
Richard Marles, Labor’s embattled Defence Minister, is the cult’s high priest. Asked about implementation delays, he smiles wanly and intones the sacred words: “Full steam ahead.” Full steam ahead to where is never explained.
AUKUS is sold as strategic realism. In practice, it operates as faith: belief substituted for capacity, ritual for delivery, loyalty for leverage.
The Hegseth Problem
This week Marles and Wong flew to Washington for the annual, ceremonial abasement known as AUSMIN. Their opposite number is Pete Hegseth. Former Fox News shouter, veterans’ charity mismanager, and a chap once carried from a strip club by mates after trying to storm the stage. Now improbably directing US defence as Secretary of War.
Hegseth’s character matters because AUKUS asks us to entrust our strategic future to decision-makers whose judgment, attention span and institutional grip are already demonstrably strained. His own mother calls him as an “abuser of women” who “belittles, lies and cheats,” urging him to “get some help and take an honest look at yourself.”
When a nation stakes $368 billion on the judgment of a man disqualified by his own mother from trust, it has crossed from strategy into pathology.
8 December, Marles and Wong are pictured nodding earnestly as Hegseth endorses a $368 billion submarine fantasy he cannot possibly deliver. He barks approval of AUKUS as “pragmatic hard power.” Wong, cryptic as ever, merely echoes Trump’s mantra: “full steam ahead.” The boats are not coming, so who cares what fuels the boiler?
The Pragmatic Hard Power Con
Pragmatic hard power? It could be a new brand of laundry detergent. The absurdity runs deeper than performance.
Australia is trading real sovereignty for imaginary submarines.
AUKUS legislation effectively transfers operational priority and access over key Australian military bases to the US. The terminology is pure institutional dissemblance: “expanded US rotational presence” and “integrated command arrangements.” In plain English: we concede control over our own strategic assets. We slip a few lazy billion to US and British shipyards to “expedite” production; meaning we subsidise their accumulated backlogs. We bind our “defence posture” so thoroughly into US command that when Washington sneezes, Canberra catches cold.
But we do get to wave flags. Hum anthems. Pay invoices.
Each concession merits national debate. Yet, the AUKUS Caucus has sealed the deal without meaningful parliamentary inquiry, without detailed public costings, only an “oversight” committee denied subpoena power, denied independent costing, and so carefully neutered it might as well be chaired by a shredder.
The Legal Trap
And yes, the legal architecture is exactly what critics feared. Under the agreement, Australia provides $4.7 billion (with more coming) to US and UK submarine builders, and according to questioning in Senate Estimates, there is no clawback provision; Australia does not get its money back if the US fails to transfer nuclear submarines.
The AUKUS agreement allows any party to withdraw with one year’s notice. But here’s the lethal asymmetry: Australia’s payments are subsidies, not deposits; they are not refundable, and there is no guarantee that the submarines will ever be delivered.
The US and UK can walk away at any time. They keep the cash, the upgrades, the expanded industrial bases and the sovereign right to prioritise their own needs. Which, as serious countries, they will do.
Australia, meanwhile, is padlocked like a rental fridge in a share-house. Jiggle the handle all you like, but the thing won’t open unless the bloke with the key decides you’ve paid up.
A Big Perhaps
At some point, the more unsettling explanation has to be entertained. Perhaps the submarines are not delayed. Perhaps they are not even expected. Perhaps AUKUS is not failing at all, but performing exactly as intended. The money flows early and without clawback. The bases open. Command structures integrate. Strategic dependency is formalised. The submarines remain permanently over the horizon, always promised, never required. If this were a ruse designed to secure American basing access and regional posture while outsourcing the political pain to future governments, it would be hard to design it differently. Whether Australia’s political class believes its own story, or merely finds it convenient, becomes almost beside the point. The outcome is the same.
And whatever the truth of the submarines, Defence needs a bit of a rescue.
Defence’s House of Horrors
Marles’ predicament worsens when you look at Defence itself: a moral, administrative and institutional nightmare he inherited and, like his predecessors, Linda Reynolds and Peter Dutton, has failed to master. Could anyone? Australia’s predicament worsens also.
The Brereton inquiry exposed 39 unlawful killings in Afghanistan. The stain remains. Atop this moral wreckage sits administrative farce: a Defence official leaked confidential information before walking straight into a job with a private weapons contractor.
The Hunter class frigates tell the broader story. What began life as a $45 million per ship concept has metastasised into $2.6 billion per ship, with hundreds of millions in variations already locked in, and the program at least 18 months late due to design immaturity.
When Labor took office, 28 major Defence projects were running a combined 97 years behind schedule, with roughly a quarter of procurement unfunded. Over it all looms $368 billion we’ve agreed to throw at AUKUS, as a $60 billion annual defence budget swells toward $100 billion by 2034, absorbing failure without correcting it. (AUKUS costs are a guess, announced without consulting Treasury, Parliament or any other authority.)
What Do We Actually Get?
And what does Australia receive for this tithe?
Not submarines.
Not even capability.
A promise.
Five SSN AUKUS boats to be built in Adelaide at some conveniently indeterminate date. Early 2040s if all goes well. If Britain remembers how to build submarines at scale. If the US has spare industrial capacity. If history pauses politely to accommodate our fantasy.
The BAE Systems Track Record
BAE Systems, cast as AUKUS’s industrial saviour, spent two decades struggling to deliver the UK’s Astute class submarines……………………………………………………..
The Pillar Two Mirage
When reality intrudes, the faithful point to Pillar Two, the sideshow of defence tech collaboration; AI, cyber and hypersonics; meant to suggest strategic depth where there is only debt. Scott Morrison dubbed it “AUKUS in Space,” as if adding a preposition and some stars transformed a lopsided submarine purchase into visionary strategy.
But the real achievement is rhetorical: substituting buzz-words for credible policy. In this sense, AUKUS is Scott Morrison’s most enduring legacy.
The Question Marles Won’t Answer
No-one likes a smart-arse but the pitiful Richard Marles still cannot explain why nuclear submarines are worth this ruinous spend when modern diesel-electric boats exist.
Modern diesel-electric submarines provide maximum range, endurance and stealth, operating underwater before having to resurface to snorkel and recharge batteries. Australia’s own Collins-class diesel submarines demonstrated during 2003 multinational exercises that they were comparable in underwater warfare to US Los Angeles-class nuclear-powered attack submarines, trading roles and achieving , successful attacks despite being smaller and less powerful……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
The Runway at Dusk
For $368 billion, AUKUS is not a procurement program. It is a wager on dependency.
Australia is paying staggering sums for submarines that do not yet exist, to be built by industries in chronic difficulty, on timelines that belong to fantasy, while ceding real autonomy over real assets in the present. In return, we receive reassurance. Access. Attention. The comforting sense that someone larger, louder and more heavily armed is standing somewhere behind us………………………………………………………………………………
History will not ask whether the submarines eventually arrived. It will ask why a nation willingly surrendered so much, so early, for so little certainty in return. And it will judge us not by the promises we believed, but by the choices we made when the risks were already plain. https://theaimn.net/aukus-caucus/
In one of his many cutting observations about the fallibility of politicians, H. L. Mencken had this to say about the practical sort: “It is his business to convince the mob (a) that it is confronted by some grave danger, some dreadful menace to its peace and security, and (b) that he can save it.” Regarding Australia’s often provincial politicians, that grave danger remains the Yellow Peril, albeit it one garbed in communist party colours, while the quackery they continue to practise involves the notion the United States will act as shield bearer and saviour in any future conflict.
