Australia risks being ‘world’s nuclear waste dump’ unless Aukus laws changed, critics say

Labor-chaired inquiry calls for legislation to rule out accepting high-level nuclear waste from US and UK submarines among other recommendations

Daniel Hurst Foreign affairs and defence correspondent,  https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/13/australia-aukus-deal-submarines-critics-nuclear-waste

Australia risks becoming the “world’s nuclear waste dump” unless the Albanese government moves to rewrite its proposed Aukus laws, critics say.

A Labor-chaired inquiry has called for the legislative safeguard to specifically rule out accepting high-level nuclear waste from the US and the UK. One of the members of a Senate committee that reviewed the draft laws, independent senator Lidia Thorpe, said the legislation “should be setting off alarm bells” because “it could mean that Australia becomes the world’s nuclear waste dump”.

The government’s bill for regulating nuclear safety talks about “managing, storing or disposing of radioactive waste from an Aukus submarine”, which it defines broadly as Australia, UK or US submarines.

In a report published on Monday, the Senate’s foreign affairs, defence and trade legislation committee said this wording did not reflect the government’s promise not to accept high-level nuclear waste.

It recommended that the government consider “amending the bill so that a distinction is made between Australia’s acceptance of low-level nuclear waste from Aukus partners, but non-acceptance of high-level nuclear waste”.

The government has left the door open to accepting low-level waste from US and UK nuclear-powered submarines when they conduct rotational visits to Western Australia in the first phase of the Aukus plan. Low-level waste contains small amounts of radioactivity and include items such as personal protective equipment, gloves and wipes.

“According to the Australian Submarine Agency, nuclear-powered submarines only generate around a ‘small skip bin’ of low-level naval nuclear waste per submarine per year and that intermediate- and high-level waste will not become a concern until the first naval nuclear reactor requires disposal in the mid-2050s,” the Senate committee report said.

The government has yet to decide on the location for the disposal of radioactive waste from the submarines.

But infrastructure works proposed for HMAS Stirling – the naval base in Western Australia – to support the increased rotational visits are expected to include an operational waste storage facility for low-level radioactive waste.

The Department of Defence has argued any changes to the definitions should not prevent “regulatory control of the management of low-level radioactive waste from UK or US submarines” as part of those rotational visits.

Thorpe, an independent senator, said the call to prohibit high-level nuclear waste from being stored in Australia was “backed by experts in the field and was one of the major concerns raised during the inquiry into the bill”.

“The government claims it has no intention to take Aukus nuclear waste beyond that of Australian submarines, so they should have no reason not to close this loophole,” Thorpe said.

“They also need to stop future governments from deciding otherwise. We can’t risk our future generations with this.”

The government’s proposed legislation would set up an Australian naval nuclear power safety regulator to oversee the safety of the nuclear-powered submarines.

The committee made eight recommendations, including setting “a suitable minimum period of separation” to prevent a revolving door from the Australian Defence Force or Department of Defence to the new regulator.

The main committee report acknowledged concerns in the community that Australia might become a “dumping ground” for the Aukus countries, but it said the term was “not helpful in discussing the very serious question of national responsibility for nuclear waste”.

It also said the bill should be amended to ensure the regulator was transparent about “any accidents or incidents” with the soon-to-be-established parliamentary oversight committee on defence.

The Labor chair of the committee, Raff Ciccone, said the recommendations would “further strengthen the bill” and help “ensure Australia maintains the highest standards of nuclear safety”.

In a dissenting report, the Greens senator David Shoebridge said the legislation was “deeply flawed”, including because the regulator would report to the defence minister.

“The proposed regulator lacks genuine independence, the process for dealing with nuclear waste is recklessly indifferent to community or First Nations interests and the level of secrecy is a threat to both the environment and the public interest,” Shoebridge said.

The defence minister, Richard Marles, was contacted for comment.

Bill lets UK/US “dump nuclear submarine waste here”

Ben Packam 6 May 24

The British company appointed to build Australia’s nuclear submarines says the government’s draft nuclear safety laws would allow the disposal in Australia of high -level radioactive wastes from UK submarines.

BAE Systems chief counsel made observation at committee hearing examining the government’s naval nuclear power safety bill, which is due to be pushed through Parliament after next week’s federal budget………….

Under questioing by Greens Senator David Shoebridge, BAE’s Peter Quinlivian agreed that the wording of the bill opened a pathway for the disposal of high-level British radioactive waste in Australia.

“The legislation as drafted is in language that would accommodate that scenario” he said.

Britain is yet to dispose of any of the nuclear submarines it has decommissioned since the 1980s. It estimates it won’t fully dispose of the boats, plus seven more dure to retire in coming years, until the late 2060s.

Mr Quinlivian said that BAE had not informed the British government of the prospects that Australia could legally dispose of its nuclear waste “because it didn’t immediately strike us”

The apparent loophole flies in the face of Australia’s reassurances that AUKUS won’t require us to become a dumping ground for other countries’ nuclear wastes.

Liberal Senator David Fawcett asked Defence officials in the April 22 committee hearing whether the bill could be amended to avoid unintended consequences, something that the government is understood to be open to.

In a written response, Defence conceded that a tightening of the bill’s language could be needed. It said specifying the “disposal” of only “Australian submarine” nuclear waste would be consistent with government policy, but the government would have to “carefully consider any amendment which excluded the possibility of regulatory control of the management of low level radioactive waste from UK or US submarines……………….

The Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety agency is poised to declare a site at the HMAS Stirling naval base off Perth as a low level radioactive waste management facility, but a decision on where to store high level waste from Australia’s planned nuclear submarines is years if not decades away

Defence Minister Richard Marles said that after the government announced its nuclear submarine plans in March 2023, Australia would not take nuclear waste from its AUKUS partners

“We’re not talking about establishing a civil nuclear industry, nor are we talking about opening Australia up as a repository for nuclear waste from other countries” he told the ABC.

