Cross your fingers, Australia, and hope the AUKUS deal collapses
he Americans agreed to the deal because they saw it to be in their strategic interest, not ours. As then-U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell observed (indiscreetly) last year, “we have them locked in now for the next 40 years.”
All that AUKUS and its associated alliance commitments have done for Australia is paint more targets on our back.
The crazy irony is that we are spending huge sums to build a new capability intended to defend us from military threats that are most likely to arise simply because we have that capability
The U.S. sub purchase was a bad deal then and it makes even less sense now.
By Gareth Evans, Project Syndicate, https://www.japantimes.co.jp/commentary/2025/06/18/world/australia-should-hope-for-aukuss-collapse/
MELBOURNE –
The AUKUS partnership, the 2021 deal whereby the United States and the United Kingdom agreed to provide Australia with at least eight nuclear-propelled submarines over the next three decades, has come under review by the U.S. Defense Department.
The prospect of its collapse has generated predictable handwringing among those who welcomed the deepening alliance, and especially among those interested in seeing Australia inject billions of dollars into underfunded, underperforming American and British naval shipyards. But in Australia, an AUKUS breakdown should be a cause for celebration.
After all, there has never been any certainty that the promised subs would arrive on time. The U.S. is supposed to supply three or possibly five Virginia-class submarines from 2032, with another five newly designed SSN-AUKUS-class subs (built mainly in the U.K.) coming into service from the early 2040s. But the U.S. and the U.K.’s industrial capacity is already strained, owing to their own national submarine-building targets and both have explicit opt-out rights.
Some analysts assume that the Defense Department review is just another Trumpian extortion exercise, designed to extract an even bigger financial commitment from Australia. But while comforting to some Australians (though not anyone in the Treasury), this interpretation is misconceived.
There are very real concerns in Washington that even with more Australian dollars devoted to expanding shipyard capacity, the U.S. will not be able to increase production to the extent required to make available three — let alone five — Virginia-class subs by the early 2030s. Moreover, Elbridge Colby, the U.S. under-secretary of defense for policy who is leading the review, has long been a skeptic of the project and he will not hesitate to put America’s own new-boat target first.
Even in the unlikely event that everything falls smoothly into place — from the transfers of Virginia-class subs to the construction of new British boats, with no human-resource bottlenecks or cost overruns — Australia will be waiting decades for the last boat to arrive. But given that our existing geriatric Collins-class fleet is already on life support, this timeline poses a serious challenge. How will we address our capability gap in the meantime?
Cost-benefit analysis should have killed the project from the outset. But in their eagerness to embrace the deal, political leaders on both sides of parliament failed to review properly what was being proposed. Even acknowledging the greatly superior speed and endurance of nuclear-powered subs and accepting the heroic assumption that their underwater undetectability will remain immune from technological challenge throughout their lifetimes, the final fleet size seems hardly fit for the purpose of national defense.
Given the usual operating constraints, Australia would have only two such subs deployed at any one time. Just how much intelligence gathering, archipelagic chokepoint protection, sea-lane safeguarding or even deterrence at a distance will be possible under such conditions? Moreover, the program’s eye-watering cost will make it difficult to acquire the other capabilities that are already reshaping the nature of modern warfare: state-of-the-art drones, missiles, aircraft and cyber defense.
The remaining reason for believing, as former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating put it, that an American opt-out “will be the moment Washington saves Australia from itself,” concerns AUKUS’s negative implications for Australia’s sovereignty. The Americans agreed to the deal because they saw it to be in their strategic interest, not ours. As then-U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell observed (indiscreetly) last year, “we have them locked in now for the next 40 years.”
It defies credibility to believe that the U.S. would transfer such a sensitive technology to us — with all the associated emphasis on the “interchangeability” of our fleets and new basing arrangements in Australia — unless it could avail itself of these subs in a future war. I have had personal ministerial experience of being a junior U.S. ally in a hot conflict situation — the first Gulf War in 1991 — and my recollections are not pretty.
Alongside the Pine Gap satellite communications and signals intelligence facility — which has always been a bull’s-eye — one can add Perth’s Stirling submarine base, the Northern Territory, with its U.S. Marine and B-52 bases and possibly a future east-coast submarine base.
The crazy irony is that we are spending huge sums to build a new capability intended to defend us from military threats that are most likely to arise simply because we have that capability — and using it to support the U.S., without any guarantee of support in return should we ever need it.
If the AUKUS project does collapse, it would arguably still be possible for Australia to acquire replacements for its aging submarine fleet within a reasonable time frame — and probably at less cost, while retaining real sovereign control — by purchasing off-the-shelf technology elsewhere. One can even imagine us going back to France, which was snubbed in the AUKUS deal, and making a bid for its new-generation Suffren-class nuclear-powered sub.
But a better defense option may simply be to recognize that the latest revolution in military technology is real and that our huge continent and maritime surroundings will be better protected by a combination of self-managed air, missile, underwater and cyber capabilities than by a handful of crewed submarines. There is no better time to start thinking outside the U.S. alliance box.
Gareth Evans was Australia’s foreign minister (1988-1996), president of the International Crisis Group (2000-2009) and chancellor of the Australian National University (2010-2019). © Project Syndicate, 2025
Why the AUKUS ‘dream’ was never realistic and is likely to die
it has always been clear that Washington will sell us its submarines only if it is absolutely certain Australia would commit them to fight if the US goes to war with China.
The Albanese government has never acknowledged it is willing to make that commitment.
it has always been clear that Washington will sell us its submarines only if it is absolutely certain Australia would commit them to fight if the US goes to war with China.
The Albanese government has never acknowledged it is willing to make that commitment.
Hugh White, Jun 16, 2025, https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/opinion/2025/06/16/aukus-submarines-review-australia
The first clear sign the Trump administration was taking a long hard look at AUKUS came two weeks ago, when US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth gave his first major speech on US strategic policy in Asia at the annual Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore.
In a long presentation that catalogued a host of initiatives with America’s Asian allies, AUKUS was not mentioned once.
This was noteworthy, because under the Biden administration, AUKUS was the poster-child for US military engagement in the region, name-checked at every opportunity. Now we understand why.
The Pentagon’s review of AUKUS, announced last week, marks the first time any of the three partners – the US, Britain and Australia – has tested the AUKUS dream against hard military and strategic realities. It is unlikely to survive.
AUKUS was always a long shot, right from the start. That was clear from the moment, back in September 2021, that then prime minister, Scott Morrison, sprung the dream of an Australian nuclear-powered submarine force on an astonished public. For that dream to be realised, a lot of things would have to go right, and most of them were much more likely to go wrong.
But the flaw that looks set to kill the AUKUS dream is one that was not part of the original plan. The way Morrison and his then defence minister, Peter Dutton, originally conceived it, there would be no need for Australia to acquire US-built Virginia-Class subs in the 2030s before taking delivery of Australian-built subs to replace the Collins-class boats. They were confident that subs built in Australia, almost certainly to a British design, could be delivered fast enough to enter service as the old Collins subs were being retired, ensuring no gap in our capability.
It became clear this was not going to work out only after Labor took office in 2022, as the new government tried to turn Morrison’s vague idea into a viable project. It soon found there was simply no way to bring new Australian-built nuclear subs into service until long after the Collins boats had to be retired.
To save the AUKUS dream, it was necessary to fill the gap between the retirement of the Collins and the delivery of the first of what we now know as the UK-designed, Australian-built SSN-AUKUS class of submarine. That was when the idea of Australia getting ex-US Navy Virginia class boats first surfaced.
It was a desperate measure that vastly increased the already formidable risks of the whole AUKUS idea. One reason is that it meant the Royal Australian Navy had the almost impossible task of managing and operating not one but two very different kinds of nuclear submarine, powered by two very different nuclear power plants.
For a navy that has struggled to keep the much simpler Collins subs at sea, the task of operating just one class of nuclear-powered subs was truly formidable. To expect it to effectively operate two quite different classes of nuclear submarine simultaneously was frankly absurd.
But there is another reason why the decision to buy Virginia subs to cover the capability gap undermined the viability of the whole AUKUS plan.
Very simply, the US has no submarines to spare. The facilities and workforce that build and maintain its submarines have never recovered from the savage cuts imposed in the 1990s after the end of the Cold War. No serious steps were taken to rebuild it even after it became clear China had become a formidable new maritime rival.
The result is that America’s two submarine construction yards have for many years been delivering barely half as many Virginia-class subs as the Pentagon now says America needs – about 1.2 a year instead of two a year.