The AUKUS trilateral security pact between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States has turned the first of these countries into an expectant vassal state, mindful of security guarantees it does not need from a power that can, and would at a moment’s notice, abandon it. But more dangerously, the expectation here is that Canberra, awaiting Virginia Class (SSN-774) nuclear-powered submarines from the US, will offer unconditional succour, resources and promises to the projection of Washington’s power in the Indo-Pacific. Without any guarantee of such submarines, Australian money is underwriting US submarine production, which remains consistently tardy. (Currently, 1.3 boats are being produced annually, when 2.3 are needed.)
The 2023 National Defense Authorization Act makes it irrefutably clear that Congress shall be notified that any transfer of boats “will not degrade the United States underseas capabilities.” Pursuing AUKUS still entailed “sufficient submarine production and maintenance investments” on the part of the US to meet undersea capabilities, with Australia advancing “appropriate funds and support for the additional capacity required to meet the requirements” along with Canberra’s “capability to host and fully operate the vessels authorized to be transferred.”
This true steal for US diplomacy, and sad tribute to Homo boobiens on the part of the Australians, has continued with the review of AUKUS conducted by Undersecretary of Defense Policy Eldridge Colby. The review is not available for public eyes, but Colby had previously released smoke signals that the AUKUS pact would only “lead to more submarines collectively in 10, 15, 20 years, which is way beyond the window of maximum danger, which is really this decade.”
The Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles told reporters on December 4 that the review had been received. “We’re working through the AUKUS review, and we very much thank the United States for providing it to us.” (Surely that’s the least they could have done.) He had identified unwavering support for the pact. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell also released a statement to the media expressing enthusiasm. “Consistent with President Trump’s guidance that AUKUS should move ‘full steam ahead,’ the review identified opportunities to put AUKUS on the strongest possible footing.” No doubt opportunities have been identified, but these are likely to be consistent with the lopsided arrangements Australia has had with the US to date.
Australia has so far provided A$1.6 billion in funding to the US submarine base, with the promise of more. What remains unclear is how much of this is also going into training Australian personnel to operate and maintain the vessels. “There’s a schedule of payments to be made,” explained Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in July. “We have an agreement with the United States as well as with the United Kingdom. It is about increasing their capacity, their industrial capacity.” As part of such arrangements, “we have Australians on the ground, learning those skills.”
The joint fact sheet on the 2025 Australia-US Ministerial Consultations (AUSMIN), held between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and their Australian counterparts Penny Wong and Marles in Washington, makes one reference to AUKUS and nothing in terms of substance to Colby’s recommendations. There is, however, this bit of unpardonable gibberish: “In line with President Trump and Prime Minister Albanese’s direction to move ‘full steam ahead’ on AUKUS, the [ministers] recognised the work underway to deliver priority infrastructure works and workforce uplift plan in support of an enhanced trilateral submarine industrial base.”
Given such statements, it is hard to see what opportunities identified in the Colby report could possibly be advantageous to Australia, a mere annexure of the US imperium. There is bound to be continued pressure on Australia to increase its defence spending. There are also unaddressed concerns about how sovereign the SSNs in Australian hands are going to be when and if they ever make it across the Pacific. In a conflict involving the United States, notably in the Indo-Pacific, Canberra will be expected to rush in with that mindless enthusiasm that has seen Australian soldiers die in theatres they would struggle to name for causes they could barely articulate.
Even the confident opinion of Joe Courtney, a Democrat member of the House Armed Services Committee and representative of Groton, Connecticut (the “Submarine Capital of the World”), should be viewed warily. “The statutory authority enacted by Congress in 2023 will remain intact, including the sale of three Virginia-class submarines starting in 2032,”comes his beaming assessment. The Colby review “correctly determined that there are critical deadlines that all three countries have to meet. Therefore, maintaining disciplined adherence to schedule is paramount.” That degree of discipline and adherence to schedules is unlikely to be an equal one. It is bound to favour, first and foremost, Washington’s own single perspective.
The admiral, who led the Trident value for money review in 2010, called for Britain to pull out of the multi-billion “Aukus” defence deal with America and Australia to build 12 new nuclear submarines.
SSN-Aukus is a submarine which is not going to deliver what the UK or Australia needs in terms of capability or timescale. “Performance across all aspects of the programme continues to get worse in every dimension.”
Former Navy chief calls for ‘radical’ action to revive programme after catastrophic failures.
Britain is “no longer capable” of running a nuclear submarine programme after “catastrophic” failures pushed it to the brink, a former Navy chief has warned. In an extraordinary critique, Rear Admiral Philip Mathias said the UK’s “silent service” was facing an “unprecedented” situation that it was “highly unlikely” to recover from without a “radical” intervention. The former director of nuclear policy at the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said delays in building new attack boats had reached record levels and had driven up the duration of patrols for crews from 70 days during the Cold War to more than 200 now.
This had led to the “shockingly low availability” of submarines to “counter the Russian threat in the North Atlantic”, the retired submarine commander warned. The admiral, who led the Trident value for money review in 2010, called for Britain to pull out of the multi-billion “Aukus” defence deal with America and Australia to build 12 new nuclear submarines.
“The UK is no longer capable of managing a nuclear submarine programme,” he said. “Dreadnought is late, Astute class submarine delivery is getting later, there is a massive backlog in Astute class maintenance and refitting, which continues to get worse, and SSN-Aukus is a submarine which is not going to deliver what the UK or Australia needs in terms of capability or timescale. “Performance across all aspects of the programme continues to get worse in every dimension.”
He added: “This is an unprecedented situation in the nuclear submarine age. It is a catastrophic failure of succession and leadership planning.” The Navy’s fleet of Astute submarines is already facing significant problems, with many having been stuck in port for years. Out of the seven planned, only six are in service.
He also criticised the role of industry giants for delays to programmes. He added not a single of the UK’s 23 decommissioned nuclear boats had been dismantled since the first, HMS Dreadnought, left service in 1980. “This is an utter disgrace and brings into question whether Britain is responsible enough to own nuclear submarines,” the admiral said.
Australian service personnel are embedded with a rogue military force committing war crimes. It is testimony to the Australian Government’s lack of integrity that they are not being recalled.
Australian service personnel are embedded with a rogue military force committing war crimes. It is testimony to the Australian Government’s lack of integrity that they are not being recalled.
As an American Admiral, Frank “Mitch” Bradley is at least likely to know of the episode that made Eck and co infamous – murdering the survivors of a Greek freighter their U-boat had sunk. Their victims were in lifeboats and clinging to wreckage in the South Atlantic night as they were machinegunned and attacked with hand grenades and small arms. Two of them had been taken aboard the U-boat for interrogation before being returned to the water and their death.