Senator Shoebridge said that British bureaucrats were almost certainly “rubbing their hands together at the prospect of the Albanese government being foolish enough to pass this bill”

“Minister Marles has now been embarrassed by not only his own department but the very people he signed up to make the nuclear subs” he said.

The Senate standing committee on foreign affairs defence and trade is to release its report on the Australian Naval Nuclear Power Safety Bill 2023 on May 11.

Nuclear lobby manipulates ABC’s 7.30 Report

By Noel Wauchope | 11 April 2024,  https://independentaustralia.net/business/business-display/nuclear-lobby-manipulates-abcs-730,18498—

An ABC report on nuclear energy presented a one-sided viewpoint, dominated by the pro-nuclear lobby, writes Noel Wauchope.

ON 4 APRIL, on ABC’s 7.30, regional affairs reporter Jane Norman presented a sort of debate on nuclear power for Australia. An accompanying article was also published on 2 April as a debate about ‘a generational divide’.

The show was quite gripping, with excellent visual snippets of Australia’s history of nuclear issues and promotional visualisation of the industry’s proposed new small modular reactors (SMRs).

The essence of this debate seemed to be that old people are inclined to oppose nuclear power, but young people see it as a new and valuable way to reduce carbon emissions and counter global heating.

In discussing the pros and cons of nuclear power, Norman, herself relatively young, mentioned some recent opinion polls in which public opinion was split, with younger Australians being more supportive of nuclear.

In opposition to nuclear, elderly Indigenous Aunty Sue Haseldine gave an intensely personal history, passionately setting out her concern for the environment and for the children of the future. We learned, as the programme went on, that older generations had been influenced by the history of past atomic tests in Australia, and by past accidents overseas, and had developed a distrust of nuclear power.

And, presently, the Liberal Coalition Opposition, led by Peter Dutton, is putting nuclear ‘at the centre of its energy policy’.

Moving on to those supporting nuclear power, Jane Norman interviewed the enthusiastic Helen Cook.

Cook is deeply involved in the pro-nuclear lobby as principal of GNE Advisory, whose website states:

‘Helen is recognised as a nuclear law expert by the International Atomic Energy Agency [and] the former Chair of the World Nuclear Association’s Law Working Group…’

She is definitely a nuclear promoter and a favoured speaker for the industry, along with luminaries such as Michael Shellenberger, Zion Lights and Dr Adi Paterson. She said that she had had trouble overseas trying to explain Australia’s ban against nuclear power, but now back in Australia, did not find negative attitudes towards it.

We then heard very limited support from the Grattan Institute‘s Tony Wood. He was clear that at present the economics for nuclear power are “terrible”, but said that SMRs could be an option for the future. (BHP, a big uranium miner, is a big backer of the Grattan Institute.)

The programme reinforced the message for small nuclear power, showing attractive graphics of SMRs prominently marked with text: ‘Reliable, cost-effective, clean and safe.’

Then came Mark Ho, nuclear engineer and president of the Australian Nuclear Association, on the need to overturn the legislation banning nuclear. Construction of SMRs would take from three to five years.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) says that a country could go from considering nuclear energy to having nuclear energy in its power grid in ten to 15 years

Associate Professor Edward Obbard, the head of nuclear engineering at UNSW, was the final pro-nuclear expert. He explained that there is, among young people, very little opposition to AUKUS nuclear submarines. Younger generations regard climate change as the greatest threat, so nuclear could be one of the solutions. Obbard sees it as a moral case — an environmentally low-impact way to decarbonise.

Helen Cook has interesting insights. She says that Australia has expertise in nuclear power — a questionable claim when it is based on just the staff of one small research reactor. She argues that the USA, Japan and Ukraine have experienced severe nuclear accidents, yet have pledged to treble their nuclear energy production by 2050. One does wonder why.

This is problematic, as all three countries are burdened with nuclear waste and the industry now promises the reactors that might “eat the waste” (itself a dodgy claim). The UK government now admits that the nuclear weapons industry is the real reason for civil nuclear reactors. Her case for nuclear power for Australia seems to boil down to if others are doing this, so should we.

So we have on one side a little old (very articulate and eloquent) Indigenous lady, who probably does not have a university degree, let alone a big job in the industry, versus four “highly qualified” prestigious members of the pro-nuclear lobby.

I wrote to 7.30 suggesting a bit of genuine balance in this debate. I suggested for speakers the very well-informed Jim Green, of the international Nuclear Consulting Group and Friends of the Earth Australia, Dr Helen Caldicott, or Dave Sweeney of the Australian Conservation Foundation. But I now reflect that these might be a bit much for the ABC.

They might consider interviewing former nuclear supporters such as Ziggy Switkowski, Alan Finkel, or some more neutral experts like economist Professor John Quiggin or Jeremy Cooper.

Anyway, it’s the same old problem of false balance that has plagued the ABC in the past. 

And there’s another dimension, now. The programme depicted Aunty Sue Haseldine as an admirable person, with genuine concern and emotion. But she hasn’t got the facts, the new young expert technical facts that appeal to today’s young people.

But 7.30 didn’t really present the facts. The gee-whiz SMRs are not new and young. They were tried out in the 1940s to 1960s but turned out to be uneconomic, time-consuming, gave poor performance and produced toxic wastes. The programme glossed over important issues such as waste problems, genuine study of the probable delays before SMRs could be operational, safety issues, risks of terrorism and weapons proliferation.

The ABC has a pretty noble history of tackling tough issues. And so does Sarah Ferguson, presenter of 7.30. I think they let us down this time and hope they will rectify this.

