Pearls and Irritations

The Government’s abandonment of Australian sovereignty to the US through AUKUS and the Force Posture Agreement (FPA) enmeshes Australia in US war plans and endangers the peace in our region on which our national prosperity relies. It is up to the ALP rank and file members attending the National Conference, 17-19 August, to stand up for Australia’s national interest. Will  they defend Labor values?

At a time when Australia faces no credible short term military threat to its territory or interests, the Albanese government has enthusiastically embraced the AUKUS Agreement. An agreement initiated under the Liberal Coalition government, which hyper-inflates a ‘China threat’, ties Australia into a military pact aimed at China, and binds Australia into following the military decisions of the US and UK.

This is against the best interests of the Australian people and places us in grave danger.

In addition:

• The acquisition of nuclear-propelled hunter-killer submarines designed for distant deep- water operations and also initiated under the Liberal Coalition government has been further developed with a price tag of $368 billion over a period of three decades. These nuclear subs are designed, not for operation in defence of Australia’s shallow coastal waters, but for offensive operations in distant deep waters such as near the South China Seas and the Taiwan strait.
• The ALP Government has approved the construction of a US Air Force ‘Squadron Operations Facility’ in Darwin, thus forfeiting control of foreign air-force operations within and from Australia, including the right to know whether aircraft in Australian airspace are carrying nuclear weapons.
• The US has been given approval to pre-position US Army stores and materiel at Bandiana in Victoria as a precursor to longer term establishment of an enduring Logistics Support Area in Queensland designed to enhance interoperability and accelerate the ability to respond to so called ‘regional crises’. These stores and material are under US control as set out in the FPA.
• The US has been given approval for American intelligence analysts to be embedded within Defence’s spy agency in Canberra establishing a Combined Intelligence Centre- Australia within Australia’s Defence Intelligence Organisation by 2024. This puts foreign spies inside Australia’s intelligence operations centre and ensures that the US can directly influence military intelligence reporting to the senior levels of the Australian government, apparently without clearance through the normal Office of National Intelligence channels.
• Through Enhanced Maritime Cooperation there will be more and longer visits of US nuclear submarines to HMAS Stirling in WA from 2023. These visits are in preparation for Submarine Rotational Force-West involving UK and US nuclear submarines being berthed and serviced under the AUKUS Agreement.
• The Americans have been given permission to conduct a “regular rotation” of US army watercraft as well as deploying a US Navy spy plane to conduct surveillance flights.
• There has been approval for further expansion of the deployment of US forces to Australia including amphibious troops and maritime reconnaissance planes; these troops and planes are not under Australian government control but under the direct control of the US Indo-Pacific Command in Darwin.
• The ALP government has through AUSMIN re-affirmed a joint commitment to operationalise the US-Australia military alliance including through Enhanced Force Posture Cooperation across land, maritime and air domains as well as through the Combined Logistics, Sustainment and Maritime Enterprise. They also agreed to Enhanced Space Cooperation as a new Force Posture Initiative to enable closer cooperation in this critical operational domain.
• The ALP government has allowed the completion of huge fuel storage facilities for the US at East Arm, Darwin, with these facilities being under US control.
• In addition to upgrading RAAF Tindal and Darwin the ALP government has approved the expansion and “hardening” against attacks of two other RAAF bases in the north, RAAF Scherger, near Weipa, and RAAF Curtin in WA. Both are at present so-called “bare bases” with runways and minimal facilities, but upgrades could include fuel storage, widening parking aprons to house bigger types of warplanes and protective bunkers for storing explosives.

This upgrading will service aircraft common to Australia and the US including F-35 Lightning’s, F/A 18 Super Hornet fighters and C-17 transports. Prior to the recently concluded AUSMIN 2023 talks, upgrades to RAAF Tindal were announced for basing up to six US B52 nuclear-capable long-range bombers.

Much of the sell-out of Australian sovereignty represented by these decisions is underpinned by the US-Australia FPA. The FPA has its origins in the ALP Gillard Government and was signed by the Abbott Liberal Coalition Government in 2014. The FPA states that: “United States Forces and United States Contractors have unimpeded access to and use of Agreed Facilities and Areas for activities undertaken in connection with this Agreement. Such activities may include: training, transit, support, and related activities; refuelling of aircraft; bunkering of vessels; temporary maintenance of vehicles, vessels, and aircraft; temporary accommodation of personnel; communications; prepositioning of equipment, supplies, and materiel; deploying forces and material; and such other activities as the Parties may agree.”

The Albanese ALP government evidently has no problem with the craven sell-out of Australian sovereignty to the United States represented by the FPA and the decisions of AUSMIN 2023.

The Government’s abandonment of Australian sovereignty to the US through AUKUS and the FPA enmeshes Australia in US war plans and undermines the peace in our region on which our national prosperity relies.

It is up to the ALP rank and file members attending the National Conference, 17-19 August, to stand up for Australia’s national interest.

As factional power brokers manoeuvre to stifle dissent, will delegates defend Labor values?

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