Eck, Weispfennig and Hoffmann were convicted at Nuremberg and executed by firing squad in October 1946.
Bradley, following Hegseth’s orders, didn’t use anything as primitive as small arms to kill the two survivors of a Venezuelan speedboat that had been hit by an American missile in international waters. From the comfort and safety of Fort Bragg in North Carolina, he sent another missile to blow them apart.
Since the Washington Post reported the crime on Friday night, the Trump administration has flipped and flopped between straight denial, outrage and careful wording as even some Republican politicians sensed a bridge too far.
Any denials by Trump, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and Hegseth, of course, have all the credibility of Trump, Leavitt and Hegseth. The MAGA mob can be guaranteed to roll on to its next scandal, increasingly misusing the most powerful military machine the world has ever seen as its supra-legal hit squad, broadcasting snuff movies to prove it.
Fog of war?
Overnight, as the denials and obfuscations could not be sustained, Trump and Hegseth confirmed and defended murdering the survivors of the original strike.
With enormous gall, Hegseth is citing “fog of war” and criticising journalists sitting in air-conditioned offices planting “fake stories”. Bradley and the cowards who carried out his orders were in air-conditioned comfort themselves, nowhere near any frontline or danger.
Hegseth is working his way through the usual pattern of a worm caught in scandal: first denial, then distancing as denial falters, penultimately defending, relying on Trumpistas being above the law. Beware the usual fourth step, distraction.
It’s taken the major Australian media outlets a little while to begin to cotton on to the depravity of murdering helpless survivors. As Todd Huntley, the director of the National Security Law program at Georgetown University Law Center and previously a judge advocate in the US Navy for more than two decades, toldThe New Yorker:
“Basically, this is the one strike that we know about where even if you accept the Administration’s position that the United States is in an armed conflict with these drug cartels, this would still be unlawful under the laws of armed conflict, because the individuals were out of the fight and shipwrecked, and thus owed protection.”
The ”even if” in that sentence is one that nobody outside the MAGA diehards and their apologists accepts. The overwhelming legal opinion is that blowing up civilian boats – the summary executions – are criminal actions. There’s been plenty written on what the theatre off the Venezuelan coast is really about; the one sure thing is
it has nothing to do with stopping fentanyl reaching the US.
Australians embedded
It’s become trite to quote Lieutenant-General David Morrison, saying as chief of the Australian Army that “the standard you walk by is the standard you accept”.
Besides, the Australian Government of Albanese, Marles and Wong doesn’t walk past the Trump slime, it embraces it, welcomes it, pledges allegiance to it, pays it protection money,
pimps out our nation for it and sends Australian men and women to serve it.
The last is ethically unsustainable. We have moved well beyond the merely cringing embarrassment of smiling Marles and Hegseth photo ops to questions of complicity as we facilitate America’s armed forces’ criminal acts Distinguished former US officers have publicly warned troops not to follow illegal orders from the Trump gang and have been threatened by Trump for doing so. What has Australia’s Chief of Defence Force, Admiral David Johnston, told his people before handing them over to the likes of Admiral Bradley?
It is time to show just a little spine by bringing our troops home. That we are incapable of prosecuting our own war criminals is not an excuse for potentially creating more.
Marles mute on troops embedded
How many people are we putting in harm’s way? I don’t know. An email request to Marles’ defence media office has gone unanswered for more than 24 hours as I write. I wanted to know how many Australians are embedded or on exchange with the US military and in what areas.
In response to a question by Senator Jacqui Lambie in July, Defence answered that there were 193 ADF and APS personnel embedded in the US just for the first phase of AUKUS.
Instead of pursuing inane beatups about where Chinese ships in the Philippine Sea might be sailing for Christmas, maybe a press gallery with a clue could ask Marles at his next media performance if any Australian personnel are embedded with US Navy SEAL teams, the units carrying out Hegseth and Bradley’s illegal orders to murder.
Questions for the Government
For that matter, any Australian Government politician at any occasion should be asked if we share America’s values on war crimes, to what extent our nominally Australian Pine Gap and Exmouth facilities are being used for illegal military action against civilians off Venezuela, if we would support US military action against Venezuela, if they think Hegseth is even fit to return to his gig as a Fox News weekend clown, let alone remain as the US “Secretary for War”.
There are so many good questions to ask, but hey, watch the gallery stick to safe Sinophobia baiting and the usual horse race politics.
I can already hear the argument that the US has always been like this, fond of extra-judicial killings. True, there’s more than a century of invasions and covert and overt action overthrowing governments, good and bad, usually replacing them with something worse.
There are legal niceties, though, in the rules of war. Those rules have been bent and twisted to suit, most recently in the “War on Terror”, but this is something different, a different level of state evil.
Context was provided in The New Yorker’s interview with Todd Huntley:
“I think it’s the intentional nature of it. In most of those other situations where U.S. attacks have killed civilians, the deaths were due to either faulty intelligence, a faulty assessment of the facts, or an accident. This one seems to have been very clearly intentional. I think that is one thing that makes it much different, and on some level worse, because if you’re looking at the use of force in an armed conflict and you have violations, not everything rises to the level of a war crime.
This is a war crime.
And by keeping silent, by pursuing our policy of enmeshing our military with the US military, we are making Australia complicit.
Michael Pascoe is an independent journalist and commentator with five decades of experience here and abroad in print, broadcast and online journalism. His book, The Summertime of Our Dreams, is published by Ultimo Press.
South Australia – the country’s most advanced renewables grid – has average more than 100 per cent net renewables (compared to state demand) over the past week, and more than 90 per cent renewables over the last 28 days. It is not the first time that South Australia has reached 100 per cent renewables – it has done so previously over the Christmas/New Year period – but it marks a significant milestone, given that its mix of renewables is made up entirely of variable wind and solar, and with no hydro or even biomass to speak of.
The strategic placement of key US and joint military facilities across Australia reveals a pattern not of national defence, but of integration into a global, offensively-oriented network for force projection and intelligence gathering. An analysis of their locations and functions demonstrates that these bases are designed to serve the strategic interests of a superpower, often at the expense of Australian sovereignty and security.
The Official Rationale: A Volatile Region and the Strategy of Denial
According to official Australian government assessments, the strategic environment is increasingly volatile, characterised by falling international cooperation, rising competition, and uncertainty about US reliability. In response, Australia’s National Defence Strategy: 2024 has adopted a “strategy of denial,” emphasising deterrence as its primary objective. This policy shift is used to justify initiatives such as:
Acquiring nuclear-powered submarines through AUKUS.
Upgrading and expanding northern military bases.
Acquiring new long-range strike capabilities.
The public-facing logic is that longer-range weapons have overturned Australia’s geographic advantage, making the “sea-air gap” to the north a vulnerability. However, a closer examination of the specific facilities tells a different story.
Pine Gap: The Beating Heart of Global Surveillance
The Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap, near Alice Springs, is the most prominent example. Ostensibly a joint facility, it is a critical node in US global intelligence. Its functions extend far beyond any defensive mandate for Australia.