Peter Dutton to press ahead with nuclear despite opposition in regional Australia

Locals who live in areas earmarked for nuclear reactors have delivered a blow to Peter Dutton’s energy plan.
James Campbell National political editor, April 7, 2024, The Sunday Telegraph
https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/nsw/peter-dutton-to-press-ahead-with-nuclear-despite-opposition-in-regional-australia/news-story/53a7108e83484542ee99870d5002fba9
Peter Dutton will press on with his plans for nuclear power, despite recent Coalition research finding widespread opposition to the proposals in regional areas earmarked for reactors.
Coalition sources said focus group research carried out in the Hunter Valley in NSW and the Latrobe Valley in Victoria in recent weeks found hostility to the proposed polices.
It found that while voters were aware of the general arguments for nuclear power, they were hostile to plans for reactors in their own areas.

A Coalition source familiar with the research said the findings had come as a shock.
“They had convinced themselves that people would be queuing up for these things,” the source said.
Another said it was clear “more work needs to be done” on winning the argument.
But Mr Dutton is still set to release his plan for net-zero energy before the May budget.
The Weekend Australian reported the Coalition’s plan would offer heavily discounted power bills to communities with nuclear power plants.
It also reported the plan is to install small nuclear reactors at as many as seven sites, which will be operating by the mid-2030s.

“The ability to produce zero-emissions baseload with 24/7 electricity to firm up renewables is within our grasp,” he told the paper.
However a Coalition MP who strongly supports nuclear power said there was increasing concern in both the Liberal and National Party rooms that it was already too late to win the public argument about nuclear power in the time left before the next election.
“We haven’t even seen the policy yet,” the MP said. “My read is they’re in panic about it. They don’t know what to do.”

The Sunday Telegraph spoke to a number of Coalition MPs, including frontbenchers, who expressed concerns about the saleability of nuclear power from opposition.
But they all agreed Mr Dutton is not for turning on ¬nuclear power.
According to one frontbencher who supports the plan “the best case scenario” from pushing nuclear power would be a “nil-all draw” with the Government.
“Let’s not kid ourselves that this is some kind of vote-catching policy,” the frontbencher said.
But he said there was no chance Mr Dutton would walk away from it.

“He’s obsessed with this nuclear thing – obsessed with it,” the frontbencher said.
“Peter is very determined to go down this path,” another said.
On Wednesday, Mr Dutton told reporters: “I think we need to have a proper, mature discussion about how we migrate to a new energy system where we can have renewables that are firmed up by zero emissions, latest generation nuclear technology”.
He added: “In terms of regions, we’ve been very definite in our advice that we’re looking at about half a dozen sites, on brownfield sites, those where you’ve got a coal-fired generator coming to an end of life”.

States reject Dutton’s push for nuclear power

Parker McKenzie, Apr 05, 2024

State politicians from across the political spectrum have rejected the federal Liberal Party’s push for nuclear power, citing cost, speed and technology as reasons to bet on renewables.

Despite being “open to the debate”, South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas said nuclear power wasn’t fit for Australia’s energy needs.

“Every single objective, independent analysis that has looked at this has said nuclear power would make power more expensive in Australia rather than cheaper,” he told ABC News.

“Why we would impose that burden on power consumers in our country is completely beyond me. Maybe one day in a hundred years time nuclear technology might evolve.”

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has previously praised Malinauskas for being “honest” about nuclear energy.

Labor premiers have unanimously rejected the nuclear energy push from Dutton, while influential Liberal state politicians have rejected Dutton’s energy policy.

Liberal dissent

Matt Kean, a former energy minister and treasurer in Dominic Perrottet’s NSW government, has resigned from a Liberal and National Party member-run renewable energy advocacy group because it supported nuclear energy over wind and solar.

“The reality is there is no feasible pathway [for nuclear energy] to play any material role in helping Australia replace our coal-fired power stations in line with the climate science,” Kean said.

“Large-scale nuclear reactors have proven costly and slow to deliver and [I] would refer you to the UK experience with the Hinkley Point C power station, and the fact that small modular nuclear reactors are not currently commercial anywhere in the world.”

Australian government seeks top quality PR team to persuade Aborigines that a nuclear waste dump is a good thing.

The federal government is seeking to employ a highly skilled PR team to manage likely outrage over possible sites for a nuclear waste dump.

In new documents, released quietly on the federal tender site, the Albanese government has called for urgent expressions of interest in public relations services as it continues “high outrage” plans to build a secure nuclear waste storage facility.
A major government approach to market uncovered by The Canberra Times reveals a nuclear-specific crisis management team is now being sought to bid for a two-year contract to help manage public discussion of nuclear waste in Australia.

It comes six months after the government abandoned plans for a low-level nuclear waste facility in remote South Australia amid community division including opposition from the area’s traditional owners, the Barngarla people.

It also comes as Australia, like AUKUS partners the United States and the United Kingdom, continues to be without a long-term solution for radioactive waste disposal.

The approach to market, posted on March 26, reveals the Department of Industry, Science and Resources seeking “nuclear-specific” public relations and professional communications services to work with staff from the Australian Radioactive Waste Agency (ARWA) to support the public’s “comprehensive understanding of the nation’s radioactive waste inventory, origins and need for safe management.”

“This is a highly specialised high-outrage area and there are times of uplift where urgent assistance is required and additional industry-relevant specialist support is needed, including upskilling staff to undertake these activities in a high outrage environment,” the document reads.

“The contract procurement is being undertaken at this time as these skills are especially relevant during the early stages of a new radioactive waste management approach being identified (i.e the first three-five years for a 100-year radioactive waste management project).”
Last August, the federal government scrapped plans to build the nation’s first radioactive waste storage facility on farmland near Kimba in South Australia.

