Government competence is the question

August 21, 2026

The articles by Peter Briggs (7), and Jon Stanford and Michael Keating (2) along with many more published in P&I and other Defence associated websites all of which identify issues with “Managing highly enriched uranium (HEU) through its life cycle represents a challenging and hazardous industrial endeavour that would pose potentially insuperable problems for Australia.”

All four stages of Spent Fuel management require many years of construction and management before the final spent fuel is buried 400 to 500 metres underground in stable rock formations for hundreds of thousands of years.

There are no options to this four stage process.

Our politicians are responsible to ensure these necessary processes have been accounted for and then all costs are included in the current AUKUS budget.

Given the skill demonstrated by both governments as demonstrated in Robodebt Scheme and now the Support at Home Scheme both governments have demonstrated that they are unable to put together simple spreadsheets which can be trusted without making a total mess of the situations.

It is up to our current government to convince the Australian people that they are aware of and are in control of all “insuperable problems” identified in recent P&I articles.