First published in The Mercury September 23, 2023.
On September 16, 2021, the then prime minister Scott Morrison announced the AUKUS military agreement between Australia, the US and the UK.
It ushered in plans for a huge swath of military acquisitions and policies designed for a confrontation between three Anglosphere nations and China. Top of the list is nuclear-powered submarines for Australia and a far stronger presence here of our allies’ nuclear-powered vessels.
On the second anniversary this month of the AUKUS agreement, the leaders of the three nations issued a joint statement welcoming the progress made in implementing it, and stating also that: “As democracies, our legislatures have an important role to play to oversee and enable our progress.” Perhaps those words were carefully chosen to warn against any silly notions about the respective democratically elected legislatures being anything more than a rubber stamp for everything that AUKUS entails. The agreement has eroded our democracy from its very beginning, when hardly a soul in Australia knew of it until it was announced. It has not been debated in our parliament. The current government, like its predecessor, has been desperate to quash any dissent on AUKUS, most recently at the ALP national conference in Brisbane.
Even what Australia has agreed to under AUKUS remains a closely guarded secret. NSW lawyer Kellie Tranter recently requested access under FOI laws to the signed AUKUS agreement, but this was denied.
A culture of military secrecy, more befitting of an authoritarian state, appears to be in full swing, combined with extremely important concerns being given scant, if any, attention.
These concerns include health. Nuclear reactors bring with them the risk of a nuclear accident involving the release of radioactive contamination, for which there is no “safe” level – even the smallest exposure carries some risk. Emergency management arrangements must be absolutely rigorous, co-ordinated across multiple agencies and transparent.
However, Australia’s are “not fit for purpose for a future with nuclear powered submarines”, according to the Radiation Health and Safety Advisory Council within ARPANSA (the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency).
Independent regulation also is critical, but our government is ensuring the opposite. The new regulator for the nuclear submarine program will be answerable to the same minister responsible for delivering the submarines, Defence Minister Richard Marles. Any prospect of safety concerns having priority over military demands appears remote.
Hobart is one of the Australian ports authorised to receive visits by nuclear-powered naval ships. There are many questions relating to nuclear safety that such potential host port communities should be asking. For example, in the event of a nuclear accident in port, how would public safety be protected from military secrecy, which already limits the information needed for adequate planning? Who would determine what the public is told? Will there be a role for the vested interests of the nuclear industry, and military needs, in this?
For the people of Hobart, there is an additional question: “What would be the exact purpose of nuclear-powered naval vessels in visiting Hobart, so far from where warships of any sort could actually be needed?” If the purpose, as seems likely, is simply to fly the US flag and help normalise our preparations for war, then why should the people of Hobart accept the health risks of having a nuclear reactor in their port to do that?
The implications of AUKUS and the nuclear submarines go far beyond health, of course. The recent joint leaders’ statement claimed that: “Our nations stand together to help sustain peace, stability and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific and around the world.” However, in focusing maximum attention and resources on our capacity to threaten and destroy others, AUKUS is marginalising a large array of measures that could strengthen peace. We could, for starters, promote regional arms control measures, refuse to join provocative military exercises, apply the same standards to ourselves and others when it comes to military aggression, stop cashing in on the profits of war, do more listening to our neighbours’ concerns – particularly on climate – and less preaching to them about ours, ramp up our overseas development aid, and resurrect peace research in our universities. If we don’t study peace, how can we understand how to build it?
It’s all a matter of whether we’re prioritising peace or simply paying lip service to it. AUKUS talks of peace and democracy, but is undermining both.