There was high criticism of the way the site at Napandee, a 211-hectare property at the top of the Eyre Peninsula, was announced in 2021 and then argued as needed.

The Barngarla people had earlier won a Federal Court case, successfully arguing that they were not properly consulted by the Morrison government over the site’s selection. However, some other Kimba residents were disappointed that the nuclear waste facility plans were dumped.

The Albanese government said, in scrapping the Kimba plans, that it respected the court’s decision to set aside the 2021 site declaration.
The new approach to market refers to a need to engage with “impacted communities” and hold “stringent preparation for technical and challenging questions from the public to ensure ARWA can answer questions and address concerns transparently.”

“Services will include nuclear-specific stakeholder engagement, often in person, with impacted communities, nuclear industry stakeholders and the broader public – to support a comprehensive understanding of the nation’s radioactive waste inventory, origins and need for safe management,” the documents read.

The new approach to market asks that the successful suppliers be able to obtain baseline security clearance and demonstrate experience and understanding of the nuclear and radioactive industry.

According to the documents, the contract for services, which potential suppliers have to bid for over the next two weeks, would be from July 1, 2024 to June 30, 2026, with a possibility of extension. It is advised that the contract would not be fixed price irrespective of the hours spent by personnel. “Intensive” short notice work is required combined with some intrastate and interstate travel.

It warns there may be “urgent uplift from government announcements or other factors.”

The documents describe activities for the successful supplier, including engagement with the public and capability to “advise on emerging best practice for high outrage management and crisis communication and upskill APS (Australian Public Service) staff to deliver.”

They also ask that the successful supplier assist in preparing “factually correct nuclear technology and radioactive waste engagement materials ahead of in-person stakeholder engagement and upskilling APS staff.”

The Canberra Times sought comment from Resources Minister Madeleine King over the approach to market.

“Federal Resources Minister Madeleine King has instructed her department to develop policy options for managing Commonwealth radioactive waste into the future and this work is ongoing,” a spokesperson for Ms King said in a statement.

“The government has been firm in the need for the Commonwealth to safely manage its own radioactive waste.”

Melissa Parke: The nuclear threat Australia is ignoring

In its 2018 policy platform, Labor committed to signing and ratifying the TPNW in government, after taking account of a number of factors, including the new treaty’s interaction with the longstanding non-proliferation treaty.

It was Albanese who moved the motion, stating at the time, “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 motion was seconded by the now defence minister, Richard Marles, and adopted unanimously.

The Saturday Paper, 30 Mar 24

In August 1939, a month before the outbreak of World War II, Albert Einstein wrote to then United States president Franklin D. Roosevelt advising that a large mass of uranium could be used to make “extremely powerful bombs of a new type”.

Fearing Nazi Germany would be the first to develop such weaponry, he implored Roosevelt to speed up experimental work aimed at harnessing the destructive power of the atom.

It was, he later said, the “one great mistake” of his life.

Like J. Robert Oppenheimer, Einstein became increasingly alarmed at the implications of the Manhattan Project. In just a few years, the human species had acquired the means to destroy itself, along with most other living organisms on Earth.

Horrified by the high death toll from the US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, which killed more than 200,000 people, mostly civilians, Einstein reflected, “The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.”

Shortly before his death in 1955, Einstein signed a manifesto with other renowned intellectuals, including the mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell, warning “a war with H-bombs might quite possibly put an end to the human race”.

Their growing concern stemmed, in part, from the discovery that nuclear weapons could spread destruction over a much wider area than had initially been supposed.

A year earlier, at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands, America’s infamous Castle Bravo nuclear weapons test had poisoned not only the people of nearby Rongelap but also Japanese fishermen hundreds of kilometres from the blast site.

It was the largest of more than 300 US, French and British nuclear test explosions carried out in the Pacific between 1946 and 1996, with devastating consequences for local populations and the environment.

The British government also tested nuclear weapons on Australian soil in the 1950s and 1960s, poisoning the environment, dislocating and irradiating Aboriginal communities, and affecting many of the 20,000 British and Australian service personnel involved in the testing program.

The toxic legacy of these experiments – in Australia, the Pacific and other parts of the world – persists to this day. Those exposed to radiation and their descendants suffer from birth defects and cancers at much higher rates than the general population.

Still, the nuclear arms race continues apace. The dire warnings articulated so powerfully in the Russell–Einstein manifesto seven decades ago remain just as relevant today.

Our world is teetering on the brink of catastrophe, with close to 13,000 nuclear weapons in the arsenals of nine countries. The risk of their use – whether by accident or design – is as high as ever……………………………………………………………

Australia’s plan to acquire nuclear-powered submarines under AUKUS has only exacerbated tensions, eroding well-established non-proliferation norms.

Last year, more than 150 medical journals, including The Lancet and the Medical Journal of Australia, put out a joint call for urgent action to eliminate nuclear weapons. They identified the abolition of nuclear weapons as a public health priority. “Even a ‘limited’ nuclear war involving only 250 of the 13,000 nuclear weapons in the world,” the warning stated, “could kill 120 million people outright and cause global climate disruption leading to a nuclear famine, putting two billion people at risk.”……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

This week, as I walked the halls of Parliament House to advocate for Australia’s signing of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), a landmark accord adopted at the United Nations in 2017 with the backing of 122 countries, I was reminded of the power that people in government have to make real and long-lasting change, and also how all too often they let opportunities slip by.

During my nine years as the Labor member for Fremantle, I saw how government action and policy change could make positive differences for people and the environment, but also how inaction could have devastating consequences.

