SEARCH Committee Statement on AUKUS

Cancel Morrison’s thought bubble
on AUKUS and nuclear subs

The announcement on 7 September 2021, by Prime Minister Morrison, US President Biden and UK Prime Minister Johnson, that Australia would acquire eight nuclear-powered submarines, and cancel its contract with France for 12 conventionally powered submarines, should itself be cancelled. So too should the Australian government’s agreement to join the new AUKUS alliance.

These and other moves by the Coalition government have been taken without parliamentary, let alone public, discussion. Far from providing security and peace for Australia, they present a clear and present danger to Australia’s national interests and to the future wellbeing of the Australian people. Serious talk by government ministers and top public servants of ‘the drums of war’ and a possible war with China would be laughably absurd if they were not so dangerous.

While the submarines may take 20 years to arrive, at an as-yet-unknown huge cost in excess of $100 billion, the possible US war with China for which they are being procured is likely to come much sooner. Such a war between two global superpowers could only bring devastating regional and global destruction – because it would likely become a nuclear war.

With the AUKUS and submarines announcement, Australia has declared it is on the side of the US in this coming war, and so Australian troops and Australian cities would become targets.

In contrast to this illegal war of choice by Morrison, SEARCH supports an independent Australian foreign policy that promotes peace and solidarity among the peoples and nations of the world. SEARCH also supports a nuclear-free Australia. The entry of nuclear reactors into the Australian Navy would itself pose an immediate danger, as well as a danger for the long half-life of the spent fuel and irradiated components of the submarines that would become dangerous waste in just 35 years.

The interests of Australians, and indeed of people everywhere, are best served when there is peace, respect for human rights and respect for self-determination and sovereignty in the East Asian, Pacific and Indian Ocean zones. Any conflict between nations must be resolved at the UN Security Council, not on the battlefield.

Since the 1940s the Australian defence and intelligence establishment, as well as the political elite, have seen close alliance with the US as the only route to security for Australia. This means security from perceived threats in Asia, rather than collective security with other nations in our region. The consequences of that view have seen Australians sent to fight in immoral, illegal and ultimately destabilising wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Australian public has generally been supportive of the US Alliance, with conservative media regularly whipping up racist fear of ‘yellow hordes’ to our north. Both governing parties make alliance with the US the ‘cornerstone’ of their foreign policy, for ideological reasons. Instead, the United Nations Charter should be the cornerstone.

Australia relies on China for imports of many consumer goods, and China is the main destination for Australian exports. Militarism, aggression and destabilisation by great powers in our region, whether the USA, China or India, is against the interests of Australian people, and the people of the region.

Great powers do often act as laws unto themselves. Smaller nations are best served when the Great Powers are restrained by collective security arrangements, multilateral bodies and a political and cultural commitment to resolving disputes by peaceful means, and an abhorrence and rejection of war.

The USA, as the dominant global superpower, has been egregious in its use of war to pursue its foreign policy aims since the 1940s. China, as a rising great power, may also pursue such a policy stance in future, as well as using its stronger economic position to pressure smaller nations on a range of issues, from Exclusive Economic Zones, to trade, and to human rights.

The USA has decided on a path of strategic competition with China, and competitions usually end with a winner and a loser. It is not at all certain that the USA would emerge as the winner from a period of strategic competition with China. If Australia is tied to the USA in such a competition, it may find itself tied to the loser – and thereby become a loser itself.

Part of Australia’s sovereignty is its shipbuilding capacity, which was shut down from the end of the 1970s except for naval shipbuilding. The French submarine contract was designed to ensure that this naval shipbuilding capacity was maintained, but the AUKUS plan has put that in great doubt.

Currently a majority of polled Australians support the AUKUS agreement. However, throughout our history there have been security and foreign policy issues, such as the Vietnam War, that have begun with majority support that has then faded as the grim realities emerge.

There is a clear democratic deficit in how this decision was taken. The Australian Parliament, much less the Australian people, was not consulted. It was presented as a fait accompli.

However, there is a clear majority of Australians who want to end the COVID-19 pandemic, and who want action on climate change. Morrison’s lurch towards war with China, and towards developing a nuclear industry, are massive distractions from the proper priorities of Australia and the world for the next few decades.

There is a growing campaign against the AUKUS deal, and specifically the acquisition of nuclear submarines. A broad alliance of social movements is needed to actively campaign against the loss of sovereignty and independence, and the environmental danger that the AUKUS alliance entails.

SEARCH will join with all others in developing such a broad alliance.

SEARCH Committee – October 2021