This problem was acknowledged when the AUKUS partners announced the detailed plan in 2023. It was optimistically claimed that everything necessary would be done to increase production to the level of 2.3 subs a year required to meet US needs and provide extra boats for Australia.
So far, there is no sign of that happening. Elbridge Colby, the senior US official conducting the Pentagon’s AUKUS review, will almost certainly puncture the irresponsible optimism around this crucial issue and make it clear that unless there is a miracle in US submarine production, America will not sell any Virginia-class subs to Australia.
But that’s not all. Even if that miracle is achieved, US leaders and officials still have to ask whether it makes sense for America to pass the extra submarines to Australia rather than bring them into service with the US Navy.
Any subs sold to Australia weaken America at a time when it is already struggling to match China’s fast-growing navy. So it has always been clear that Washington will sell us its submarines only if it is absolutely certain Australia would commit them to fight if the US goes to war with China.
The Albanese government has never acknowledged it is willing to make that commitment. The Biden administration, desperate for its own reasons to keep the AUKUS dream alive, did not press Canberra on this very sensitive point.
The Trump administration will be much tougher. Colby’s review will also certainly conclude that America should not sell Virginia-class subs to Australia, unless Canberra offers much clearer and more public guarantees that Australia will go to war with China if the US ever does.
For Canberra, this could well be a deal-breaker, making the end of the AUKUS dream. It certainly should be.
Hugh White’s new Quarterly Essay, Hard New World: Our Post-American Future, is published this month.
Hugh White, Emeritus Professor of Strategic Studies at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University
Pacific Rim countries say no to U.S.-China war
The question that the people of the Pacific and Pacific Rim countries are asking is: Why do we have to respond to this demand by the U.S.? We are not threatened by China. Where is the dire urgency that demands such a huge distortion of our public spending on the military?
The indications are that the United States is preparing for war against China, but cannot wage such a war from the West Coast of the USA. It needs military bases, port facilities and airfields in the countries on the west side of the Pacific Rim; for example, South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Guam, Micronesia and Australia. Without these bases, without the backing of the military forces and munitions and manufacturing capabilities of the Pacific Rim countries, the United States cannot launch and sustain a war against China.
By Bevan Ramsden | 16 June 2025, https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/pacific-rim-countries-say-no-to-us-china-war,19837
As the U.S. pushes Pacific Rim allies to ramp up military spending for a possible war with China, a new campaign asks: at what cost and for whose benefit? Bevan Ramsden writes.
THE PACIFIC and Pacific Rim countries have a geographical commonality. They are encircled by, or have a border with, the vast, blue, peaceful Pacific Ocean. They also share a political commonality. The people and countries of this region are under pressure to lift their military spending at the expense of addressing their social needs.
The pressure comes from the United States, whose Defence Secretary, Peter Hegseth, at the recent Singapore Defence Summit, declared that the U.S. expects its allies in this region to increase their defence spending to 5% of their GDP. His justification was a “possibly imminent threat” posed by China. He emphasised how the U.S. is “reorienting towards deterring aggression by China” and made it clear that the Donald Trump Administration’s defence strategy revolves around stifling the rise of China.
Responding to this expectation would involve the doubling of South Korean expenditure on military defence, from 2.6% of its GDP to 5%.
It would mean Japan’s military defence spending would have to triple from 1.8 % of its GDP to 5%.
In Australia, such an increase would represent a two-and-a-half times increase from 2% to 5% of its GDP.
These examples show that the 5% target represents a massive increase in military spending, which can only be made by reducing funding for urgent infrastructure, social needs such as health and education and loss of resources to address the real threat to their living environments, the climate crisis.
The question that the people of the Pacific and Pacific Rim countries are asking is: Why do we have to respond to this demand by the U.S.? We are not threatened by China. Where is the dire urgency that demands such a huge distortion of our public spending on the military?
Another commonality among the countries of the Pacific Rim, particularly those on the western and southern rim of the Pacific, is U.S. troops and U.S. military installations stationed on their territory. In the case of South Korea, these are substantial, close to 30,000 and put that country’s military virtually under the control of the U.S.
Japan has 57,000 U.S. troops, including 20,000 on Okinawa, where the U.S. Kadena Air Base is its largest outside of the USA. Clearly, this level of foreign military occupation exerts substantial pressure on Japan’s foreign policy.
The Philippines has four U.S. bases with troops rotating through its territory and training with its defence forces, and is setting up logistic centres for equipment and munitions.
The people of Guam, a territory under direct U.S. control, are subject to 7,000 U.S. troops, with almost a third of the land controlled by the U.S. military. The Joint Region Marianas is a U.S. military command combining the Andersen Air Force Base and the Naval Base Guam.
Andersen Air Force Base hosts B-52 bombers and fighter jets. Naval Base Guam is the home port for four nuclear-powered fast attack submarines and two submarine tenders. American military commanders have referred to the island as their “permanent aircraft carrier”.
Australian governments, in their subservience to the U.S., have signed the Force Posture Agreement, giving the U.S. military unimpeded access to Australia’s ports and airfields and enabling the establishment of a Northern Territory base for its B-52 bombers, some of which are nuclear-capable. The Agreement is giving the U.S. fuel and munitions storage areas to support war operations and an $8 billion port facility for servicing their nuclear submarines and storage of their nuclear waste.
The people of Pacific Rim countries, including Australia, need to ask: Why does the U.S. have these extensive military facilities in our countries and why are they demanding such huge military expenditures from us?
The answer, unfortunately, is not for the benefit of the people of this region but for its own foreign policy objectives, which include maintaining its dominance in the region by “containing” China and preventing the rise of its influence.
The indications are that the United States is preparing for war against China, but cannot wage such a war from the West Coast of the USA. It needs military bases, port facilities and airfields in the countries on the west side of the Pacific Rim; for example, South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Guam, Micronesia and Australia. Without these bases, without the backing of the military forces and munitions and manufacturing capabilities of the Pacific Rim countries, the United States cannot launch and sustain a war against China.
So the United States needs us but we don’t need such a war.
It would only bring devastation to our lives and our economies, and if it turned nuclear, who would survive?
The Pacific Peace Network, with representatives from the Pacific Rim countries and together with World Beyond War, has produced a solidary campaign which is being launched on 21 June 2025.
This is a campaign in which the people of each country on the Pacific Rim, including Australia, can say no to such a war and no to an increase in military spending for it, through a common petition which is a call on their governments.
The common petition can be accessed here at the World Beyond War website.
This call on governments reads:
For sustainable peace and the survival of our peoples and environment, we ask you:
- refuse to join military preparations for a U.S.-China war;
- declare you will not fight in a U.S.-China war;
- declare neutrality should such a war break out; and
- do not allow your territory or waters to be used in such a war, including the collection and relay of military intelligence, sales of weapons and hosting combatant troops and facilities.
Later this year, the petitions will be presented to their respective governments by peace activists in each country.
Group of Australian MP’s Call for AUKUS Inquiry
Crossbench MPs from the House of Representatives and Senate have written to Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles, calling for an urgent parliamentary inquiry into AUKUS.
In April, the UK Parliament’s Defence Committee announced an inquiry into the AUKUS arrangements, and this week the US defence department announced they were undertaking a rapid review of AUKUS.
AUKUS represents Australia’s largest defence investment in decades and is central to our defence and foreign affairs strategy.
Australians are concerned to know more about the strategic and financial implications of this policy which has been jointly adopted by major party governments without significant parliamentary scrutiny.
A full and formal parliamentary inquiry is therefore both important and timely.
Quotes from letter to Deputy Prime Minister, Richard Marles
Allegra Spender, Independent MP for Wentworth
AUKUS is the centrepiece of our defence and foreign policy strategy, but it’s been adopted by the major parties with very poor public engagement. AUKUS will shape Australia’s future for decades with enormous implications both financially, economically, and strategically, but in discussions at the community level, there are consistent questions and concerns that have not been addressed. AUKUS won’t work without wider community interrogation and engagement, and a parliamentary inquiry is the first step to building that.
We also need a more open discussion of the challenges facing AUKUS. Most urgently, the US Navy is currently short of attack submarines and there is a very clear risk that the US President at the time will not be able to certify that the Virginia class submarines can be transferred to Australia without undermining US Navy capability: a requirement of the current enabling legislation. We must publicly face those risks and actively manage them including identifying viable alternatives.
Helen Haines, Independent MP for Indi
In light of the reviews of AUKUS by our two partner nations and the consequential nature of the agreement, it important for our Parliament to apply the same level of scrutiny.