The Albanese government has an opportunity to leave a powerful legacy and help secure the future of all life on Earth. To do so, Australia must step out from under the shadow of the nuclear umbrella and sign the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Wespons (TPNW)

The sticking point for Australia has been the doctrine of extended nuclear deterrence, a feature of our defence strategy for decades. In theory, Australia relies on US nuclear weapons to defend us against nuclear attack. Washington, however, has never made a public commitment to that effect. Furthermore, since nuclear deterrence is based on the willingness and readiness to commit the mass murder of civilians, it is morally and legally unacceptable, even by way of retaliation.

Deterrence theory also assumes complete rationality and predictability of all actors, including one’s enemies, all of the time, which is a bold assumption.

There are many things that cannot be deterred, including accidents, miscalculations, unhinged leaders, terrorist groups, cyber attacks and simple mistakes. There have been many nuclear near-misses over the decades and we have been on the brink of catastrophe more than once, most famously during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

The TPNW provides a pathway to the elimination of nuclear weapons. It is a new norm in international law that delegitimises and stigmatises the most destructive and inhumane weapons ever created. It also includes groundbreaking provisions to assist communities harmed by nuclear use and testing and to remediate contaminated environments.

Indonesia, New Zealand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and nine of the Pacific Island states have signed up. We are clearly out of step with our region.

Australia has a proud history of championing nuclear disarmament, particularly under Labor governments. The late Tom Uren, a Labor luminary and mentor to Anthony Albanese, was one of the party’s most passionate critics of nuclear weapons and war.

It was under the Whitlam government, with Uren serving as a minister, that Australia ratified the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in 1973. Bob Hawke worked with Pacific neighbours to develop the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty in 1985. Paul Keating established the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons in 1995. Kevin Rudd established a follow-up commission in 2008.

In its 2018 policy platform, Labor committed to signing and ratifying the TPNW in government, after taking account of a number of factors, including the new treaty’s interaction with the longstanding non-proliferation treaty.

It was Albanese who moved the motion, stating at the time, “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 motion was seconded by the now defence minister, Richard Marles, and adopted unanimously.

Albanese argued the most effective way for Australia to build universal support for the TPNW – including, ultimately, bringing nuclear-armed states on board – would be for our country to join the treaty itself.

He also said that doing so would not jeopardise Australia’s alliance with the US, noting Australia had joined other disarmament treaties to which the US isn’t a party, including those banning anti-personnel landmines and cluster munitions.

New Zealand, the Philippines and Thailand have all ratified the TPNW, with no disruption to their ongoing non-nuclear military cooperation with the US. Indeed, the Philippines recently almost doubled the number of its military bases available to US forces and conducted joint military exercises with the US in the South China Sea.

Labor reaffirmed its commitment to signing the TPNW at its 2021 and 2023 national conferences, but the Albanese government has not yet inked the accord. It is time for the prime minister to act.

The rising, existential danger of nuclear war makes it all the more important for Australia to get on the right side of history.

We need to change our modes of thinking – to use Einstein’s phrase – and dispense with old ideas about what makes us safe and secure. We must remember that disarmament is essential for our collective survival.

In their manifesto, Einstein and Russell appealed as human beings to human beings: “Remember your humanity, and forget the rest.”

This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on March 30, 2024 as “The nuclear threat Australia is ignoring”.  https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/comment/topic/2024/03/30/the-nuclear-threat-australia-ignoring#mtr

UK court orders delay to extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to US on espionage charges

By Associated Press, By OLIVER PRICE , 27 March 2024  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13239885/Julian-Assange-appeal-against-extradition-court-rules.html?fbclid=IwAR05bAhgRzHKwygiC0ljNnPEU_bL1uwPz2mIRy7vU9RzSU0J_Qbi4aOpK_M_aem_AahKjiDK6G3wRltDvIaC_MtPOcRzYRMwUFpdRPeR7yiJcdMyJyjQi03SWVMX6MWQenTiiAm9LmgWVamqopIy9ZT_

The United States must give assurances that Julian Assange will not face the death penalty before judges will consider dismissing the WikiLeaks founder’s bid to bring an extradition appeal, the High Court has ruled.

Assange, 52, faces prosecution in the US over an alleged conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defence information following the publication of hundreds of thousands of leaked documents relating to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

In a 66-page ruling, Dame Victoria Sharp said: ‘Before making a final decision on the application for leave to appeal, we will give the respondent an opportunity to give assurances.

‘If assurances are not given then we will grant leave to appeal without a further hearing.

‘If assurances are given then we will give the parties an opportunity to make further submissions before we make a final decision on the application for leave to appeal.’

These assurances are that Assange would be protected by and allowed to rely on the First Amendment – which protects freedom of speech in the US, that he is not ‘prejudiced at trial’ due to his nationality, and that the death penalty is not imposed.

The judges said the US authorities had three weeks to give those assurances, with a final hearing potentially taking place in late May.

In her ruling, Dame Sharp said any assurances from the United States would need to include ‘that the applicant (Julian Assange) is permitted to rely on the First Amendment, that the applicant is not prejudiced at trial, including sentence, by reason of his nationality, that he is afforded the same First Amendment protections as a United States citizen, and that the death penalty is not imposed’. 

Speaking after the judgment, the Australian’s wife Stella Assange described the ruling as ‘astounding’.

She said: ‘What the courts have done has been to invite a political intervention from the United States… send a letter saying ‘its all ok’. I find this astounding.

‘This case is a retribution. It is a signal to all of you that if you expose the interests that are driving war they will come after you, they will put you in prison and will try to kill you.

‘The Biden administration should not issue assurances. They should drop this shameful case that should never have been brought.’

Addressing Julian Assange’s legal ground about freedom of speech guarantees in the US, Dame Victoria Sharp said: ‘The applicant wishes to argue, at any trial in the United States, that his actions were protected by the First Amendment.

