Australians against deployment of nuclear submarines in their country protested Tuesday at the port where the AUKUS subs would be docked if Australia goes ahead with the A$368 billion plan.
Under the AUKUS plan, Australia would pay the U.S. and Britain to the build and deliver three nuclear submarines by the early 2030s to the Port of Kembla in the city of Wollongong, 85 kms south of Sydney. Opponents of the plan, including the former Prime Minister Paul Keating, say China poses no military threat to Australia, but rather that the U.S. is leading Australia into a dangerous provocation against China.
Film and interviews by Cathy Vogan for Consortium News.
The port of Kembla at Wollongong. (Matt/Flickr)
At Port Kembla protest. (CN/Cathy Vogan)
Port Kembla. (CN/Cathy Vogan)
It’s not about the money: it’s all about jobs.
Plymouth UK did ok in WW1 because the Germans could not hit it. So when WW2 approached, there seemed good prospects for jobs in major naval base Devonport and thereby neighbour Plymouth. Things had moved on in warfare technology however so that the city and naval base were nearly obliterated from German bombardments.
Devonport is no longer the magnificent naval port of its empire days. If fact, it has been downgraded so that its major claim to fame is the dozen rusting Trident nuclear subs (visible on satellite floating in their wet dock) which the British Govt cannot relocate to a safe ‘out-of -the-way’ place (unlike in Australia – from a British / American perspective) and which they can never safely dismantle.
As France already has extensive Nuclear activity in the Pacific, it is possible that the AmiBrits originally wanted to join forces with them. But then they realised what the acronym might imply to the rest of the world – so they went with AUKUS instead.
That’s diplomacy for you. So Aussies need to get raucous and get their govt to stop this crazy rush to war and, so much urgently at this present time, to demand their govt stops the American persecution of the peacemaker: your very own Julian Assange.
With regards to Broinowski’s assertions about nuclear power… nuclear power is not a monolith. There are many different forms of nuclear power now and I wish anti-nuclear partisans would reconsider their dogmatic opposition and start to learn about them. Some of them are exceptionally safe. If we have any hope of saving the planet from climate change, nuclear power will likely be an important component of escaping reliance on fossil fuels.
Agreed. Nuclear power has come a long way since those early accidents. Reactor technology is much much safer. There are now small low cost portable nuclear reactors that can power light industry, small villages and other needs, that do not risk lots of people if something goes wrong.
Politicians and media need to update themselves and stop the scaremongering.
Nuclear power is a false solution to climate change. Extracting and producing nuclear fuel is in fact very carbon-intensive. Then, after the nuclear fuel is spent, it needs to be managed for much longer than it was ever used to produce power.
Good doco, good speakers, and most importantly – good cause ! . Thanks to all. Tony Kevin
Great video and great people. Thankyou Ms. Vogan. Looks to be a beautiful spot. Hope the protests achieve their goal of keeping the port free from nasty nuclear powered subs and potential targets of yet another US base.