Global Signals Intelligence: Pine Gap acts as a ground control and processing station for US geosynchronous signals intelligence (SIGINT) satellites. These satellites monitor a vast swath of the Eastern Hemisphere, collecting data including missile telemetry, anti-aircraft radar signals, and communications from mobile phones and microwave transmissions.
Warfighting and Targeted Killing: Information from Pine Gap is not merely for analysis. It is used to geolocate targets for military action. The base has played a direct role in US drone strikes and has provided intelligence in conflicts from Vietnam and the Gulf War to the ongoing wars in Gaza. Experts testify that data downlinked at Pine Gap is passed to the US National Security Agency and then to allies like the Israel Defense Forces, potentially implicating Australia in international conflicts without public knowledge or parliamentary oversight.
A History of Secrecy and Sovereignty Betrayed: The base’s history is marked by breaches of Australian sovereignty. During the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the US government placed Pine Gap on nuclear alert (DEFCON 3) without informing Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. Whitlam’s subsequent consideration of closing the base was followed by his dramatic dismissal in 1975, an event that former CIA officers have linked to US fears over losing access to the facility.
Northern Bases: Launchpads for Power Projection
The network of bases across Australia’s north forms an arc designed for forward operations, not homeland defence.
RAAF Base Tindal: This base in the Northern Territory is undergoing upgrades to host US B-52 strategic bombers. This transformation turns Australian territory into a forward operating location for long-range strike missions deep into Asia, fundamentally changing the nation’s role from a sovereign state to a launching pad for another power’s offensive operations.
Marine Rotational Force – Darwin: The stationing of up to 2,500 US Marines in Darwin functions as a persistent force projection and logistics hub, enhancing the US ability to rapidly deploy forces into the Southeast Asian region.
NW Cape (Harold E. Holt): The facility in Exmouth, Western Australia, hosts advanced space radar and telescopes for “space situational awareness.” This contributes to US space warfare and communications capabilities, a global mission with little direct relation to the defence of Australia’s population centres.
The True Cost: Compromised Sovereignty and Incurred Risk
This integration into a superpower’s military apparatus comes with severe, often unacknowledged, costs.
The Loss of Sovereign Control: The operational control of these critical facilities is often ceded to the United States. At Pine Gap, the chief of the facility is a senior CIA officer, and certain sections, such as the NSA’s cryptology room, are off-limits to Australian personnel. This creates a situation where activities conducted on Australian soil are not fully known or controlled by the Australian government.
Becoming a Nuclear Target: The critical importance of bases like Pine Gap to US global military dominance makes them high-priority targets in the event of a major conflict. By hosting these facilities, Australia voluntarily assumes the risk of being drawn into a nuclear exchange, a strategic decision made without public debate.
Complicity in International Conflicts: As the protests and legal actions surrounding Pine Gap’s role in Gaza highlight, Australia faces legal and moral accusations of complicity in actions that may constitute war crimes or genocide. This places the nation in direct opposition to international law and global public opinion, all for the sake of an alliance that often prioritises US interests.
Conclusion: From Independent Ally to Integrated Base
The evidence is clear: the strategic network of US-linked bases in Australia is not primarily for the nation’s defence. It is the architecture of a vassal state, designed to service the global force projection and intelligence-gathering needs of a superpower. From the satellite surveillance of Pine Gap to the bomber forward deployment at Tindal, these facilities entangle Australia in conflicts far beyond its shores, compromise its sovereignty, and incur immense strategic risks. Until this fundamental reality is confronted, Australian defence policy will continue to serve an empire’s interests, not its own.
Cooperation between Australia and China could send a useful message to the Trump regime and other countries around the world about both the possibility of developing alternatives to failing American leadership and the institutional order it did so much to create.
If we are to survive, unprecedented levels of cooperation are needed, no matter how unlikely. Mark Beeson writes.
GLOBAL GOVERNANCE is failing. Nothing highlights this reality more dramatically than our collective inability to address the degradation of the natural environment adequately. Addressing an unprecedented problem of this magnitude and complexity would be difficult at the best of times. Plainly, these are not the best of times.
Even if climate change could be dealt with in isolation, it would still present a formidable challenge. But when it is part of a polycrisis of intersecting issues with the capacity to reinforce other more immediate, politically sensitive economic, social and strategic problems, then the prospects for effective cooperative action become more remote.
Indeed, the polycrisis makes it increasingly difficult to know quite which of the many threats to international order and individual well-being we ought to focus on. The “we” in this case is usually taken to be the “international community”, which has always been difficult to define, generally more of an aspiration than a reality, frequently more noteworthy for its absence than its effectiveness.
Nation-states, by contrast, can still act, even if we don’t always like what they do. The quintessential case in point now, of course, is the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump. Because it is by any measure still the most powerful country in the world, what America does necessarily affects everyone. This is why its actions on climate change – withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, gutting the Environmental Protection Authority, encouraging fossil fuel companies – matter so much.
But nation-states can also be forces for good and not just for those people who live within the borders of countries in the affluent global North. On the contrary, states that oversee a reduction in CO2 emissions are not only helping themselves, but they are also helping their neighbours and setting a useful example of “good international citizenship”.
When global governance is failing and being actively undermined by the Trump regime, it is even more important that other countries try to fill the void, even if this means cooperating with the unlikeliest of partners. Australia and China really could offer a different approach to climate change mitigation while simultaneously defusing tensions in the Indo-Pacific and demonstrating that resistance to the Trump agenda really is possible.
Friends with benefits
In the long term, if there still is one, environmental breakdown remains the most unambiguous threat to our collective future, especially in Australia, the world’s driest continent. And yet Australia’s strategic and political elites remain consumed by the military threat China supposedly poses, rather than the immediate, life-threatening impact of simultaneous droughts, fires and floods.
One of the only positives of the climate crisis is that it presents a common threat that really ought to generate a common cause. Some countries are no doubt more responsible for the problem and more capable of responding effectively, so they really ought to overcome the logic of first-mover disadvantage. No doubt, some other country will take over Australian coal markets, but someone has to demonstrate that change is possible.
China is possibly at even greater risk from the impact of climate catastrophes because of water shortages and, paradoxically enough, rising sea levels that will eventually threaten massive urban centres like Guangzhou and Shanghai. While there is much to admire about the decrease in poverty in the People’s Republic, it has come at an appalling cost to the natural environment. China also has powerful reasons to change its ways.
Unfortunately, Chinese policymakers, like Australia’s and their counterparts everywhere else, are consumed with more traditional threats to national strategic and economic security. This may be understandable enough in a world turned upside down by an unpredictable administration bent on creating a new international order that puts America first and trashes the environment in the process.
But in the absence of accustomed forms of leadership from the U.S. and the international community, for that matter, states must look to do what they can where they can, even if this means thinking the unthinkable and working with notional foes. China and Australia really do have a common cause when it comes to the environment and they could and should act on it.
Yes, this does all sound a bit unlikely. But if we are to survive in anything like a civilised state, unprecedented levels of cooperation would seem to be an inescapable part of limiting the damage our current policies have inflicted on the environment. In this context, Australia and China really could lead the way by simply agreeing to implement coordinated domestic actions designed to set a good example and address a critical global problem.