‘He contends that if he is given First Amendment rights, the prosecution will be stopped. The First Amendment is therefore of central importance to his defence to the extradition charge.’

She continued: ‘If he is not permitted to rely on the First Amendment because of his status as a foreign national, he will thereby be prejudiced, potentially very greatly prejudiced, by reason of his nationality.’

Dame Victoria concluded: ‘It follows that it is arguable that the applicant might be treated differently at trial on the grounds of his nationality.

‘Subject to the question of whether this could be addressed by means of an assurance from the respondent, we would grant leave to appeal.’

WikiLeaks initially reacted positively to the news, saying Assange had been granted ‘leave to appeal’ his extradition, but he will only be allowed to do so if ‘assurances’ are not met.

Reacting to the ruling on X, formerly Twitter, this morning, WikiLeaks posted: ‘Julian Assange has been granted leave to appeal extradition to the US.

‘Having spent almost five years detained at the UK’s most secure prison the publisher will continue his long detention separated from his young family for revealing war crimes. #FreeAssangeNOW.’

WikiLeaks has now deleted this tweet.

WikiLeaks later added: ‘The court has given US Gov 3 weeks to give satisfactory assurances: That Mr. Assange is permitted to rely on the First Amendment to the US constitution; not prejudiced at trial by reason of his nationality; and that the death penalty is not imposed. #FreeAssange.’

The hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice today was attended by Assange’s wife Stella, dozens of journalists and members of the public, with hundreds observing remotely.

Dozens of people stood outside the central London courthouse to await the judgment, holding placards bearing the message ‘Free Julian Assange’ and chanting ‘There is only one decision, no extradition’.

Speaking at a press conference after Julian Assange’s bid to appeal against extradition to the US was delayed, Jennifer Robinson, WikiLeaks legal counsel, said the decision raised ‘fundamental concerns about free speech’.

She added: ‘It is absurd that we are five years into this case and the US has not offered assurance to protect him from (the death penalty).’ 

Ms Robinson added: ‘The judgment today demonstrates that if Julian was extradited to the United States there is a real risk and concern that he would not be afforded free speech protections.

‘We say the US should not be offering assurance in response to this judgment, they should be dropping the case and it is a case that should never have been brought in the first place.’

Speaking after the latest Julian Assange ruling, Michelle Stanistreet, general secretary of the National Union of Journalists, said: ‘A temporary reprieve is clearly preferable to an extradition that would have taken place in the coming days.

‘However, the conditionality around the grounds of appeal, which are contingent on the examination of US government assurances that he will not face the death penalty and has the right to free speech, mean the risks to Assange and press freedom remain stark.

‘Assange’s prosecution by the US is for activities that are daily work for investigative journalists – finding sources with evidence of criminality and helping them to get their stories out into the world.

‘If Assange is prosecuted, free expression the world over will be damaged.’

She added: ‘The nuanced nature of this appeal judgment makes an alternative ending to this situation even more pressing.

‘In recent months there has been increasing speculation about some kind of plea deal, to bring this saga to a swift and straightforward conclusion. I urge the US to return to these options.

‘Media freedom is under threat all over the world, compassion and common sense from the US Department of Justice would do much to restore Washington’s reputation as a bastion of free expression.’ 

Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has called for the US to drop the charges against Julian Assange.

Speaking outside the Royal Courts of Justice, Mr Corbyn said Tuesday’s decision was ‘big step forward’ for Assange’s case but that it is ‘not the victory’ his supporters are looking for.

Mr Corbyn said: ‘Above all, the pressure has to be on the US administration to drop the charges against Julian Assange.

‘He’s a brave journalist who tells the truth.’

When asked why Assange’s case was important to him, the Corbyn said: ‘Because he’s told some very uncomfortable truths about the military activities in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places around the world, but also the effects of corporate greed on the natural world and environment.

‘If Julian goes down for that, then every serious journalist around the world is going to be feel a bit constrained, and that’s dangerous.’

n a January 2021 ruling, then-district judge Vanessa Baraitser said that Assange should not be sent to the US, citing a real and ‘oppressive’ risk of suicide, while ruling against him on all other issues.

But later that year, US authorities won their High Court bid to overturn this block, paving the way towards Assange’s extradition.

During a two-day hearing in February, lawyers for the 52-year-old asked for the go-ahead to challenge the original judge’s dismissal of other parts of his case to prevent his extradition.

And in a judgment today, Dame Victoria Sharp and Mr Justice Johnson dismissed most of Assange’s legal arguments but said that unless assurances were given by the United States, he would be able to bring an appeal on three grounds.

The judges said the US authorities had three weeks to give those assurances, with a final decision to be made in late May.

At the start of Assange’s bid last month, Mark Summers KC argued the US’s prosecution would be retribution for his political opinions, meaning it would be unlawful to extradite him under UK law.

However the two judges rejected this argument.

Dame Victoria said: ‘The applicant’s case before us amounts simply to a reassertion of his case on this issue, and a disagreement with the (district) judge’s conclusion.

‘It does not engage with the judge’s reasoning. Far less does it identify any flaw in her factual conclusions.’

Reversing Europe’s and Australia’s slide into irrelevance & insecurity – National Press Club of Australia speech- Yanis Varoufakis

First, Australia must restore a reputation tainted by blindly following America into lethal adventures in Iraq, Afghanistan and, today, via its active and crucial complicity in Israel’s deliberate war crimes in Gaza, East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Children are not starving in Gaza today. No, they are being deliberately starved. Without hesitation or remorse. The famine in Gaza is no collateral damage. It is an intentional policy of starving to death thousands until the rest agree to leave their ancestral homeland.

Second, Australia has a duty to de-escalate the New Cold War. To understand that this can only be done if Australia ends its servility to a United States’ actively creating the threats that they then make us pay through the nose to protect us from.

