Friday, March 31, 2023
Thursday, March 30, 2023
AAAC Webinar Path to War 26 March 2023-Implications of the government reports on Aukus, nuclear submarines, war powers reform & the Defence Strategic Review
Facilitator: Kellie Tranter is a lawyer and human rights activist and headed the IPAN Peoples’ Inquiry into the costs and consequences of Australia’s involvement in U.S wars and the alliance. Speakers Dr Alison Broinowski AM: President, Australians for War Powers Reform Formerly an Australian diplomat, Alison is the author or editor of 14 books about Australia’s dealings with the world, Asian countries in particular. Her PhD is in Asian Studies at ANU. She has researched and taught there, at Macquarie University, and at the University of Wollongong. Dr Alison Boinowski spoke on the implications of the Inquiry into War Powers Reform Brian Toohey was a columnist with the Australian Financial Review who has also written for The Nikkei Asia Review, The West Australian, The Sunday Age and other publications. He was editor of The National Times and a Canberra and Washington correspondent for AFR. He is the author or co-author of four books: Oyster: The Story of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service; Tumbling Dice: The Story of Modern Economic Policy; The Book of Leaks and The Winchester Scandal. Among other subjects, he has written extensively about national security policy since 1973. Brian currently writes for The Saturday Paper and Pearls & Irritations. Brian Toohey spoke on the implications of the report on Aukus and the Nuclear Submarines Dr Vince Scappatura teaches Politics and International Relations at Macquarie University. He has a recently published book by Monash University Publishing titled: The US Lobby and Australian Defence Policy. He was the panel leader on defence for the IPAN Peoples’ Inquiry into the cost and consequences of Australia’s involvement in U.S. wars and the alliance. Dr Vince Scappatura spoke on the implications of the Strategic Defence Review Report.
Brian Toohey’s address to the Australian Anti-AUKUS Coalition’s national zoom meeting of 26 th March,2023
Nearly everything this government says about nuclear
subs is ludicrous and highly damaging.
Despite Defence Minister Marles apparently saying
Australia will not participate in a war over Taiwan,
Hugh White (ex- Dep Head Defence) says US would
never sell N subs to Australia without guarantees they
will always be used in a US war. Reason is these subs
are taken from of its line of battle, not additional ones
from the production line. Once again, Australian
sovereignty does not exist in the sense of being able to
use US weapons how we want to do after buying
them.
Marles now says the nuclear subs are not for war, but
to protect Australian merchant shipping. A leading a
leading economist Percy Allan points out there 26,000
cargo ship movements to and from Australia each year.
Nuclear subs have terrible maintenance problems and
if we buy the expected three second hand Virginia
Class attack subs from America, only one might be
operationally available at any time and probably none.
One sub, let alone none, can’t protect 26,000 cargo
shipping movements, but mainstream journalists
swallow this nonsense.
Before his sudden conversion to pacifism, Marles
wanted to deploy the N subs off the Chinese coast to
fire long-range cruise missiles into the mainland. This
represents a return to the Forward Defence doctrine
that failed in Singapore in 1942, and later in Vietnam.
Arthur Calwell gave a magnificent anti-war speech in
1965. He was fully vindicated when the Vietnamese
won a war against a horrendously destructive invasion
that was a war crime. Now, Albanese effectively
supports war.
With Labor now returning to the disastrous Forward
Defence doctrine, it’s worth remembering the
Coalition defence minister in 1969 Allen Fairhall
scrapped this doctrine and cut military spending by 5%,
while there were still 7000 Aust troops in Vietnam. The
Coalition then switched to the direct defence of
Australia. Whitlam, Fraser, Hawke and Keating all
embraced the defence of Australia, not forward
defence. Keating also adopted a long sighted policy of
seeking our security in Asia, not from it.
Howard reverted do America’s bidding in another war
crime of aggression.
Australia’s best defence is it’s surrounded by water
and long way from China or India. There is no evidence
either is a threat. If this changes for the worse, the Def
of Aust doctrine will come into its own.
Marles and Albanese will recklessly position nuclear
subs off China. But that’s where China’s forces are
concentrated. Because Marles and Albanese would be
playing to China’s strengths, they would then be
responsible for a disastrous military blunder when the
subs are sunk. It would be much better to play to our
strengths by defending the approaches to Australia by
buying highly advanced, medium sized, submarines
that are superior to nuclear subs.
Marles estimates his subs will cost up to $368 billion
(realistically over $400). As explained later, that
includes the crazy decision to pay the UK to co-design
8 new submarines for Aust. This dwarfs next highest
defence acquisition —$17 billion for F-35 fighter jets.