Leading by example
As two of the biggest consumers and producers of coal, Australia and China could make an outsize contribution to a global problem that would almost certainly win near universal praise, not to say disbelief. In short, China could agree not to build any more coal-fired power stations and Australia could commit to not opening any more new mines and rapidly moving to close down existing ones.
This would be a challenge for both countries, no doubt, but if we are ever going to address the climate challenge seriously, this is the sort of action that will be needed. There are no easy or painless solutions. But voluntarily abandoning the use of one of the most polluting fossil fuels is a potentially feasible and effective gesture that would make a difference. After all, China is a world leader in the development and use of green energy already, so the transition would be difficult but doable.
Australia has a shameful record of exporting carbon emissions and could live without the coal industry, which produces most of them, altogether. Coal extraction doesn’t employ many people and Australia is a rich enough country to compensate those affected by the loss of what are awful jobs in a dirty industry. If Australia can find $368 billion for submarines that will likely never arrive, to counter an entirely notional threat from China, it ought to be able to find a couple of billion to deal with a real one.
No doubt there would be significant pushback from coal industry lobbyists and politicians who think their future depends on being “realistic”, even if it means wrecking the planet. And yet it is possible, even likely, that such actions on the part of Australia and China would be very well received by regional neighbours, who would directly benefit from their actions and who might also be encouraged to consider meaningful cooperative actions themselves.
Given the failure of regional organisations like ASEAN to tackle these issues, normative pressure could be useful.
China might even get a significant boost to its soft power and regional reputation. President Xi Jinping frequently talks about the need to develop an “ecological civilisation”. Moving away from coal and collaborating with an unlikely partner for the collective good would be an opportunity to demonstrate China’s commitment to this idea, and to offer some badly needed environmental leadership.
If that’s not an example of what Xi calls win-win diplomacy, it’s hard to know what is.
A sustainable world order?
In the absence of what U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders calls a “revolution” in American foreign policy, multilateralism may well be in terminal decline. Indeed, it is an open question whether interstate cooperation will survive another four years of Trumpism, especially when the United Nations faces a funding crisis and politics in the European Union is moving in a similarly populist and authoritarian direction.
Cooperation between Australia and China could send a useful message to the Trump regime and other countries around the world about both the possibility of developing alternatives to failing American leadership and the institutional order it did so much to create. American hegemony was frequently self-serving, violent and seemingly indifferent to its impact on the global South, but we may miss it when it’s gone.
If multilateralism is likely to be less effective for the foreseeable future, perhaps minilateralism or even bilateralism can provide an alternative pathway to cooperation. Narrowly conceived notional strategic threats could be usefully “decoupled” from the economic and environmental varieties. In such circumstances, geography may be a better guide to prospective partners than sacrosanct notions about supposed friends and enemies.
Someone somewhere has to show leadership on climate change and restore hope that at least one problem, arguably the biggest one we collectively face, is being taken seriously. There really isn’t any choice other than to contemplate unprecedented actions for an unprecedented problem. Australia and China may not save the world, but they could make things a bit less awful and inject some much-needed creativity and hope into international politics.
Mark Beeson is an adjunct professor at the University of Technology Sydney and Griffith University. He was previously Professor of International Politics at the University of Western Australia.
Google has become something of a fixture in digital infrastructure in the Pacific. In late 2023, Canberra announced a joint project with the US, Google and Vocus, an Australian digital infrastructure firm, to deliver the A$80 million South Pacific Connect initiative. The object: to link Fiji and French Polynesia to Australia and North America, with the hopeful placement of landing stations in other South Pacific countries.
Interest in Google’s relationship with the Australian government was also piqued this month by promised activity on Christmas Island, located 350 kilometres (220 miles) south of Indonesia. The Indian Ocean outpost of exquisite environmental beauty has often been sinister in its secrecy. Unwanted refugees and asylum seekers have periodically found themselves as detainees on the island, victims of Australia’s sadistic approach to undocumented naval arrivals. In August 2016, the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre claimed that the Christmas Island Detention Centre had all the brutal features of “a high security military camp where control is based on fear and punishment and the extensive internal use of extrajudicial punishment by force and isolation is evident.”
The goal of the Silicon Valley behemoth lies elsewhere. Occasioned by the signing of a cloud deal with Australia’s Department of Defence earlier in July, the company promises to build what Reuters describes as “a large artificial intelligence data centre” on the island. Advanced talks are being held on leasing land near the island’s airport that will be used for the site. This will include an arrangement with a local mining company to deal with any necessary energy needs for the 7-megawatt facility, which will be powered on diesel and renewable energy.
The scale of the project, let alone its broader significance, is not something the company or government wonks wish others to know about. “We are not constructing ‘a large artificial intelligence data centre’ on Christmas Island,” came the sharp response from a Google spokesperson to Data Center Dynamics. “This is a continuation of our Australia Connect work to deliver subsea cable infrastructure, and we look forward to sharing more soon.” Planning documents further show the company’s vision for an “additional future cable system” that will connect Christmas Island to Asia.
The Australian Department of Infrastructure has confirmed the Google project, which includes plans to link the island to Darwin using the services of US-based contractor SubCom. The bureaucrats were also quick to gloss over what disruptions might arise to the 1,600 residents heavily reliant on diesel to patch up inadequate renewable sources. “The department is in discussions with Google to ensure energy requirements for the proposed project are met without impacting supply to local residents and businesses.” A spokesperson also stated that, “All environmental and other planning requirements will need to be met for the project to succeed.”
The same cautionary note has not been struck by enthusiasts who see the military potential of the island outpost. Former US Navy strategist Bryan Clark, fresh from being involved in a tabletop war game involving personnel from the US, Japanese and Australian militaries, was keen to inflate the importance of the data centre. That importance, he stresses, lies in the field of conflict. “The data centre is partly to allow you to do the kinds of AI-enabled command and control that you need to do in the future, especially if you rely on uncrewed systems for surveillance missions and targeting missions and even engagements.”
He considers the use of subsea cables more reliable in frustrating any mischief that might arise from China (who else?), notably in attempts to jam Starlink or any satellite communications. Such cables also provided more bandwidth for communication. “If you’ve got a data centre on Christmas, you can do a lot of that through cloud infrastructure.” Again, American power uses Australian territory as a conduit to maintain the imperium.
Google’s ties with the military tendrils of several nations continues the ongoing penetration of Big Tech companies into the industrial complex. The circle between military Research and Development pioneered by government agencies and their partnering with private contractors is complete. Indeed, digital-military-industrial complexes are now battling in steady rivalry (the two most prominent being China and the United States). “This is contributing to the blurring of state-corporation boundaries even more than what was observed during the second half of the twentieth century with the rise of transnational corporations,” write Andrea Coveri, Claudia Cozza and Dario Guarsacio in Intereconomics.
This blurring has served to diminish company accountability and government independence, however well-dressed the issue of planning approvals is. Christmas Island residents will be left to the mercies of unimaginative officials easily seduced by the promise of investment and returns. “There is support for it,” says a convinced Steve Pereira, Christmas Island Shire President, “providing this data centre actually does put back into the community with infrastructure, employment and adding economic value to the island.” As for the military dimension? “We are a strategic asset for defence.” What a comfort for the local citizenry.
