Friends of the Earth Adelaide has made a submission to the
AUKUS Public Inquiry. Based on decades of experience regarding nuclear waste management issues and debates in Australia, our submission focused on those problems insofar as they relate to AUKUS.
By rights, the parliament should conduct a genuine public review of the AUKUS program, given that it commits Australian taxpayers to spending hundreds of billions of dollars for decades to come with dubious benefit to our security in return. In the absence of an official inquiry, we are hopeful that this independent inquiry will shine a light on the many issues that should have been considered before the government committed Australia to AUKUS.
The
first hearing, held in Melbourne on 11 June, received many high-quality presentations. Most of the points that we would make were covered in that hearing. In particular, we endorse the comments made by the expert witnesses: Gareth Evans, Tilman Ruff, Richard Tanter, John Lander, Joseph Camilleri, Rod Campbell and Dave Sweeney. Their critiques of the flaws in AUKUS align with ours, including in regard to the following:
• sacrifice of Australian sovereignty,
• negative impact on national security,
• opportunity cost,
• questionable industrial and employment benefits,
• safety risks and environmental cost,
• challenge of managing and disposing of radioactive waste, including foreign-sourced waste,
• negative impact on First Nations people,
• nuclear proliferation and safeguards implications of military reactors powered by highly enriched uranium fuel,
• implications for our obligations under the Treaty of Rarotonga of ‘rotation’ through Australian bases of nuclear weapon-capable vessels and aircraft, and
• the uncertainty that nuclear-powered submarines will even be delivered.