The US Government Accountability Office and the
Congressional Research Service have an outstanding
record for exposing appalling waste and incompetence
in US submarine shipyards. One Virginia sub was tied
up a jetty for five years before it could be fixed. The
US has a military budget of $US880, yet Albanese is
donating $3 billion to help improve the shipyards.
Marles did not take the responsible ministerial step
and commission a cost-effectiveness study of the
options before splurging $400 billion. Australia could
get ten superior conventional submarines for total
$10-$15 billion from Japan, South Korea or Germany
that could deter any hostile ships approaching
Australia from a couple of thousand kilometres away.
Submerged drones and mines could also help at a low
cost.
Japan’s new Taigei subs use highly advanced batteries
that run silently for several weeks without needing to
surface to charge the batteries. South Korean and
German submarines are about to get much improved
batteries. These new subs can run silently on hydrogen
fuel cells as well as batteries.
Nuclear subs are easier to detect. When they go at
high-speed, they make a detectable wake. Being much
bigger, they have a stronger magnetic impression than
suitable conventional boats.
Like other subs, nuclear ones they have to come to the
surface to stick up periscopes and radar and electronic
warfare equipment. They produce an easily detected
infrared signal due to the reactor constantly boiling
water for steam engines to propel the subs. (Nuclear
power does not propel the sub. Puffing Billy does.)
This government, largely unrecognisable for and Labor
values, is wasting $400 billion on dud submarines,
when so many pressing needs such as global warming,
social welfare, health, education, affordable housing
etc
Another huge problem with nuclear subs is the
government has rightly said it will take all the highly
enriched uranium waste at end of the sub’s life, then
safely store it. This requires the waste to be vitrified
overseas and returned in thick drums for burying deep
in stable dry unground rock formations for hundreds of
years and heavily guarded. Each reactor weights 100
tons and contains 200 kg of highly radioactive uranium.
When used in nuclear power stations, uranium is
enriched to about 5%, the same as in French and
Chinese nuclear submarines and 20% in Russians. It’s
93% for ours, greatly exacerbating the disposal
problem.
I recently asked Australia’s principal nuclear safety
organisation, the Australian Radiation Protection and
Nuclear Safety Agency. It refused to answer. Perhaps it
was intimidated by Defence.
Marles exacerbated the problem by saying the waste
uranium would be stored “on” defence land. It can’t
be stored safely on top of the land. It must be stored
deep underground. He’s not dealing with low-grade
hospital nuclear waste.
Neither the US or the UK has a high-level underground
nuclear waste repository. They could easily pressure
Australia into securing their waste from their nuclear
subs reactors here.
It seems likely the burial site will be on land in central
Australia that is important to Australia’s indigenous
population. Whatever happens, it is essential there is
no repeat of the wa indigenous people were wilfully
exposed to radiation during and after the British
nuclear tests in the 1950s and 60s in Australia’s south
and central desert areas.
As well as the radiation spread by fallout from
atmospheric tests, a much worse danger was the 22.2
kilos of plutonium spread by other trials conducted on
the surface and blown on the wind at Maralinga. The
secret goal was develop triggers for British hydrogen
bombs. One kilo of plutonium contains over 16 billion
times the international standard for the maximum
possible permissible body burden in humans. It has a
half life of 24,000 years. It, and other radiation, was
particular danger to aborigines wandering around the
testing and trial sites.
Two Native Patrol officers complained they were given
the impossible task to ensuring aboriginal people we
kept out of danger over vast areas. Journalist
journalists Paul Malone and Howard reported that the
head that the head of the British weapons research
establishment responded to the complaint by saying
the officers showed “a lamentable lack of balance . . .
apparently placing the affairs of a handful of natives
above those of the British Commonwealth of Nations”.
The secret AUKUS pact gives the UK another chance to
display its values about nuclear issues and Australia. It
doesn’t even meet its own nuclear standards. The
nuclear HMS Dreadnought began service in 1960 and
retired in 2020. Instead of being dismantled as
required, it remains in a dock over 40 years later. Its
nuclear fuel has been removed, but this not in the case
of nine others that have retired. These are stored on
water at Plymouth, where numerous accidents have
occurred involving submarines still in service.
Many journalists put great faith in intelligence briefings
from right wing ideologues and others about the
alleged threat from China. They claim Keating can’t say
anything of value because he hasn’t received an
intelligence briefing in decades. On the contrary, this
is a distinct advantage.
Keating’s detractors should pay a lot more attention
to the role intelligence played in the illegal invasion of
Iraq. The recent 20 th anniversary of the invasion, led by
George Bush, Tony Blair and John Howard, reminded
us that this act of aggression was solely justified by
phoney intelligence. Howard falsely claimed that at
the time of the invasion his government “knew” Iraq
possessed weapons of mass destruction. He knew no
such thing. Thanks largely to the much-disparaged
weapons inspectors, Iraq certainly didn’t have any. Yet
Howard falsely said they were “capable of causing
destruction on a mammoth scale”.