As one of the most advanced solar nations in the world, Australia is well placed to experiment with giving people free power – and if it succeeds, other countries may look to copy its approach
Australians received a welcome surprise this week with the news that every household will soon receive 3 hours of free electricity every day, as part of a world-first initiative to share the benefits of solar power. If successful, it could be a model for other to follow in a future that will increasingly be powered by sunshine.
The Australian electricity grid is zinging with excess capacity during the day thanks to solar power, but it is strained at night when people return from work and use most of their appliances. To address this, the Australian government says its “Solar Sharer” scheme will be rolled out from July 2026 in three states – New South Wales, South Australia and the south-east corner of Queensland – with the rest of the country joining in 2027…………………..(Subscribers only)..…………………. https://www.newscientist.com/article/2503532-australia-is-getting-free-electricity-will-other-countries-follow/
Western Australia’s South West Interconnected System – the world’s biggest isolated grid – has reached a remarkable new record high of 89 per cent renewables, led by rooftop solar.
The new peak – 88.97 per cent to be precise – was reached at 11am on Monday, beating the previous record of 87.29 per cent set just a day earlier, and the previous peak of 85.36 per cent set on October 23. “Another milestone for WA’s clean energy future,” Sanderson wrote. “It’s another strong sign of the transformation underway in our energy system as we become a renewable energy powerhouse.”
The Australian Energy Market Operator says the record share was led by rooftop solar, which accounted for 64 per cent of generation at the time. Large scale wind accounted for just over 16 per cent, with the rest from large scale solar, solar battery hybrids, biomass and battery storage.
Cheaper, greener power is on the way. As long as anti-net zero populists don’t throttle it in the cradle. Not that long ago, Mark Purcell, a retired rear admiral in the Australian navy, was paying about A$250 a month for electricity in his roomy family home on the Queensland coast.
Today, he says he makes as much as A$300 a month, or nearly $200, from the electricity he makes, stores and sells with his solar panels and batteries. “This is the future,” he told me. “This is what the energy transition could look like for a lot of folks.” Purcell is one of the 58,000-plus customers of Amber Electric, an eight-year-old Melbourne business that gives householders access to real-time wholesale power prices so they can use power when it’s cheap and sell what is stored in their batteries when it’s expensive.
The company is adding 5,000 customers a month, putting it among a new generation of fast-growing energy tech start-ups aiming to make electricity cheaper and greener, and not just in Australia. Amber’s dynamic pricing technology is due to launch soon in the UK, where the company has done licensing deals with the energy suppliers Ecotricity and E.On.
Norway’s Tibber offers similar services to the 1mn customers it has gained since launching in 2016 and expanding to Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands. In Germany, the market share of companies including Tibber, Octopus Energy and Rabot Charge has grown from 0.1 per cent in 2023 to 2.4 per cent in 2025, says the Kreutzer Consulting group. Between them they have more than 1mn customers, 77 per cent of whom are particularly or very happy with their provider, far more than the industry-wide figure of 57 per cent.
Remember those figures the next time you hear a rightwing populist condemn allegedly unaffordable net zero policies. In fact, this new class of energy tech entrepreneurs is showing how electricity can become more affordable precisely because of the renewables, batteries and electric cars that net zero efforts drive.
It is no accident Amber Electric began in Australia, long a world leader in rooftop solar systems that sit atop more than 4mn of its homes and small businesses. Its population of 28mn is now undergoing a home battery boom, following the July launch of a A$2.3bn government subsidy scheme. Industry estimates show rooftop solar can save households up to A$1,500 a year on energy bills, a figure that nearly doubles if you add a battery, and rises further with dynamic pricing. Is there a catch?
Right now, the upfront costs of green tech can be considerable. Queensland’s Purcell is a superuser who has spent tens of thousands of dollars on solar panels, batteries and a home energy management system that makes everything from his pool heater to his air conditioners price-responsive. His family also has two Teslas with even bigger batteries.
This is clearly unaffordable for many, but maybe not for long. Big home hardware retailers have begun to launch financing plans that let people pay monthly fees of less than A$150 for solar and battery packages rather than a big initial outlay.
The National Press Club of Australia lists 81 corporate sponsors on its website.
Twenty-one of them (listed below) are either part of the global arms industry or actively working on its behalf.
Ten are multinational weapons manufacturers or military services corporations. They include the world’s two biggest weapons makers, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon (RTX); British giant BAE Systems; France’s largest weapons-maker, Thales; and US weapons corporation Leidos – all five are in the global top 20. BAE Systems, which is the largest contractor to the Department of Defence, received $2 billion from Australian taxpayers last year.
In 2023, these five corporations alone were responsible for almost a quarter – 23.8 per cent (US$150.4 billion (A$231.5 billion)) – of total weapons sales (US$632 billion (A$973 billion)) made by the world’s top 100 weapons companies that year.
Last year, UN experts named Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, RTX (Raytheon) and eight other multinationals in a statement, warning them that they risked being found in violation of international law for their continued supply of weapons, parts, components and ammunition to Israeli forces. The experts called on the corporations to immediately end weapons transfers to Israel. None has done so.
Another of the Club’s sponsors – Thales – is being investigated by four countries for widespread criminal activity in three separate corruption probes. In a fourth, long-running corruption case in South Africa, the country’s former president, Jacob Zuma, is now in court, alongside Thales, being tried on 16 charges of racketeering, fraud, corruption and money laundering in connection with arms deals his government did with Thales.
Global expert Andrew Feinstein has documented his extensive research into the arms industry. He told Undue Influence that wherever the arms trade operates, it “increases corruption and undermines democracy, good governance, transparency, and the rule of law, while, ironically, making us less safe”.
Undue Influence asked the Press Club’s CEO, Maurice Reilly, what written policies or guidelines were in place that addressed the suitability and selection of corporations proposing to become Press Club sponsors.
Mr Reilly responded: “The board are informed monthly about…proposals and have the right to refuse any application.”
Wherever the arms trade operates it “increases corruption and undermines democracy, good governance, transparency, and the rule of law, while, ironically, making us less safe”. – Andrew Feinstein, author of Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade
National Press Club board
The National Press Club, established by journalists in 1963, is an iconic Australian institution. It is best known for its weekly luncheon addresses, televised on the ABC, covering issues of national importance, after which the speaker is questioned by journalists.
The Club’s board has 10 directors led by Tom Connell, political host and reporter at Sky News, who was elected president in February following the resignation of the ABC’s Laura Tingle.
The other board members are: vice president Misha Schubert (CEO, Super Members Council of Australia; formerly with The Age and The Australian); treasurer Greg Jennett (ABC); Steve Lewis (senior adviser, SEC Newgate; formerly with NewsCorp and the Financial Review); Jane Norman (ABC); Anna Henderson (SBS); Julie Hare (Financial Review); Andrew Probyn (Nine Network); Gemma Daley (Media & Government Affairs, Ai Group); and Corrie McLeod, the sole representative from an independent media outlet – InnovationAus.