Andrew Wilkie, Independent MP for Clark
More than ever an Australian Inquiry into AUKUS is needed, and President Trump’s caution about the deal gives Australia a great chance to reset. Nuclear subs were always the wrong technology for Australia’s future submarine needs given the shallow littoral and offshore waters in our region, not to mention the ridiculous cost and impractical timeframe.
Nicolette Boele, Independent MP for Bradfield
Any time Parliament commits to spend $368 billion, we should at least have a full parliamentary inquiry. The case for an inquiry on AUKUS is even stronger given the rules of global co-operation have dramatically changed since it was signed.
AUKUS now risks our defence — because we don’t know if these submarines will ever arrive. It risks our budget — because we may waste $368 billion in taxpayer’s money. And it risks our Australian values, which we do not import from the United States.
Sophie Scamps, Independent MP for Mackellar
Circumstances have changed significantly since the AUKUS deal was first announced and it’s only reasonable it be reviewed in the current context.
This is the largest investment in our defence capability in decades, other parties are conducting their own reviews, and the Australian community largely supports a parliamentary inquiry – it’s high time the Government responds.
Senator Jacqui Lambie
We’ve poured billions into AUKUS with nothing to show for it but broken promises and cancelled defence programs. It’s a $368 billion blank cheque to the US and UK with zero guarantee of real capability for decades.
Australians deserve better and it’s time for a full parliamentary inquiry into this dud deal.
Senator David Pocock
With the UK and now the US reviewing AUKUS, Australia is now the only country not actively considering whether the agreement in its current form best serves our national interest. Given the scale and cost of this deal, a transparent review is not just sensible, it’s overdue.
Kate Chaney, Independent MP for Curtin
AUKUS is a monumental strategic commitment with far-reaching implications for our economy, sovereignty, and security posture, yet it continues to unfold with minimal public transparency and virtually no parliamentary accountability. Australians want to understand whether this is the best use of our resources and the right path for our security.
US launches AUKUS review to ensure it meets Donald Trump’s ‘America First’ agenda
By Brad Ryan and Emilie Gramenz in Washington DC, ABC News, 11 June 25
In short:
The US is reviewing the AUKUS security pact with Australia and the UK, which Australia is depending on to acquire nuclear-powered submarines.
A US defence official said it would ensure the pact met President Donald Trump’s “America First” agenda, as the US struggles to build enough submarines for its own fleet.
But Defence Minister Richard Marles said he was “very confident this [AUKUS] is going to happen” and it was only natural for the new US administration to review it.
The Pentagon is reviewing the AUKUS security pact between Australia, the US and the UK to ensure it aligns with President Donald Trump’s “America First” agenda, a US defence official told the ABC.
But Defence Minister Richard Marles said he remained confident the pact would remain intact, and a review was a “perfectly natural” thing for a new administration to do.
The news follows US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s recent request for Australia to significantly boost its defence spending “as soon as possible”.
The US defence official said the review “will ensure the initiative meets … common sense, America First criteria”.
“As Secretary Hegseth has made clear, this means ensuring the highest readiness of our service members, that allies step up fully to do their part for collective defence, and that the defence industrial base is meeting our needs,” the official said.
Under the AUKUS pact, Australia would be armed with nuclear-powered submarines at a cost of more than $350 billion.
Elbridge Colby, who is the under secretary of Defense for Policy and has voiced scepticism about AUKUS, is leading the review, according to the UK’s Financial Times.
Last August, Mr Colby tweeted he was an AUKUS “agnostic”.
“In principle it’s a great idea. But I’ve been very skeptical in practice,” he wrote, but added he’d become “more inclined based on new information I’ve gleaned”.
Mr Marles told ABC Radio Melbourne he was “very confident this [AUKUS] is going to happen”.
“The meetings that we’ve had with the United States have been very positive in respect of AUKUS,” Mr Marles said. “That dates back to my most recent meeting with Pete Hegseth in Singapore.”
……………………………………………. The Australian government paid the US almost $800 million earlier this year — the first in a series of payments to help America improve its submarine manufacturing capabilities.
………… Mr Hegseth met Defence Minister Richard Marles in Singapore, and said Australia needed to lift its defence spending.
Mr Trump himself has said little publicly about the AUKUS pact, and his criticisms of America’s traditional alliances have fuelled anxieties about its future in Canberra and London.
When a reporter asked Mr Trump about AUKUS in February, he appeared to be unfamiliar with the term, replying: “What does that mean?”…………………………..
Under “Pillar I” of the two-pillar AUKUS deal, the first submarine would arrive in Australia no sooner than 2032. It would be a second-hand US Virginia-class vessel.
The US would subsequently supply Australia with between three and five submarines, before Australia began building its own in Adelaide, modelled on British designs.
Mr Albanese was expected to meet Mr Trump on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Canada next week. But that’s now in limbo after the US condemned Australia and several other countries that placed sanctions on two far-right Israeli ministers.
…………..Critics of the deal, including former prime ministers Malcolm Turnbull and Paul Keating, have long warned it is unfair and risky. “I’ve never done a deal as bad as this,” Mr Turnbull told Radio National earlier this year.
The Greens have proposed a “plan B” defence policy that would eventually see AUKUS cancelled.
There are also longstanding concerns around the US’s consistent failure to meet its own submarine-building targets to fully stock its military fleet…………………………………………….https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-12/aukus-pentagon-review-donald-trump-america-first/105406254
AUKUS has serious problems, Australia probably won’t receive any submarines: Malcolm Turnbull
Malcolm Turnbull, former Prime Minister of Australia, says that AUKUS wasn’t a very good deal for the country and that he thinks President Trump would love the deal as the U.S. would receive money without necessarily having to deliver anything in return.
Thu, Jun 5 2025, https://www.cnbc.com/video/2025/06/05/aukus-has-serious-problems-likely-australia-will-not-receive-any-submarines.html
US military waste contractor with flawed safety record backing Australian N-waste dump
Declassified Australia can report that over a 10-year period from 2012 to 2022, during which Amentum managed the WIPP facility, multiple highly hazardous incidents occurred.
Amidst allegations of “gross mismanagement”, the dangerous incidents at the WIPP facility cost US taxpayers at least US$2 billion, and caused a three-year closure of the nuclear waste plant while redesign, repair, and remediation efforts were undertaken.
Jorgen Doyle, June 7, 2025 https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/06/us-military-waste-contractor-with-flawed-safety-record-backing-australian-n-waste-dump/
A US military mega-contractor assisting an Australian company to develop a proposal for a nuclear waste dump in Central Australia has a flawed safety record in handling nuclear waste storage.
A DECLASSIFIED AUSTRALIA SPECIAL INVESTIGATION
In Alice Springs, Central Arrernte Country, the giant American military contractor, Amentum Holdings, is responsible for the day-to-day running of facilities for the secretive US-Australian Pine Gap satellite surveillance base. Now it’s involved in developing a proposed nuclear waste dump in Central Australia.
Declassified Australia can reveal that Amentum’s Alice Springs-based workforce of 400 people provides a myriad of support services to keep the ever-expanding base functioning, including infrastructure management, facilities operations, and maintenance services.
The proposal for the low-level nuclear waste dump comes as the Australian Government is seeking ways to manage and ultimately dispose of high-level nuclear waste from nuclear reactors in the proposed AUKUS submarines, as well as from other defence-related nuclear and hazardous waste, including visiting US and UK nuclear-powered submarines and warships.
As Declassified Australia exclusively reports, despite Amentum having a problematic record of nuclear waste management overseas, it is now involved in the nuclear waste disposal business in Australia.
Proposed Chandler waste facility
Amentum has been contracted to advise Australian hazardous waste company, Tellus Holdings, on the Chandler nuclear waste dump in Central Australia.
The Chandler nuclear waste dump is proposed to be constructed within a salt formation on Southern Arrernte country, 15km from the Aboriginal community of Titjikala and 120km south of Alice Springs.
The Northern Territory Environmental Protection Authority’s assessment report for the Chandler dump describes the project components as including construction of an underground salt mine at a depth of up to 860 metres, permanent hazardous waste disposal vaults within mined-out salt caverns, temporary above-ground storage facilities for hazardous waste, and associated infrastructure like haul roads, access roads, and salt stockpiles.
In August 2024, Tellus announced that the company had contracted Amentum to conduct a Strategic Review of the project to assess timelines, feasibility and potential international waste streams to be disposed of at the facility.