Imagine an Australia that helps bring a just Peace in Ukraine, as opposed to a mindless forever war. A non-aligned Australia that is never neutral in the face of injustice but, also, not automatically aligned with every warmongering adventure decided in Washington.

Imagine an Australia which, having re-established its credentials as a country that thinks and acts for itself, engages with China in the spirit of peaceful cooperation – a far better way of addressing Beijing’s increasing authoritarianism toward its own peoples than buying useless, hyper-expensive submarines that only succeed in forcing China’s political class to close ranks around a more authoritarian core.

Imagine a truly patriotic Australian Prime Minister who tells the American President to cease and desist from the slow murder of Julian Assange for the crime of journalism – for exposing American war crimes perpetrated behind the back of US citizens in their name.

To conclude, if Europe and Australia are to escape gross irrelevance, we need separate but well-coordinated European and Australian Green New Deals.

DiEM25, our paneuropean movement, is working toward this goal.

Yanis Varoufakis – 14/03/2024 

Europe and Australia are facing a common existential threat: a creeping irrelevance caused, on the one hand, by our failure properly to invest and, on the other hand, by our ill-considered slide from a strategic dependence on the United States to a non-strategic, self-defeating servility to Washington’s policy agenda.”

Yanis Varoufakis’s address at the National Press Club in Canberra on Wednesday 13 March, 2024

…………………………………. The three post-war phases that shaped Australia’s and Europe’s habitat

Our present moment in Europe and in Australia has been shaped by three distinct postwar phases.

The first was the Bretton Woods system. America exited the war as the only surplus, creditor country. Bretton Woods, a remarkable recycling mechanism, was, in effect, a dollar zone built on fixed exchange rates, sustained by capital controls, and erected on the back of America’s trade surplus. With quasi-free trade as part of the deal, Washington dollarised Europe, Japan and Australia to generate aggregate demand for the products of its factories – whose productivity had skyrocketed during the war. Subsequently, the US trade surplus sucked the exported dollars back into America.  The result was twenty years of high growth, low unemployment, blissfully boring banking and dwindling inequality. Alas, once the United States lost its trade surplus, Bretton Woods was dead in the water.

The second phase was marked by the violent reversal of this recycling mechanism. The United States became the first hegemon to enhance its hegemony by boosting its trade deficit. Operating like a powerful vacuum cleaner, the burgeoning US trade deficit hoovered up the world’s net exports. And how did America pay for them? With dollars which it also hoovered up from the rest of the world as German, Japanese and later Chinese capitalists sent to Wall Street 70% of dollar profits made from their net exports to the US. There, in Wall Street, these foreign capitalists recycled their dollar profits into Treasuries, real estate, shares and derivatives.

This audacious inverted recycling system, built on US deficits, required ever increasing American deficits to remain stable. In the process, it gave rise to even higher growth than the Bretton Woods era, but also to macroeconomic and financial imbalances as well as mind-numbing levels of inequality. The new era came complete with an ideology (neoliberalism), a policy of letting finance rip (financialisation), and a false sense of dynamic equilibrium – the infamous Great Moderation built on hugely immoderate imbalances.

Almost inevitably, on the back of the perpetual tsunami of capital rushing in from the rest-of-the-world to Wall Street, financiers fashioned gigantic pyramids of complex wagers – Warren Buffet’s infamous Weapons of Mass Financial Destruction. When these crashed, to deliver the Global Financial Crisis, two things saved Wall Street and Western capitalism:

• The G7 central banks, that printed a total of $35 trillion on behalf of the financiers from 2009 to last year – a peculiar socialism for bankers. And,
• China, which directed half its national income to investment, thus replacing much of the lost aggregate demand not only domestically but also in Germany, Australia and, of course, in the United States.

The third period is more recent. The era of technofeudalism, as I call it, which took root in the mid-2000s but grew strongly after the GFC in conjunction with the rapid technological change that caused capital to mutate into, what I call, cloud capital – the automated means of behavioural modification living inside our phones, apps, tablets and laptops. Consider the six things this cloud capital (which one encounters in Amazon or Alibaba) does all at once:

1. It grabs our attention.
2. It manufactures our desires.
3. It sells to us, directly, outside any actual markets, that which will satiate the desires it made us have.
4. It drives and monitors waged labour inside the workplaces.
5. It elicits massive free labour from us, its cloud-serfs.
6. It provides the potential of blending seamlessly all that with free, digital payments.

Is it any wonder that the owners of this cloud capital – I call them cloudalists – have a hitherto undreamt of power to extract? They are, already, a new ruling class: today, the capitalisation of just seven US cloudalist firms is approximately the same as the capitalisation of all listed corporations in the UK, France, Japan, Canada and China taken together!

This week in nuclear news – (lots from Australia)

A vertical garden at Medellin’s City Hall.

Some bits of good news. How a Colombian City Cooled Dramatically in Just Three Years. 

How Southern Africa’s Elephants Bounced Back

TOP STORIES. After Ukraine, US readies ‘transnational kill chain’ for Taiwan proxy war. 

At the Brink, THE RISK OFNUCLEAR CONFLICTIS RISING. [Awesome graphics]. 

Ralph Nader: Stop the Worsening Undercount of Palestinian Casualties in Gaza.
The horrors of nuclear weapons testing.
March 11 – reflecting on Fukushima.

********************************************

Climate.  Climate change is warping the seasons.   The world is not moving fast enough on climate change — social sciences can help explain why.Europe unprepared for rapidly growing climate risks, report finds.

Noel’s notes. The need for clear thinking on the Holocaust in Gaza.  Oh for a bit of sanity and genuine leadership!  Normalising the unthinkable – the 16th Annual Nuclear (so-called) Deterrence Summit.