At least two board members have jobs that involve lobbying.
Long-term board member Steve Lewis works as a senior adviser for lobbying firm SEC Newgate, which itself is a Press Club sponsor and also has as clients the Press Club’s two largest sponsors: Westpac and Telstra. SEC Newgate has previously acted for several Press Club sponsors, including Serco (one of the arms industry multinationals listed below), BHP, Macquarie Bank, Tattarang, and Spirits & Cocktails Australia Inc.
Gemma Daley joined the board a year ago, having started with Ai Group as its head of media and government affairs four months earlier. Ms Daley had worked for Nationals’ leader David Littleproud, former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and former treasurer Joe Hockey and, before that, for media outlets the Financial Review and Bloomberg. Ai Group has a significant defence focus and promotes itself as “the peak national representative body for the Australian defence industry”. The group has established a Defence Council and in 2017 appointed a former assistant secretary of the Defence Department, Kate Louis, to lead it. The co-chairs of its Defence Council are senior arms industry executives. One of them, Paul Chase, is CEO of Leidos Australia, a Press Club sponsor.
Undue Influence asked Ms Daley for comment on several aspects related to her position on the board, including whether she has had to declare any conflicts of interest to date. She responded: “Thanks for the inquiry. I have forwarded this through to Maurice Reilly. Have a good day.”
Given the potential for conflicts of interest to arise, as happens on any board, Undue Influence had already asked the Press Club CEO what written policies or guidelines existed to ensure the appropriate management of conflicts of interest by board members and staff.
Mr Reilly responded:
The Club has a directors’ conflict register which is updated when required. Each meeting, board members and management are asked if they have conflicts of interest with the meeting agenda. We have a standard corporate practice that where a director has a conflict on an agenda item they excuse themselves from the meeting and take no [part] in any discussion or any decision.
Undue Influence is neither alleging nor implying inappropriate or illegal behaviour by anyone named in this article. Our objective, as always, is to shine a light on, and scrutinise, the weapons industry’s opaque engagement in public life in Australia.
While Mr Reilly declined to disclose the Club’s sponsorship arrangements with Westpac and Telstra, citing “commercial in confidence” reasons, The Sydney Morning Herald reported earlier this year that Westpac paid $3 million in 2015 to replace NAB as the Press Club’s principal sponsor.
The SMH article, “Westpac centre stage at post-budget bash”, on Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ National Press Club address in the Great Hall of Parliament House in late March, added:
[Westpac] … gets more than its money’s worth in terms of access. New-ish chief executive Anthony Miller got the most coveted seat in the house, between Chalmers and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese… Finance Minister Katy Gallagher and Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles were also on the front tables.
Westpac occupied prime real estate in the Great Hall, with guests on its tables including Treasury Secretary Steven Kennedy, Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet boss Glyn Davis, Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, Housing Minister Clare O’Neil and Labor national secretary and campaign mastermind Paul Erickson…
Communications Minister Michelle Rowland was on the Telstra table.
Mr Reilly told Undue Influence that all the other corporate sponsors pay $25,000 per year, with a few paying extra as partners in the Club’s journalism awards.
The 21 arms industry and related sponsors therefore contribute an annual $525,000 to the Press Club’s coffers. This is 23% of the $2.26 million revenue it earns from “membership, sponsorship and broadcasting”, the Club’s largest revenue line, as shown in its 2024 financial statement.
“The National Press Club of Australia proudly partners with organisations that share our commitment to quality, independent journalism,” says the Club’s website.
“Aligning your brand with the National Press Club is an opportunity for unparalleled engagement in the Australian political debate and announces that your organisation is part of the business culture in Canberra.”
In response to Undue Influence’s questions about the Club’s cancellation of a planned address by the internationally acclaimed journalist Chris Hedges (covered below), Mr Reilly stated that: “For the avoidance of doubt [sponsors] do not receive any rights to speak at the club [nor are they] able to influence decisions on speakers.”
Sponsors may not be granted a right to speak, but they are sometimes invited to speak, with their status as sponsors not always disclosed to audiences.
When the Club’s second largest sponsor, Telstra, spoke on 10 September, both Club president Tom Connell and Telstra CEO Vicki Brady noted the corporation’s longstanding sponsorship.
Sponsors may not be granted a right to speak, but they are sometimes invited to speak, with their status as sponsors not always disclosed to audiences.
When the Club’s second largest sponsor, Telstra, spoke on 10 September, both Club president Tom Connell and Telstra CEO Vicki Brady noted the corporation’s longstanding sponsorship.
Compare this with two addresses given by $25,000 corporate sponsors – Kurt Campbell (former US deputy secretary of state, now co-founder and chair of The Asia Group) who gave an address on 7 September; and Mike Johnson, CEO of Australian Industry and Defence Network (AIDN), who gave an address on 15 October. Neither the Press Club nor the speakers disclosed the companies’ sponsorship of the Press Club.
While both speakers are considered experts in their field, the sponsorships should have been disclosed as a matter of public accountability.
“Priority seating and brand positioning”
On its website, the Club also promotes additional benefits of corporate sponsorship, including, “Brand association with inclusion on our prestigious ‘Corporate Partners’ board and recognition on the National Press Club of Australia website”.
The Club also promises corporate sponsors that they will receive “priority seating and brand positioning” at its weekly luncheon addresses, as the following examples show. (As principal sponsor, the logo of Westpac appears on every table and on the podium.)
The local subsidiary of British giant BAE Systems has benefited handsomely from its modest $25,000 annual sponsorship. It had the best table – behind the microphone from which journalists asked questions – at then defence minister Peter Dutton’s address in November 2021. The BAE logo appeared on the national public broadcaster – which has strict rules against advertising – eight times during the half-hour question period following Mr Dutton’s address, giving BAE Systems extended ‘brand positioning’ with its target market: senior politicians, defence public servants and military officers.
On 28 November 2023, Minister for Defence Industry Pat Conroy spoke about AUKUS. The logos of Press Club sponsors DXC Technology and Deloitte were also well-situated for the camera during question time. Both companies are significant contractors to the Defence Department. Deloitte also works for the weapons industry, including BAE Systems.
Cancelling Chris Hedges
The Press Club recently drew significant attention to itself after it cancelled a planned address by the Pulitzer-prize-winning American journalist, and former long-term war correspondent, Chris Hedges. Mr Hedges reported for The New York Times for 15 years, from 1990-2005, including long stints as its bureau chief in the Middle East and in the Balkans. He was to have appeared at the Press Club on 20 October.
However, in late September, Press Club CEO Maurice Reilly cancelled Mr Hedges’ appearance. This occurred two weeks after the Club was sent details of what Mr Hedges proposed to cover, including a link to an article he had entitled The Betrayal of Palestinian Journalists. In that article, Mr Hedges wrote:
Israel has murdered 245 journalists in Gaza by one count and more than 273 by another… No war I covered comes close to these numbers of dead. Since Oct 7 [2023], Israel has killed more journalists “than the US Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War (including the conflicts in Cambodia and Laos), the wars in Yugoslavia in the 1990s and 2000s, and the post-9/11 war in Afghanistan, combined”.
