An ABC Four Corners program recently highlighted how the Anthony Albanese government has walked away from its pre-election promise to sign and ratify the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).
The November 3 program, “Trading Fire”, showed footage of Albanese moving the motion at a Labor National Conference in 2018, saying: “Labor in government will sign and ratify the Treaty”.
Richard Marles, now defence minister, seconded the motion.
Labor delegates have passed the same treaty motion at successive national conferences.
Labor did not sign the treaty in its first term. Now, Marles has more or less told Four Corners he has no intention of doing it.
Marles was questioned by Angus Grigg about why, and his incoherent answer was that things are different in government.
“What’s clear is that the [Labor] conference understands that this is a decision of government, and that is a decision of Labor in government and the decision that Labor has made is that Labor has following the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty and the NPT is at the core of Labor in government’s policy,” Marles said.
Grigg then clarified that the NPT and the TPNW are two different treaties. The NPT, which limits the number of nuclear states, has been Labor policy for 50 years.
The TPNW places a ban on nuclear weapons.
Critics of AUKUS believe Labor does not want to sign the TPNW because it could not without jeopardising AUKUS and risking a clash with Washington.
Polls show an overwhelming majority want the TPNW signed as a step towards keeping the world safer from nuclear war. The International Campaign Against Nuclear Weapons has documented this support.
Signing and ratifying the TPNW would likely require Australia to refuse the US access to military installations related to US nuclear war fighting abilities. That would threaten the Australia-US military alliance and the terms of AUKUS.
States that sign and ratify the TPNW must not support nuclear war fighting operations of a nuclear power. Australia is currently providing, or about to provide, at least four installations to assist the US’ nuclear war fighting ability.
Pine Gap base provides the US nuclear war room in Nevada with real time and vital satellite surveillance data, via the Relay Ground Station in Central Australia. It would have to be closed to the US if the TPNW was signed and ratified.
The Harold Holt Communications Station at North West Cape, Exmouth, in Western Australia, enables the US to communicate with its nuclear-armed, hunter-killer submarine fleet, while submerged and, through this facility, can instruct them to launch their nuclear missiles.
Signing and ratifying the TPNW would mean Australia ends US access to this communication.
The berthing and maintenance facilities under construction at the HMAS Stirling naval base in WA, at a cost of $8 billion, is to service US and British nuclear hunter-killer or attack submarines. The US refuses to confirm or deny whether its nuclear submarines are armed with nuclear weapons.
In signing and ratifying the TPNW, Australia would need to halt this construction and refuse to berth and maintain US nuclear submarines.
A fourth US-Australian base at RAAF base Tindal, in the Northern Territory, involves parking and support facilities for up to six US B-52 bombers, some of which can be nuclear armed.
The same consequential actions would emanate from the signing and ratifying of the TPNW. Such facilities could not be provided to a nuclear-armed power, in this case, the US.
All four military bases are being established because of the US-Australia military alliance.
The facilities at HMAS Stirling are being established under AUKUS, a subset of the war alliance. The facilities at Tindal are under the US Force Posture Agreement, also a subset of the US war alliance.
Australians want to reduce the risk of nuclear war and want Labor to sign and ratify the TPNW.
It is vital that we understand the military facilities, established under the Australia-US alliance, are major obstacles to signing the TPNW. The way forward to a more peaceful world means ending the war alliance.
[Bevan Ramsden is a member of the Independent and Peaceful Australia Network, which is campaigning for AUKUS to be cancelled and the Force Posture Agreement to be scrapped.]