Sydney-based Tellus Holdings was founded in 2009 and describes its mission as “providing advance[d] end-to-end solutions for managing the world’s most challenging hazardous materials”. The company operates Australia’s first geological repository for low-level nuclear waste which started in 2021 at Sandy Ridge, 240km northwest of Kalgoorlie.
When Tellus’ American-born chief executive Nate Smith, a former attorney at powerful Wall Street law firm Sullivan & Cromwell, was interviewed on ABC Radio last August, he cited the proximity of Amentum’s workforce based in Alice Springs as a strong reason for selecting Amentum to carry out the strategic review of the proposed nuclear waste dump.
Declassified Australia can exclusively reveal that at an NT Defence Week presentation held in Alice Springs in May 2024, an Amentum speaker stated that the company is contracted directly by the US Government, and “employs roughly 400 people” providing services to the Pine Gap base.
According to an attendee at the event, the speaker said Amentum provides the operation services and maintenance of facilities, utilities management, renovation, security, environmental health and safety, catering, and housing services.
The company regularly posts ads for the employment of new contractors to provide services like cleaning, gardening and even swimming pool repair. On some days, the speaker said, there have been as many as 200 contractors for Amentum working on site at the spy base, 15km south of Alice Springs.
Amentum and the US military
Based in Virginia, Amentum is one of the US’s largest military contractors. The company employs 53,000 people across 80 countries, and provides services as diverse as chemical and biological weapons decommissioning, US army helicopter training, to running the Nevada Bombing Range and the Kennedy Space Centre.
As well as supporting the US’s most important satellite surveillance base outside the US at Pine Gap, Amentum also works extensively in managing and maintaining US military facilities, primarily in West Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
The company operates in Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, where it provides operations and maintenance services on US military installations.
In Iraq, it manages and maintains US air force bases; and has previously operated in Afghanistan, where it maintained helicopters for the Afghan Air Force, and serviced airfields and trained Afghan police, until US forces evacuated the country.
In Somalia, Amentum is assisting in the construction of six new military bases, while in Ethiopia it is working to “enhance biosafety and biosecurity” at a vaccine lab and training facility.
Amentum is also involved more directly in training armed militias and military forces. In western Africa, the company operates in Benin, where it trains the country’s armed forces for “counter-terrorism” operations.
However, Amentum’s activities have been subject to controversy, even by the standards of a global military contractor.
Amentum is providing training to three of Libya’s armed groups as part of attempts to unify major armed factions in Tripoli to “counter Russian influence” within the country and across the African continent.
The company is currently defending a case before a US court on charges of human trafficking in Kuwait, through its predecessor companies AECOM and DynCorp. The companies allegedly participated in abusive practices against 29 interpreters working under US Army contracts during the US-led invasion of Iraq, “Operation Iraqi Freedom”. The abusive practices included forced labour under threat of deportation and arrest.
Amentum’s nuclear activities
In addition to its military contracts, Amentum has been working to support the development of nuclear reactors and facilities across a number of countries.
In the UK, Amentum has recently been selected as project manager for the proposed Sizewell C nuclear power plant on the Suffolk coast.
In South Africa, the company is working on extending the life of the country’s only nuclear reactor by 20 years. In the Netherlands, Amentum has been commissioned to undertake technical feasibility studies for two proposed new nuclear reactors.
It is on the American continent that Amentum’s reputation for managing nuclear facilities has suffered serious blows.
In 2012, Amentum formed the Nuclear Waste Partnership, a limited liability company, with BWX Technologies, in order to bid on a US Department of Energy contract to operate and manage a US nuclear weapons waste disposal facility in New Mexico, known as the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.
Amentum’s experience managing the WIPP nuclear weapons waste disposal facility is cited as one of the reasons Tellus selected Amentum as its partner to carry out the strategic review of the planned Chandler project.
However, Declassified Australia can report that over a 10-year period from 2012 to 2022, during which Amentum managed the WIPP facility, multiple highly hazardous incidents occurred.
The incidents, described by an expert on the WIPP as a “horrific comedy of errors”, transformed a facility once regarded as “the flagship of the [US] Energy Department” into an object of serious concern.
Amidst allegations of “gross mismanagement”, the dangerous incidents at the WIPP facility cost US taxpayers at least US$2 billion, and caused a three-year closure of the nuclear waste plant while redesign, repair, and remediation efforts were undertaken.
Nuclear weapons waste disposal
The WIPP is, like Tellus’ proposed Chandler Project in Central Australia, located within a salt formation. Salt formations are generally considered ideal for the storage of nuclear waste because of their geological stability, capacity to dissipate heat generated by waste, low permeability to water and gasses, and self-sealing properties.
The WIPP site is massive. Its underground footprint currently includes 10 excavated “panels”, each consisting of seven rooms, totalling 100 acres. An 11th panel is under construction, and the US Department of Energy intends to expand the site to eventually consist of nineteen panels.
The facility has received more than 14,000 shipments of military nuclear waste since becoming operational in 1999. Its 800-strong workforce transfers transuranic waste received in drums to storage rooms 655 metres underground for permanent disposal.
The WIPP facility exclusively receives waste from the US’s nuclear weapons program, including tonnes of excess plutonium. Waste originating from 22 Department of Energy facilities, including the infamous Los Alamos National Laboratory (birthplace of the atomic bomb) is transferred to the WIPP facility for long-term storage.
There are proposals for the WIPP to take waste now classified as “high-level” once that waste has been ‘reclassified’ as transuranic (non-uranium) waste. This would pave the way for its storage at WIPP.
“Reclassification of nuclear waste could make disposal simpler and cheaper” is the breezy conclusion of one such proposal written by the editorial staff of Nature journal.
The site is legislated to receive 175,564 cubic metres of waste, and as of 2021, had reached 56.7% of its capacity.
Originally slated to begin closure in 2024, expansion plans and permit modifications have led nuclear watchdog groups to warn that what was only intended as a pilot plant is morphing into “Forever WIPP”.
The US Department of Energy itself now admits that “ final facility closure could begin no earlier than 2083”.
Faulty design and handling at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant
On 5 February 2014, less than 18 months into the Nuclear Waste Partnership’s management of the WIPP site, a truck caught fire within the facility, and six workers were hospitalised with smoke inhalation.
A subcontractor under the Nuclear Waste Partnership subsequently sued the company for “gross mismanagement of a major construction contract” involving reconstruction of an underground air-monitoring system that failed during the truck fire.
The subcontractor alleged that the Nuclear Waste Partnership, run by Amentum and BWX Technologies, “was such a disorganised project manager that it caused repeated delays and cost overruns, resulting in multiple breaches of contract”.
The subcontractor claimed that NWP “used faulty designs that caused chronic problems and forced crews to redo large and expensive parts of the project”.
The faulty problems cited by the subcontractor included “a flawed design in hollow-roof panels requir[ing] an extensive redesign that dragged on for almost a year and at times forced work to shut down in other areas”.
Further, “[t]he building’s foundation had to be redesigned, requiring crews to move underground pipes they had already installed; and [a] defective design plagu[ed] the building’s control system”.
Less than a fortnight after the truck fire, on 14 February 2014, a barrel containing americium, plutonium, nitrate salts and organic kitty litter ruptured at the facility.
The rupture quickly spread contaminants “through about one-third of the underground caverns and tunnels, up the exhaust shaft, and into the outside environment”, exposing 22 workers at the WIPP facility to low levels of radioactive contamination.
Following the incident, the site was shuttered for three years. Clean-up efforts cost US$640 million, and a further US$600 million in operational costs were accrued during the years 2014-2017 while the site was being remediated and not accepting new waste.
In addition, the US Government paid US$74 million to New Mexico to settle permit violations involving the radiation release and the truck fire two weeks earlier.
Once costs associated with temporarily storing the nuclear waste that had been destined for WIPP are taken into account ( “hotel costs”, including the weekly inspection of more than 24,000 barrels of nuclear waste for leaks), the long-term cost of the incidents to US taxpayers is likely in excess of US$2 billion.
The WIPP site finally reopened in 2017 after three years of remediation efforts. The installation of a new ventilation system to replace the previous one contaminated in the incident of February 14, 2014 cost an additional US$486 million, and was only completed in March 2025.
A safety analysis conducted prior to the WIPP facility becoming operational reassured regulators that the likely frequency of accidents involving the release of radioactive material at the facility would be once every 200,000 years.
However the two serious incidents of February 2014, resulting in a three-year closure of the WIPP facility, occurred just 15 years into the site’s operation.