Mr Hedges also intended to cover what he has described as the “barrage of Israeli lies amplified and given credibility by the Western press”, examples of which he provides in the above article.
Following a scathing post from Mr Hedges about the Press Club’s cancellation of his address, and significant public disquiet, the Press Club issued a statement denying it had come under external pressure to cancel his address. Inexplicably, the Press Club also denied it had confirmed the Hedges address. This claim was easily checked and soon reported to be false. Undue Influence has seen the emails showing that the Press Club had confirmed the address.
National Press Club funded by companies profiting from genocide
In July, Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, issued a report explaining how the corporate sector had become complicit with the State of Israel in conducting the genocide.
Her report also noted that arms-making multinationals depend on legal, auditing and consulting firms to facilitate export and import transactions to supply Israel with weapons.
Numerous members of the public posted their concerns on the Press Club’s Facebook page. Here are three examples: [on original]
Four of the world’s largest accounting, audit and consulting firms – all of which have arms industry corporations as clients – are sponsors of the Press Club: KPMG, Accenture, Deloitte and EY. Until recently, PwC counted among them.
EY (Ernst & Young) has been Lockheed Martin’s auditor since 1994. EY is also one of two auditors used by Thales, and has been for 22 years. Deloitte has been BAE Systems’ auditor since 2018. PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) – a Press Club sponsor until 2024 – has been Raytheon’s auditor since 1947.
Lockheed Martin’s supply to Israel of F-16 and F-35 fighter jets and C-130 Hercules transport planes, and their parts and components, along with Hellfire missiles and other munitions, has directly facilitated Israel’s genocide.
Raytheon’s (RTX) supply of guided missiles, bombs, and other advanced weaponry and defence systems, like the Iron Dome interceptors, also directly supports Israel military capability.
In England, BAE Systems builds the rear fuselage of every F-35, with the horizontal and vertical tails and other crucial components manufactured in its UK and Australian facilities. It also supplies the Israeli military with munitions, missile launching kits and armoured vehicles, while BAE technologies are integrated into Israel’s drones and warships.
Thales supplies Israel’s military with vital components, including drone transponders. Australian Zomi Frankcom and her World Central Kitchen colleagues were murdered by an Israeli Hermes drone, which contain Thales’ transponders. Yet, echoing Australia, France claims its military exports to Israel are non-lethal.
National Press Club sponsors from military-industrial complex
# Rankings compiled by SIPRI at December 2023 (published December 2024)
^ NOTE ON US COMPANIES: The Defence Department procures weapons/military goods directly from Lockheed Martin, RTX (Raytheon) and other US corporations via the US Government’s Foreign Military Sales program. The value of FMS contracts is not included in the table.
Note on the use of the word ‘genocide’
Three independent experts appointed by the UN’s Human Rights Commission – the Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel – issued a report in September that concluded Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. One of the Commissioners – Chris Sidoti – speaking at the Press Club recently, said the Commission’s report will remain the most authoritative statement on this issue until the world’s highest authority, the International Court of Justice, makes its ruling.
the greatest threat to Australia’s security is subservience to U.S. militarism.
Politics for the people, 30 Oct 25
Introduction: A Nation Out of Balance
The latest Ipsos Issues Monitor shows that cost of living, housing, crime, and healthcare matter most to Australians. Yet fewer than 8 per cent name defence as a concern. Despite this, defence spending in Australia now stands at about A$59 billion for 2025-26, a record amount.
While households struggle with rent hikes, soaring groceries, and lengthy hospital waits, government priorities tell a different story. If our leaders can mobilise billions for submarines and foreign military bases, why not for homes, hospitals, and community safety?
The government’s growing defence spending shows how far priorities have shifted from citizens’ needs.
The Problem: Spending That Ignores Public Needs
1. Australians Struggle While Defence Budgets Soar
According to SBS’s “If the Budget Were $100”, defence receives $6.60, health $15.90, and welfare $37.00. The government insists on “fiscal responsibility” when it comes to families, but not when signing billion-dollar arms contracts.
This surge in defence spending contrasts sharply with the lack of targeted cost-of-living support.
The mismatch is stark: Australians cite the cost of living in Australia as their top issue, yet policies focus on militarisation. A nation cannot claim security when its citizens cannot afford food, rent, or electricity.
The 2025-26 Budget allocates A$9.3 billion to social housing and homelessness, barely a sixth of defence spending. Hospitals receive about A$33.9 billion in Commonwealth funding, far short of what’s needed to end long emergency queues and staff shortages.
Using public money productively, Australia could expand housing supply and modernise hospitals without “finding” tax revenue. As a sovereign currency issuer, the Commonwealth can fund whatever domestic resources are available.
Workers juggle multiple jobs. Families spend over 30 per cent of their income on rent. Hospitals cancel surgeries due to staff burnout. Meanwhile, record military budgets create jobs, but not the kind that house or heal people.
This deepens inequality and fuels public frustration. Cost of living in Australia headlines dominate the news, yet solutions are still tokenistic while weapons programs thrive.
4. Who Benefits from the Defence Boom – and Who Are We Really Defending Against?
Arms corporations and political donors benefit most. AUKUS contracts flow to foreign firms. U.S. forces rotate through Darwin, and Pine Gap stays a key U.S. intelligence hub.
So, who is Australia defending against? Officially, the government cites a “deteriorating Indo-Pacific environment.” Australia faces no imminent invasion. The real risk lies in our alliance obligations. Much of this defence spending directly supports U.S. strategic goals, not Australian security.
When Washington pursues containment of China, Australia follows, even if it damages trade and peace. This dependence undermines sovereignty and raises the uncomfortable truth: the greatest threat to Australia’s security is subservience to U.S. militarism.
Economic insecurity, environmental decline, and eroded independence are the dangers we should fear. As a nation with dollar sovereignty, Australia can defend its people through prosperity, not through weapons for U.S. wars.
The Solution: What Must Be Done
5. Use Dollar Sovereignty for People, Not War
Australia issues its own currency. It cannot “run out” of money but can run out of political will. By embracing Modern Monetary Theory principles, the government could fund full employment, universal healthcare, and green infrastructure before military expansion.
6. Re-prioritise the Budget for National Wellbeing
Australia can realign its priorities by:
Expanding public housing nationwide.
Investing heavily in healthcare staffing and preventive care.
Addressing crime through community programs, not incarceration.
Keeping defence strictly for territorial protection, not for U.S. wars.
Redirecting even 10 per cent of Australia’s defence spending toward housing and health would transform lives and strengthen genuine security.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does Australia spend so much on defence? Defence growth is politically tied to the U.S. alliance and AUKUS, not citizen demand.
Who are we really defending against? Australia’s rising defence spending is driven more by alliance politics than genuine threats. No nation threatens Australia. The real danger is being drawn into conflicts created by foreign powers.
Can public money fund housing and health without cuts elsewhere? Yes, as the currency issuer, Australia can fund both. The constraint is resources, not revenue.
What would happen if 10 per cent of defence spending were redirected? Billions would build thousands of homes, hire nurses and teachers, and ease cost-of-living pressure.
nuclear-news 