Many Australian journalists now rely on purported
intelligence and propaganda for their flimsy claims
about Chinese acts of aggression, which barely rank
alongside the death and destruction wrought by the
US, aided by Australia over decades. Chinese
journalists also rely excessively on government
sources, but they should be a model.
The White House engaged in a blatant act of
propaganda when unveiling the plan for Australia to
get nuclear submarines. It claimed, “For over 60 years,
the UK and the US have operated more than 500 naval
nuclear reactors . . . without incident or adverse effect
on human health or the environment.” In fact, two US
nuclear submarines, the Thresher and the Scorpion,
sunk during that period with the loss of all lives.
Mainstream Australian journalists have not shown any
concern about this staggering falsehood. Key White
House staff must’ve have known it was a lie. What
advice Albanese got from Andrew Shearer, a key
intelligence adviser, is not publicly known.
By the time Australia’s new nuclear submarines arrive
around 2050, sanity may have prevailed and peace
broken out. Meanwhile, advances in sensor technology
and computing power will probably make N subs
relatively easy to detect and destroy. Bang goes $400
billion.
This is a talk I gave to a zoom meeting on March 26,
organised by the Australian Anti-AUKUS Committee
Saturday, March 25, 2023
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Thursday, March 23, 2023
Wednesday, March 22, 2023
Following Blindly by Michael West
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has just committed Australia to spending $368 billion on second-hand US Virginia Class submarines, and a follow on build of eight next generation British AUKUS nuclear submarines. It’s a strategic blunder.
Because the U.S. says so – $368 Billion for subs!
Tuesday, March 21, 2023
Secret tapes media refuse to talk about | Media Watch
I've always liked Media Watch. One of the few good news shows left on the ABC 20-1-23 was good value with Keating letting rip at the National Press Club and the Barilaro Tapes care of friendlyjordies.
Utopia Explains Australia's Defence Policy
When satire is so close to the bone.
Australia's Defence Policy In 2023 Explained | Utopia
Working Dog's Utopia is a great show.
Monday, March 20, 2023
AUKUS Statement from NSW Teachers Federation
The following statement was issued by Seniors of NSW Teachers Federation and adopted NSW State Council on Saturday March 18 2023.
AUKUS on Peace It is a deep commitment to peace that guides the NSW Teachers Federation’s opposition to militarism and belief that war should never be used to resolve international conflict. There have been too many times in history when warmongering and armaments build-up have led to international conflict, death and destruction.
Federation opposes AUKUS and joins the growing chorus of concern that the AUKUS security pact Australia signed with the USA and the UK compromises the pursuit of an independent foreign policy and has the potential to drag Australia once again into foreign conflict and war.
Recent alarmist, war mongering commentary, deployed in an attempt to bolster unsubstantiated predictions of an inevitable war with China, is of deep concern. Within weeks it was announced that the Australian Government is to spend $368 billion on nuclear powered submarines, which will increase the hosting of US military forces on Australian territory.
Continuing reports that Port Kembla is being considered as the site for a nuclear submarine base is of deep concern for our public education communities. While governments appear ever ready to commit huge amounts of public revenue on military expenditure there remains a serious underfunding of public pre-schools, public schools, TAFE and higher education, and other areas of the public sector.
A massive transference of public wealth to private armament manufacturers will constrain public expenditure in all government portfolios for decades to come. We are reminded of the words of former Federation President Sam Lewis when addressing the union’s 1951 Annual Conference: “The greatest single factor on the world scale causing inflation and leading to the undermining of the living and cultural standards of the people is enormous expenditure on production of armaments. Teachers are concerned very deeply with conservation: conservation of natural resources, conservation of human resources. They are the agents in the battle against material and moral erosion, against the scorching of human flesh and the searing of the human spirit.”
It was also Sam Lewis who ensured the belief that “all wars are fought against children” underpins our work as teachers. Federation will continue to work with the anti-war, peace and broader union movement to expose and oppose the threat inherent in this rise in militarism. A further detailed report and recommendation on peace will be presented to Annual Conference.
Sunday, March 19, 2023
Paul Keating Unleashed: Carnage at the National Press Club
Swollen Pickels gives a good highlights of Paul Keating talk at the National Press Club. Click on the link below.
Thursday, March 16, 2023
Paul Keating is Right on AUKUS, Nuclear Subs and US War Against China
I'm like many unionists who had many issues with Keating and Hawke during the years of the Australian Labor Party and Australian Council of Trade Union Accord. Saying that, he is spot on with saying Prime minister Anthony Albanese has signed away Australian Sovereignty to be part of the United States containment of China.
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