The US Department of Energy faced years of pressure from nuclear watchdog groups to end the Amentum and BWX partnership responsible for running the WIPP from 2012.
The Department finally decided not to renew Amentum and BWX partnership’s decade-long contract managing the WIPP nuclear weapons waste disposal facility. They exited in 2022.
The proposed Australian project
Back in Central Australia, Amentum’s strategic review of the Chandler Project is due to be completed soon.
Neither Tellus nor Amentum responded to a series of questions put to them about aspects of the nuclear waste dump project.
With Tellus eager to push on, the massive international nuclear waste dump proposed for Southern Arrernte country 120km south of Alice Springs could commence as early as 2028.
‘Fork in the road’: How a failed nuclear plot locked in Australia’s renewable future
The Age By Nick Toscano, June 1, 2025
hen Australians went to the polls and voted Anthony Albanese back as prime minister, they also voted for something that will outlive the next election: the power industry’s guaranteed switch from coal to renewable energy.
What they didn’t vote for were state-owned nuclear reactors, forced delays of coal-fired power station closures and a slew of other Coalition promises widely viewed as threats to the country’s era-defining challenge of cutting harmful emissions while keeping electricity supply and prices steady.
Although times remain testing in the energy sector, a feeling of relief is clear. “The nuclear conversation is dead and buried for the foreseeable future,” said an executive at one of Australia’s biggest power suppliers, who asked not to be named. Even as the Nationals keep arguing for a nuclear future, any genuine suggestion that atomic facilities could still be built in time to replace retiring coal plants after the next election rolls around was now downright “ridiculous”, said another, adding that renewable energy was on track to surpass 60 per cent of the grid by 2028. “That’s great for the energy sector – it simplifies the path forward,” they said.
Make no mistake, a seismic shift across the grid has been well under way for years now. Australia’s coal-fired power stations – the backbone of the system for half a century – have been breaking down often and closing down earlier, with most remaining plants slated to shut within a decade.
At the same time, power station owners including AGL, Origin Energy and EnergyAustralia are joining a rush of other investors in piling billions of dollars into large-scale renewables and batteries to expand the share of their power that comes from the sun, wind and water. The federal government has an ambitious target for renewable energy to make up 82 per cent of the grid by 2030.
Moving to a system dominated by less-predictable renewables will not be easy. It will take much greater preparation to match supply and demand and require the multibillion-dollar pipeline of private investment in the transition to continue. But ousted opposition leader Peter Dutton, before losing the May 3 federal election and his own seat, hatched a plan to change the course dramatically. A grid powered mainly by renewables would never be able to “keep the lights on”, Dutton insisted.
Instead, he declared, a Coalition government would tear up Australia’s legislated 2030 emissions-reduction commitments, cut short the rollout of renewables, force the extensions of coal-fired generators beyond their owners’ retirement plans and eventually replace them with seven nuclear-powered generators, built at the taxpayer’s expense, sometime before 2050
For Australians who wanted to see urgent action to tackle climate change – and investors at the forefront of the shift to cleaner power – the campaign to dump near-term climate targets in favour of nuclear energy came at the worst possible time. Some likened it to a “near-death experience” for the momentum of the shift to a cleaner, modern energy system that would have wiped out investor confidence and killed off billions of dollars of future renewable projects.
“When you reflect on the significance of energy in the campaign, it’s reasonable to say this was a fork in the road,” said Kane Thornton, outgoing chief executive of the Clean Energy Council……………………………………………..
Dutton argued for months that nuclear plants would be the best way to keep prices down, even though almost no one agreed with him.
“I’m very happy for the election to be a referendum on energy – on nuclear,” he said.
In the end, the idea proved too toxic for voters. It delivered big swings against Dutton’s candidates in electorates chosen to host reactors, while support for Labor grew in many of the places selected to develop massive offshore wind farms, which the Coalition had planned to scrap.
The decisive election result “locks in” the government’s ambitious push for an electricity grid almost entirely powered by renewables, said Leonard Quong, the head of Australian research at BloombergNEF.
“The Labor Party’s landslide victory … is a win for climate, clean energy and the country’s decarbonisation trajectory,” he said…………………………………………..https://www.theage.com.au/business/the-economy/fork-in-the-road-how-a-failed-nuclear-plot-locked-in-australia-s-renewable-future-20250523-p5m1qa.html
Solar puts Australia in fast lane to 100% renewables
A massive increase in solar power generation capacity is already putting Australia on the fast track to a 100% renewable energy future.
An academic living in cold Canberra retired his gas heaters a few years
ago and installed electric heat pumps for space and water heating. His gas
bill went to zero. He also bought an electric vehicle, so his gas bill went
to zero. He installed rooftop solar panels that export enough solar
electricity to the grid to pay for electricity imports at night, so his
electricity bill also went to zero. That Canberra academic will get his
money back from these energy investments in about eight years. I am that
academic and I’m experiencing how rooftop solar coupled with
electrification of everything provides the cheapest domestic energy in
history. Solar energy is also causing the fastest energy change in history.
Along with support from wind energy, it offers unlimited, cheap, clean and
reliable energy forever. With energy storage effectively a problem solved,
the required raw materials impossible to exhaust – despite some
misconceptions in the community – and an Australian transition gathering
pace, solar and wind are becoming a superhighway to a future of 100%
renewable energy.
PV Magazine 29th May 2025 https://www.pv-magazine.com/2025/05/29/solar-puts-australia-in-fast-lane-to-100-renewables/
Treaty the planet’s best chance to get rid of its worst weapons
By Dave Sweeney | 19 May 2025, https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/treaty-the-planets-best-chance-to-get-rid-of-its-worst-weapons,19758
From Jakarta to the Vatican, Prime Minister Albanese’s journey underscores a global call to ban the world’s most destructive weapons, writes Dave Sweeney.
ON HIS FIRST overseas trip since his sweeping election victory, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese made for two very different destinations.
The first stop was steamy Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, the world’s most populous island nation and home to the world’s largest Muslim population with around 240 million or 13 per cent of the globe’s believers.
After Indonesia, the PM switched time zones and belief systems and headed to the Vatican, the world’s smallest sovereign state in terms of area and population, and the (sacred) heartland of the Catholic faith.
These two places are very different worlds, with very different worldviews, but both have an active desire to protect our shared world from its most avoidable existential threat: nuclear war.
Prime Minister Albanese also holds this view.
In December 2018, he championed Federal Labor’s support for the newly adopted UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), stating:
“Nuclear weapons are the most destructive, inhumane and indiscriminate weapons ever created. Today we have an opportunity to take a step towards their elimination.”
The TPNW, adopted by the UN in 2017 with more than 120 nations voting in favour, grew from an Australian initiative by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).
ICAN was launched in Melbourne in 2007 and was awarded the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of the group’s work ‘to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons’ and its ‘groundbreaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons’.
The TPNW entered into force in January 2021, an act which has finally and formally seen nuclear weapons be declared unlawful under international humanitarian law.
Supporters of the TPNW have described the Treaty as our planet’s best way to get rid of its worst weapons.
The fragile and fractured global situation starkly highlights the urgency of this task.
Two nuclear weapon states, Israel and Russia, are actively involved in hot wars.
Two more, India and Pakistan, are engaged in risky posturing that could dramatically escalate, while two others, China and the United States, are shaping up for a trade war with hints of worse to come.
Against this grim background, the TPNW is a star that provides some light and hope and a navigation point to help chart a safer and saner course for our shared future.
Nations are embracing this path with half of the world’s countries having signed, ratified or acceded to the Treaty, including Indonesia and the Vatican/Holy See.
When it ratified the TPNW last September, Indonesia – a leading player in the global Non-Aligned Movement – made clear that ‘the possession and use of nuclear weapons cannot be justified for any reason’
Speaking at the time, then Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi posed the fundamental question and delivered the humane answer:
Should fear of nuclear weapons be our guarantee for peace? Indonesia’s answer will forever be no.
Indonesia reaffirms its commitment to a nuclear weapon-free world.
The late Pope Francis was a strong supporter of the TPNW and gave expression to the principle of “blessed are the peacemakers” with the Vatican’s championing and early adoption of the Treaty. The Pope described the very existence of nuclear weapons as “an affront to heaven”. In his final Easter Sunday sermon, shortly before he died, he made a powerful call for peace and weapons abolition.
These calls for nuclear abolition and for ways of addressing conflict that do not risk all that ever was, is or could be on our shared planet are finding a resonance and echo in many other nations.