AUSTRALIA. 

• The Campaign to Free Assange: Reflections on ‘Night Falls’. 
• Prime Minister of Australia, and Henchmen, Referred to International Criminal Court for Support of Gaza Genocide. Shock as Australian Prime Minister learns that he is not above international law. 
• AUKUS: Are nuclear-powered submarines a good idea for Australia? 
• Australia has had many significant inquiries into nuclear power, over the past 60 years. 
• The Coalition wants nuclear power. Could it work – or would it be an economic and logistical disaster?        Peter Dutton’s climate denial is morphing into a madcap nuclear fantasy.        The ban should stay. Nuclear power: Peter Dutton changes gear in favour of big reactors not small modular ones.      Peter Dutton’s nuclear implosion after Dunkley byelection loss.     Tell him he’s dreaming’: Bowen rubbishes Coalition claim Australia could have nuclear power in a decade.        Peter Dutton won’t back down on the Coalition’s desire to take its nuclear energy policy to the next election.        Nuclear slow and expensive, renewables fast and cheap: Bowen slaps down Coalition “fantasy”.        Dutton’s nuclear option would condemn us to pricey power and blackouts. Market has ‘made its decision’ about nuclear energy being too expensive.    Coalition must come clean on how its nuclear vision would work. 
• Coalition’s plan to go nuclear puts five regions on the table as favoured locations for nuclear reactors.    MP says coalition ‘must’ explain plan for nuclear power near Anglesea on the Victorian Surf Coast.   Top scientist explains nuclear process and risks: Sunshine Coast previously considered for facility.         Talk of nuclear power plant sites ‘conjecture’, says Liberal MP amid internal division on Dutton’s policy.   Western Australia’s Premier Cook goes nuclear on Dutton’s ‘simplistic, ridiculous’ power plan. 
• Senior Western Australia Liberal calls for Australia to become nuclear weapons power.
• Australia nuclear facility installs massive rooftop solar system to save $2 million. 
• Events.  Peace! – No AUKUS, No War!  Australia wide events and protest actions for Peace, end AUKUS, cancel nuclear submarines and mobilise against war  14 – 24 March

NUCLEAR ISSUES 

EMPLOYMENT. Fukushima fishers strive to recover catches amid water concerns.

ENVIRONMENT. Hinkley Point Responds to Environmental Concerns Over Bristol Channel Eel Populations.

ETHICS and RELIGION. Aiding Those We Kill: US Humanitarianism in Gaza. The West has set itself on a path of collective suicide — both moral and economic’ Oceans. Could Fukushima’s radioactive water pose lasting threat to humans and the environment?

HISTORY. The lesson from the criminal H Bomb Bravo “test”– Hibakusha remind us. Oppenheimer feared nuclear annihilation – and only a chance pause by a Soviet submariner kept it from happening in 1962

MEDIA. New York Times: Nuclear Risks Have Not Gone Away.US Media and Factcheckers Fail to Note Israel’s Refutation of ‘Beheaded Babies’ Stories. ‘Mr Dutton is right’: Murdoch’s News Corp papers grant nuclear power glowing coverage. NewsGuard AI Censorship Targets People Who Read Primary Sources To Fact-Check The News. – (a pro-Trumpist article?- but probably true)

OPPOSITION to NUCLEAR . ‘It’ll be a shortlist of one!’ Villagers in England fear nuclear dump proposal. An Open Letter from Hollywood On Oppenheimer and Nuclear Weapons. Kenya. Senator Omtatah to take the Uyombo nuclear power plant war international.

POLITICS Australia’s Opposition party’s nuclear red herring is a betrayal of the Australian people  . – also at https://antinuclear.net/2024/03/11/1-a-coalitions-nuclear-red-herring-is-a-betrayal-of-the-australian-people/ . Scottish National Party ministers to set out plans for removing nuclear weapons after independence. UK Labour versus Green. UK Budget: Government confirms £160m deal to acquire Hitachi nuclear sites. U.S. Congress about to fund revival of nuclear waste recycling to be led by private start-ups.

SAFETY. Greenpeace warns on danger of restarting Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant . Improvement notice served over storage of hazardous materials at Dounreay. ‘Sometimes I can’t sleep at night’: Adi Roche warns of nuclear risks of Ukraine conflict as she picks up peace award. Aberdeen shipping logistics company warned over nuclear transport safety failings..

SPACE. EXPLORATION, WEAPONS. China outlines position on use of space resources. Russia says it is considering putting a nuclear power plant on the moon with China. Russia and China announce plan to build shared nuclear reactor on the moon by 2035, ‘without humans’.

SPINBUSTER. The nuclear narrative also at https://nuclear-news.net/2024/03/05/3-b1-the-nuclear-narrative/ More fusion hot air, literally! Nuclear Illusions.

WASTES. 13 Years On: Fukushima Governor Urges State to Clarify Soil Policy.

WAR and CONFLICT. 3 The Ukrainian Intelligence Committee Is Preparing For The Worst-Case Scenario. Was Victoria Nuland Fired for Her Role In the Ukraine Debacle?

WEAPONS and WEAPONS SALES. 

• The West’s over-involvement in Ukraine. 
• F-35A aeroplanes officially certified to carry thermonuclear bomb. NATO bringing missiles closer to Russia – member state. 
• Plutonium. Plutonium pit ‘panic’ threatens America’s nuclear ambitions. Does the US Need New Plutonium Pits?. 
• Biden is building for Israel a super weapon to replace the Iron Dome.
•  Coalition Kill Chain for the Pacific: Lessons from Ukraine. U.S. Sells ‘Link 16’ Battlefield Communications System to Taiwan – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfF4In5Q99Q

WOMEN. Our International Women’s Day Heroine: Rosalie Bertell.