Labor’s National Platform is clear:
Labor acknowledges the growing danger that nuclear weapons pose to us all and the urgent need for progress on nuclear disarmament.
Labor will act with urgency and determination to rid the world of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons.
Commits itself to redoubling efforts towards a world without nuclear weapons…
Labor in government will sign and ratify the Ban Treaty…
In this year that marks 80 years since the unveiling of the age of Armageddon with the first atom bomb test in New Mexico and the first atom bombings of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it is time to turn a political platform into a prescription for a habitable world.
It is time for Australia to follow the example of Indonesia, the Vatican and many other nations and to show that the pen is mightier than the sword by signing the TPNW.
As they say, Prime Minister, when in Rome…
Business as usual: Australian government stalls on Defence reform as AUKUS woes grow
Above -Australia’s Defence Minister Richard Marles
Defence spending is lagging, AUKUS is stalling, and systemic mismanagement persists as Labor avoids hard structural reform.
Bernard Keane, May 11, 2025, https://www.themandarin.com.au/291901-business-as-usual-labor-stalls-on-defence-reform-as-aukus-woes-grow/
Having managed to get through an election campaign barely mentioning defence — despite the opposition trying to make it a late-stage vote winner — the newly expanded Labor government still faces a number of big challenges in the defence portfolio, and no easy answers.
The two big ones are well-known: the replacement of the US security guarantee with Trumpian chaos, which means Australia will have to strengthen its defence capability so that it has to rely less on the US, and the profound problems of AUKUS.
Despite some budget sleight of hand purporting to show an acceleration in defence spending, the government remains committed to increasing defence spending to just 2.33% of GDP — not merely well below the Trump administration’s demand for 3%, but below the Coalition’s planned increase to 2.5% and the calls from defence and security experts, as well as Labor luminaries like Kim Beazley, for a significant increase.
But the ability of the Department of Defence to handle any increase in spending — or even competently spend what it currently receives — is openly questioned even by hawks. Average major project slippage time, already alarming when the Coalition was last in power, noticeably deteriorated in Labor’s first term. The response of Defence appeared to try to hide embarrassing data from the Auditor-General under the pretence of national security.
Also characterising Labor’s first term was the admission of failure of departmental process, to the very highest echelons of Defence, in relation to the Hunter-class frigate project and the shocking audit of Defence’s dealings with Thales on munitions manufacturing (the second part of which is yet to arrive from the auditor-general).
With both defence minister Richard Marles’ track record in Labor first term, and his general insouciance toward revelations such as the Thales debacle — which included the revelation that the department had actively misled predecessor ministers — it seems unlikely Defence will face any real pressure to improve the incompetence and, quite possibly, corruption that marks its management of major procurement processes. A defence minister like Andrew Hastie, far more credentialed in military matters than most within the department, could have driven the kind of reform that would have gotten Defence backs up, and led to copious leaking against him, but improved the reliability and integrity of the department’s procurement processes. Instead, we’ll have to hope that a Labor government with a big majority and more confidence will be more willing to take on the fundamental problems in the portfolio.
A similar business-as-usual approach will likely characterise the unfolding disaster that is AUKUS. The grim reality is that US submarine construction rates are slowing, not accelerating as they need to if the US is to provide three Virginia-class nuclear submarines to Australia from 2030. In early April, the US Navy admitted to Congress significant delays in constructing its new Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine, which shares some components with the Virginia class. While the builders of the Virginia-class boats are talking bravely of demand signals and additional investment, the build rate for the subs late last year was barely above half that required by AUKUS.
None of this, apparently, is of interest to the bureaucrats charged with overseeing AUKUS. The Mandarin applied under Freedom of Information laws to the Australian Submarine Agency to see what briefing it was providing to ministers on the problems in submarine construction in the US and the UK. No such documents, came back the answer. Blind faith that the US can double the rate of submarine construction in a couple of years is one thing, but remaining ignorant of how badly off track AUKUS is? That’s quite another.
One of the key problems of the Virginia-class boats for Australia is that they require huge crews — 135 sailors, compared to just 58 for Australia’s current submarines. That brings into focus a persistent and worsening problem — our inability to attract and retain ADF members. Last year the Navy was short around 900 people. The Army was short around 5000; only the RAAF is around its mandated strength. A change of recruitment agency for the ADF proved a disaster, with portfolio minister Matt Keogh expressing his “deep disappointment” with the provider’s “wholly deficient” performance. Critics say the problem is with the ADF itself, which is “too slow and too picky”. The government announced in mid-2024 the brilliant idea of opening up the ADF to personnel from Five Eyes. countries. Only problem is, they’re all suffering the same problems with defence recruitment. In fact, armies, navies and air forces around the world are suffering ongoing recruitment problems and have done so for years — even the People’s Liberation Army is struggling to attract Chinese youth to its ranks.
In each of these areas, clearly, business as usual won’t cut it. But that is what Defence is very good at, and its ministers are very bad at preventing. To prevent it, only structural arrangements that disrupt Defence’s normal processes will achieve results. The royal commission into ADF member and veteran suicide had the right idea — and the government rightly took its lead from the commission in its response. The commission recommended a new independent statutory body to oversee reform across the whole Defence/Veterans Affairs portfolio, not a new area of Defence. And it urged, and the government agreed, that central agencies be charged with implementing the commission’s recommendations: the result was a Prime Minister and Cabinet taskforce to start implementing reforms, with the help of external expertise.
An independent agency, and a PM&C-led implementation taskforce, was what was needed to ensure Defence didn’t simply default back to business as usual when it came to the mental health of its members and veterans. Only the oversight and interference of high-powered external bodies will compel Defence to change its culture.
And it’s the only thing that will enable the government to seriously tackle the biggest challenges in the portfolio over the coming years.
Bernard Keane
Bernard Keane is a columnist for The Mandarin. He was a Canberra press gallery correspondent covering politics, national security and economics, and a public servant and speechwriter in transport and communications. He is co-author of A Short History Of Stupid, which covers the decline of reason and issues with public debate.
Who’s afraid of big, bad China?
Neither side wanted to bring China into the debate, and neither side wanted to discuss AUKUS, which is based on a perceived need to take military action against that country.
In the recent Australian election, Neither side wanted to bring China into the debate, and neither side wanted to discuss AUKUS, which is based on a perceived need to take military action against that country.
Jocelyn Chey, May 7, 2025 , https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/05/whos-afraid-of-big-bad-china/
Be afraid, be very afraid. But not of China. To the contrary, the proper management of co-operative relations with China is essential to Australia’s future.
Finally, the election process is over and done with and the results are in. We look forward to news bulletins not dominated by party spokespeople spruiking how they will deal with the cost of living. Rents, health and transport costs are all important, but the big issues that will make or break their social policies are all global, and the real question is how we can front up to them and hopefully turn them to our benefit. If the world goes into recession, which is a very real possibility, we will all be affected. The cost of living will go up. Cuts to social services will be inevitable.
Why did the candidates not admit this? Do they have contingency plans and, if so, what are they? What are they afraid of? Were they scared that if they mentioned China, the US or Russia, they would lose votes, or be backed into election promises that they could not keep? Or were there structural weaknesses in their policies that they did not wish to expose to scrutiny?
In previous election campaigns, the candidates were not so hesitant to pronounce on international affairs. The 2001 election was dominated by immigration issues and the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers in New York. It was the first “khaki election” since the Vietnam War. In the 2022 election, the Morrison Government tried to repeat their 2001 success by promoting fear of Chinese invasions, both military or cultural, but their attempt failed. This time around, both sides of politics have been careful about their choice of language and avoided difficult topics.
Insofar as national security featured at all in the elections, Labor and the Liberals competed to portray themselves as the better party to protect Australia’s international relationships, particularly in the Pacific. Penny Wong accused the Liberals of leaving a “vacuum” that China was ready to fill, but she did not directly accuse Beijing. The one attempt to whip up fear of an invasion was pinned onto Moscow, rather than Beijing, when news broke of a possible deal between Russia and Indonesia about developing a military airbase in West Papua.
Neither side wanted to bring China into the debate, and neither side wanted to discuss AUKUS, which is based on a perceived need to take military action against that country. Labor and Liberal both promised to increase defence spending, one side to 2.3% of GDP, and the other side to 3% over 10 years. Neither mentioned the reasons for such an increase, or where the money would be found. AUKUS is already absorbing all the increases announced by the last government and affecting other procurement needs. AUKUS spending over the next five years is estimated to reach $18 billion and ultimately will total $368 billion, not including the cost of new infrastructure such as a dedicated naval base at HMAS Stirling. The rationale for nuclear-powered vessels is not the defence of our coasts, but the perceived need to attack distant targets, and that target is China.
China has been progressively opening to the world since the 1980s. It is a permanent member of the UN Security Council and an active member of many multilateral organisations. With Australian encouragement, it has engaged with the multilateral trade system, joined APEC and the World Trade Organisation. The domestic economy has flourished in this open environment and in a region that has not seen armed conflict since the end of the Vietnam War. Maintaining strong growth and raising living standards have been the main pillars of Chinese domestic policies.
Economic development has not always been smooth, and recently new problems have emerged on the international front. China trusted the established international governance system to support and regulate its growth, but, as the country grew stronger, it became evident that the US did not return that trust. Its rapid rise and increasing global presence changed the regional and global balance and generated a geopolitical response that was perhaps predictable.
In 2025, the Trump administration has not yet clarified its policy for handling the relationship with China. Tariffs have been imposed, increased and decreased, and threats and hints have been made by the White House. All is chaos. The only thing that is certain is that Trump will challenge China in a more transactional and unpredictable way, will intensify trade confrontations and sanction Chinese companies in his goal to achieve greater self-sufficiency in the US.
In Beijing, Xi Jinping’s response has been measured and consistent. Official statements emphasise that China supports international rules and regulations and the multilateral system. During the National People’s Congress in March, Foreign Minister Wang Yi in a briefing to the international press presented China as a responsible and stable global power and, without explicitly saying so, drew comparisons with Trump’s America and its chaotic pronouncements.
He said: “We will provide certainty to this uncertain world. … We will be a staunch force defending our national interests. … We will be a just and righteous force for world peace and stability. … We will be a progressive force for international fairness and justice. We will be a constructive force for common development of the world.”
The contrast with Trump’s Tweets could not be more striking.
China is now truly integrated into the global economy. National policy has determined this, and, in any case, it would have been inevitable, given the development of advanced technologies and information and communication systems, all requiring international engagement. China, above all, wants stability and security in international relations to underpin its economic growth. In the future, the major challenges that the world will face are global. Climate change cannot be tackled without international co-operation. Australia needs more than ever to understand China and its domestic and foreign policies.
Co-operation with China is not easy. To borrow Trump’s words, “They hold the cards”. Australia, however, is not alone, and the best response to China is to consult and co-ordinate with neighbouring countries who also regularly interact with the rising superpower. Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, all have important trade and diplomatic ties with China and have much experience to share about how to manage a relationship with China, a regional power and a global superpower. Australia should be able to manage relations with China. If we respect Beijing’s legitimate rights, Beijing will respect ours
It is possible. China has no history of annexing other countries as Russia annexed Crimea. It respects other countries’ autonomy more than Trump respects the sovereignty of Mexico, Canada or Greenland. It has claims over a large part of the South China Sea that on the surface suggest aggressive intent, but this is not a new claim. The “nine dash line” outlining its territorial claim was first proposed by the then Nationalist government in 1948, and the government of Taiwan still maintains this position. Considering that China is surrounded by a string of US bases along the “first island chain” from Japan to the Philippines, amid that Camp Humphreys, near Seoul in South Korea, the largest US overseas military base, is just 549 kms from the city of Dalian in northeast China, it is not surprising that China should wish to limit further US advances.
As for the other superpower, in the first 100 days of the Trump regime, he has attempted to use the legal system to carry out his personal vendettas. He has shut down many government departments. He has attacked scientific research and the universities and disregarded statistical evidence, particularly in medical science and climate science. He is prejudiced against immigrants. He dismisses the most basic ideas of trade and economics. He prefers to deal with other autocrats like Vladimir Putin and has turned his back on international agreements and treaties.
Be afraid, be very afraid. But not of China.
(This is a summary of a talk given at the Festival of Wild Ideas, St Paul’s Burwood, on 4 May 2025)
The dark cloud of Murdoch has no silver lining
News Corp, Sky after dark, Fox News … they spew lies and propaganda around the globe, and the evil empire’s tentacles keep wrapping around the fearful and the ignorant.
by Nicole Chvastek, 7 May 2025, https://thepolitics.com.au/the-dark-cloud-of-murdoch-has-no-silver-lining/
As Saturday’s bloodbath washes through the Liberal corridors of no power, the electoral train wreck has turned attention to other overly cocky players: the Murdoch media.
From the moment the poll was called, Rupert Murdoch’s news culture warriors turned up the heat on Labor, exhorting the brilliance of Peter Dutton’s failed nuclear fantasy and his war on migrants, “woke” schools, people who work from home and Welcomes to Country — while tearing down anyone who dared suggest he and his party were not fit for office.
But on election night none of that mattered. None of the confected outrage, the miles of newsprint, the spin and the bullying had made a jot of difference and was more likely to have worked against the Liberals’ interests. Australians it seems have a finely tuned bullshit radar.
Sky pirates
Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young nailed it when she told Radio National on Monday:
“I think what has happened to the Coalition is they spent a bit too much time hangin’ out with Sky News and they forgot to really hear what people were saying. The other big loser is the Murdoch press. They created an echo chamber for themselves.”
Dr Denis Muller of the Centre for Advancing Journalism at the University of Melbourne said the Murdoch media were “agents of disaster” for the Coalition:
“I see the sun beginning to set on Rupert’s influence in Australian politics. News Corp created a bubble in which their journalists and Coalition politicians cocooned themselves, talking to each other on Sky after dark, persuading each other that everything was going to be fine.”
A setting sun? It’s a big call. Australian politicians of all persuasions famously make the trek to Murdoch headquarters after an election for a ritual known as “kissing the ring”, and Anthony Albanese, Richard Marles and Penny Wong were quick to do their duty in 2022.
Strings attached
Eric Beecher, a former News Corp employee, recalls being sued (unsuccessfully) by Lachlan Murdoch who issued a writ for defamation over an opinion piece linking the Murdoch news empire with 2021’s January 6 Capitol riots:
“The day after the defamation writ was issued, a large Commonwealth government car pulled up outside the Holt Street Surry Hills headquarters in Sydney of News Corp. Three people got out of that car to go upstairs and visit Lachlan in his office: the prime minister, the deputy prime minister and the foreign [affairs] minister of Australia. It’s been going on for 100 years and it should stop.”
The reach of puppetmaster Rupert Murdoch into governments and policy making knows no bounds and there have been countless exposés on unethical business practices. But the machine roars on, a powerhouse of global disinformation and propaganda while pretending to be a news-gathering organisation.
In January, Murdoch was photographed reclining in the Oval Office as Donald Trump signed an executive order creating a sovereign wealth fund. Fox News cable spits out Trump propaganda daily and is credited with helping to return the convicted felon and sex predator to office. Murdoch has called Trump “increasingly mad” and yet publicly admitted he knew Fox commentators were lying when they broadcast falsehoods about a “stolen rigged election” in 2020. But hey, it was good for business.
Nuke the enemy
The habitual process of retribution and vendetta from News Corp is bitter and legendary. The Australian Financial Review reports that Malcolm Turnbull and Kevin Rudd blame Murdoch for their political demise. In 1974, Murdoch famously directed his editors to “kill Whitlam” 10 months before Gough Whitlam’s electoral ousting.
Every day, Murdoch’s media rival, the ABC, is a target of sneering “hit jobs”, and any politician or voice that suggests climate change is real or nuclear reactors are a fantasy or billionaires don’t deserve tax breaks are hounded, possibly for life. The Herald Sun still runs revelations about former Labor premier Dan Andrews and sporadic pieces of condemnation over a car accident his wife had 20 years ago. According to Beecher in his book The Men Who Killed The News, Andrews was the only premier who refused to schlep up to News Corp headquarters for the compulsory kissing of the ring.
In Australia, the power base is the print media, overwhelmingly controlled by News Corp with a huge digital presence and backed by Sky News. In 2020, Rudd and Turnbull joined forces to call for a royal commission into Murdoch’s concentrated media holdings. Rudd claimed his media power is “routinely used to attack opponents in business and politics by blending editorial opinion with news reporting”.
Break the News
How is it that such deep, lasting damage to democracy, businesses and people’s lives can be inflicted with precisely zero repercussions? One part of the answer is the acceptance that democracies cannot flourish without a free press. Section 65A of the Trade Practices Act provides a general exemption to most of the media as publishers of news and current affairs from liability for publishing misleading or deceptive material. Former chairman of the ACCC Allan Fels said concerns around Murdoch’s practices are more likely to be addressed by a royal commission, an idea the government and opposition have not supported.
“I don’t have a view on whether he should be reined in. All media mislead to some extent. It’s not the sort of thing consumer protection law addresses.”
Dr Victoria Fielding, senior lecturer in strategic communication at the University of Adelaide, was bolder. She said legislative change was needed to rein in Murdoch excesses. She agrees a healthy democracy needs an independent free press populated by balanced journalists who hold the powerful to account and publish verifiable information — but that’s not what the Murdoch media are:
“If there was some legislation that said if you want to be a commentary organisation you can only have a particular share of the market — like any competition commissioner can do — you break it up. You say: ‘You can no longer be that large.’ It’s distorting our democracy.”
Running scared
The other part of the answer is fear, fear of taking on a monolithic disinformation machine which countless readers think is a news outlet and being publicly torn down and repeatedly shredded by a media gorilla with few scruples and deep pockets.
Remarkably, after cheerleading the Liberals to disaster on May 3, The Australian leapt back up onto its feet to brush off its flesh wound and lecture the Coalition on “missing the warnings”:
“Of all the mistakes that led to this result, one was fatal: the untested assumption that Labor was out of touch and unaligned with the mainstream values of Australians. There can be no other interpretation that that this is fundamentally wrong.”
This from the paper that tells us pretty much every day that Labor is out of touch and unaligned with the mainstream values of Australians.
Culture vultures
Reports of the death of the Murdoch brand in Australia may well be exaggerated. Like any good parasite it is known to stew and grow before attacking the host again. Fielding reminds us that backed by the Murdoch press, Dutton was on track to win the federal election as recently as January — until the catastrophic reality of the Trump presidency became obvious to Australians.
Murdoch has withstood worse setbacks than crashing an election and, like Monty Python’s Black Knight, his culture warriors rebound after each atrocity and, still bleeding, berate their victims for taking the advice.
I’d like to think the tide is turning on news outlets that amplify bullshit while bragging they are society’s moral pulse and insisting their bullshit is good for you. But if the tide is not for turning, you can always join the Liberals, and learn the hard way.
Nuclear fallout: Coalition’s nuclear energy policy proved toxic to Australian voters
SMH, By Mike Foley, May 5, 2025
The Coalition’s nuclear energy policy was toxic to voters, delivering big swings against Peter Dutton’s candidates in electorates chosen to host reactors, while support for Labor grew in many places it chose for massive offshore wind farms.
Dutton’s energy policy was built on opposing Labor’s “reckless race to renewables”, which the Coalition claimed was trashing farmland in the path of transmission lines and solar panels, in favour of a nuclear and gas-led strategy.
“I’m very happy for the election to be a referendum on energy, on nuclear,” Dutton said on June 19, when he announced his planned nuclear plant locations.
Dutton had not visited any of his proposed nuclear sites by the time the election was over, while the party quietened its advertising for the policy.
In the NSW electorate of Hunter, which borders where the Coalition planned to build a reactor on the site of the old Liddell coal plant, Labor MP Dan Repacholi significantly increased his support.
Repacholi’s first-preference votes jumped from 39 per cent in 2022 to 44 per cent in 2025, while the Nationals fell from 27 per cent to 18 per cent.
The central west NSW seat of Calare was also slated for a reactor near Lithgow, and the election turned into a three-cornered contest between the pro-nuclear Nationals, their former member-turned-nuclear sceptic independent Andrew Gee, and nuclear opponent Kate Hook……………………………
south of the border in the electorate of Gippsland, where the Coalition planned to build a reactor at the Loy Yang A coal plant, Nationals MP Darren Chester defied the trend with his primary vote falling from 55.2 per cent in 2022 to 53.5 per cent in 2025.
The figures could change as the Australian Electoral Commission continues to tally ballots.
The nuclear vote also appears to have inflicted pain on Coalition seats where no nuclear plants were planned.
Chief architect and advocate for the policy, energy spokesman Ted O’Brien, the Liberal National Party MP for Fairfax in Queensland, dropped to 38 per cent on the primary vote from 44 per cent in 2022, while Labor ticked up 2 per cent and anti-nuclear independent candidate Francine Wiig captured 12 per cent.
Nationals leader David Littleproud’s primary vote dropped from 54 per cent in 2022 to 52 per cent.
On the day after the election, Littleproud said nuclear was not responsible for the Coalition’s historic loss.
“I think this was a schmick campaign by Labor destroying Peter Dutton’s character,” he told Sky News.
Dutton vigorously campaigned against wind farms, visiting electorates planned for development and claiming the industry would harm whales, commercial fishing and seascape views.
The Coalition pledged to ban four of Labor’s six offshore wind zones, and Dutton campaigned on this commitment in Paterson, north of Sydney, as well as Whitlam and Cunningham south of Sydney, and Forrest south of Perth.
In Forrest, the Liberal vote fell from 43 per cent in 2022 to 31.5 per cent. First-time independent candidate Sue Chapman, who backed assessment of offshore wind in the area “based on the evidence and [would] aim to bring the community along”, picked up 18.5 per cent of primary votes.
In Cunningham, Wollongong Labor MP Alison Byrnes increased her primary vote from 40.5 per cent in 2022 to 45 per cent.
Down the road in Shellharbour, part of the electorate of Whitlam, Labor’s Carol Berry maintained the 38 per cent primary vote from the past election (although, in terms of ……..the two-candidate preferred vote, Whitlam recorded a 2 per cent swing against Labor)……….https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/nuclear-fallout-coalition-s-energy-policy-proved-toxic-to-voters-20250504-p5lwcp.html
A resounding win for the world’s nuclear-free clean energy movement
https://theaimn.net/a-resounding-win-for-the-worlds-nuclear-free-clean-energy-movement/ 5 May 25
In early analyses of the historic Labor election victory, commentators have tut-tutted over the Liberal Coalition’s policies that didn’t impress voters – like reduced tax on petrol, like poor housing plans, and certain Trump-like aspects. These were the things, and the “cost-of living” issues that brought down the vote for the Coalition. And a number of interviews with voters did show that these issues were important.
BUT, in the media build-up to the election, those issues were hammered, and it seemed to me, that Peter Dutton’s party was happy with that, and especially, to stay OFF the topic of nuclear power.
But nuclear power was the core policy in the Opposition’s campaign. Its quiet partner policy was the drastic slowing down of solar power, and renewable energy in general. Along with this went a downgrading of climate change – Dutton coming close to climate-change denial – “I’m not a scientist” was his answer to questions about the impacts of global heating. The inevitable delay in nuclear power becoming operational would be a gift for the fossil fuel industries,
And it was a pretty amazing policy- to bring in nuclear power across a very special country! Australia is the only country in the world that is a nation-continent, a great island -continent with one federal government, and one predominant language. There is no doubt that, had the Coalition won this election, it would have been a grand coup for the global nuclear lobby.
The Labor government is also beholden to the nuclear lobby. Anthony Albanese, as Opposition leader in 2021, agreed to the then Liberal government’s AUKUS nuclear submarine deal. In 2024, his Labor government cemented its agreement by signing an updated version of the AUKUS Exchange of Naval Nuclear Propulsion Information Agreement (ENNPIA).
So no wonder that both of Australia’s major parties are playing down the significance of the nuclear issue, now that across the nation, voters have rejected nuclear power. And the obedient mainstream media is playing it down, too.
Australia’s unique advantage is that it is the only nuclear-power -free nation-continent , and is also a world leader in renewable energy.
Even in 2023, 33% of Australian households had rooftop solar panels. generating their own electricity. Australia is a world leader in rooftop solar adoption, with solar panels installed on more homes per capita than any other country. This trend continues to increase, with Australians making huge savings on energy costs.
To be fair to the Albanese Labor government, it has done well on promoting renewable energy. It has not done so well on climate change action – The Australian government is continuing its long-standing support for fossil fuels both at home and abroad.
Despite its two major political parties being wedded to the fossil fuel industries, and both of them sycophantic to American militarism and the nuclear lobby, Australia really does have the opportunity to lead the world in the direction of clean safe nuclear-free energy.
The AUKUS agreement, the nuclear submarine deal , is looking a bit wobbly at this moment -with the Trumpian uncertainty clouding Australia’s relationship with the USA.
All in all, it is a positive outlook for Australia, and its leading role in clean energy. But don’t expect the corporate media, or the timid ABC, to genuinely emphasise the importance of this election victory over the nuclear lobby.
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