By China slams ‘blatant’ Aukus deal
Daniel Hurst
China’s mission to the United Nations has criticised the Aukus announcement, arguing it is a “blatant act” that “hurts peace and stability in the region”.
On Twitter, the Chinese diplomatic mission repeated Beijing’s longstanding claims – denied by Australia – that the agreement violates the objects of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
And it argued this “textbook case of double-standard will damage the authority and effectiveness of the international non-proliferation system”:
The irony of #AUKUS is that two nuclear weapons states who claim to uphold the highest nuclear non-proliferation standard are transferring tons of weapons-grade enriched uranium to a non-nuclear-weapon state, clearly violating the object and purpose of the NPT. [END QUOTE]
The nuclear submarine cooperation plan released today by #AUKUS is a blatant act that constitutes serious nuclear proliferation risks, undermines international non-proliferation system, fuels arms races, and hurts peace and stability in the region.
— Chinese Mission to UN (@Chinamission2un) March 13, 2023
The Australian government has repeatedly pointed out its plans don’t breach the NPT. The three Aukus governments, pre-empting the criticism that China was likely to mount, said in their joint statement that they would “continue to work transparently” with the International Atomic Energy Agency to ensure the “strongest non-proliferation precedent”. The Aukus statement said:
As a non-nuclear-weapon state, Australia does not – and will not – seek to acquire nuclear weapons;
Australia will not enrich uranium or reprocess spent fuel as part of this program;
Australia will not produce its own nuclear fuel for its [nuclear-powered submarines];
The United Kingdom and United States intend to provide Australia with nuclear material in complete, welded power units that will not require refuelling during their lifetime;
The nuclear fuel that Australia receives cannot be used in nuclear weapons without further chemical processing, which would require facilities that Australia does not have and will not seek; and
This initiative will occur within the framework of Australia’s Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement (CSA) and Additional Protocol (AP) with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Key events
Sydney train disruptions continue
Sydneysiders have been hit with even more train delays today. A warning urging commuters to “allow plenty of extra travel time” was given after urgent signalling work at Broadmeadow and train repairs on the north shore line at Waitara caused delays across the network, Elias Visontay is reporting.
The new disruptions follow the network-wide shutdown last Wednesday which left every train parked for 90 minutes.
Meanwhile, reports have emerged that an internal Transport for NSW document from more than a year ago warned that Sydney trains’ digital radio system components were “obsolete” and fixing the problem was a priority.
Labor’s transport spokesperson Jo Haylen said:
The Liberal government was warned a year ago that components in the digital train radio system were already obsolete. They knew that this could put the whole train network at risk but not enough has been done because there is no accountability.
Passengers are yet again paying the price because no one knows who is in charge.
Following the recent disruptions, train drivers are reportedly going to get analogue hand-held radios as a backup in case communications are temporarily severed again.
Thank you to Amy for taking us through the morning- and what a massive morning it was! After the Aukus announcement and all the subsequent commentary, let’s take a step back at some of the headlines you might have missed this morning:
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Overnight, King Charles delivered his first Commonwealth Day message as monarch from the pulpit at Westminster Abbey – a departure from previous messages from Queen Elizabeth II, which were traditionally pre-recorded. You can read his speech in full here.
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Independent MPs Allegra Spender and Zali Steggall are pushing the government to include an absolute cap or an explicit objective that emissions must come down under the safeguard mechanism.
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Vast tracts of Queensland’s northwest remain flooded as communities face a long wait to return to their homes and assess the damage, AAP reports. Residents desperate to begin the massive clean-up have been urged to be cautious, with a number of saltwater crocodiles spotted near inundated towns. Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk warned there would be heavy stock losses, and three-quarters of the houses in Burketown have water over the floorboards.
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Meanwhile, the New South Wales Liberal party’s candidate for Swansea, Megan Anderson, has downplayed a comment she made denying climate change last week, calling it a “clumsy joke”.
We’ll continue to bring you the latest as the day continues.
Thank you to everyone for joining me this morning as we made our way through that tsunami of information. I am going to hand you over to Emily Wind now for the next little bit. I’ll be back when parliament resumes next week. Take care of you.
Daniel Hurst
While we’re on the topic of China, Guardian Australia understands Australian officials contacted their counterparts in Beijing yesterday to offer a briefing on the Aukus plans, and that offer stands.
More broadly, Australian officials have been carrying out an extensive process of briefing countries in south-east Asia and the Pacific, some of which have shared the concerns about Aukus fuelling an arms race.
Australia has sought to reassure countries of the strategic rationale for the submarine plans, and the commitment not to have nuclear-weapons
Scott Morrison has responded to the Aukus agreement announcement on Instagram:
I commend the government and welcome the announcements made today that take the first steps to realising the historic Aukus agreement we conceived and established in government eighteen months ago in September 2021. The initiatives announced today are appropriately ambitious and consistent with the original aspiration, direction and intentions of the Aukus founders.
These bold initiatives will pose significant challenges for all parties, but especially Australia. Such challenges and demands were understood and envisaged when we put Aukus together. It was always going to require a transformative national effort. These challenges will be addressed by governments from both sides of politics for decades to come as they each do their part to steward this great initiative. I have no doubt this will continue in a strong spirit of bipartisanship and national unity. Aukus is bigger than any one individual, party, government or partner nation. Aukus has already altered the strategic calculus of the Indo-Pacific and will only continue to do so in the years ahead, supporting an enduring strategic balance in our region.
I particularly commend and thank all those within our defence and security services from all three nations who have worked so diligently as part of this eighteen month process that was initiated when we commenced Aukus . They have kept to the mission and produced a great result. Congratulations.
China slams ‘blatant’ Aukus deal
Daniel Hurst
China’s mission to the United Nations has criticised the Aukus announcement, arguing it is a “blatant act” that “hurts peace and stability in the region”.
On Twitter, the Chinese diplomatic mission repeated Beijing’s longstanding claims – denied by Australia – that the agreement violates the objects of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
And it argued this “textbook case of double-standard will damage the authority and effectiveness of the international non-proliferation system”:
The irony of #AUKUS is that two nuclear weapons states who claim to uphold the highest nuclear non-proliferation standard are transferring tons of weapons-grade enriched uranium to a non-nuclear-weapon state, clearly violating the object and purpose of the NPT. [END QUOTE]
The nuclear submarine cooperation plan released today by #AUKUS is a blatant act that constitutes serious nuclear proliferation risks, undermines international non-proliferation system, fuels arms races, and hurts peace and stability in the region.
— Chinese Mission to UN (@Chinamission2un) March 13, 2023
The Australian government has repeatedly pointed out its plans don’t breach the NPT. The three Aukus governments, pre-empting the criticism that China was likely to mount, said in their joint statement that they would “continue to work transparently” with the International Atomic Energy Agency to ensure the “strongest non-proliferation precedent”. The Aukus statement said:
As a non-nuclear-weapon state, Australia does not – and will not – seek to acquire nuclear weapons;
Australia will not enrich uranium or reprocess spent fuel as part of this program;
Australia will not produce its own nuclear fuel for its [nuclear-powered submarines];
The United Kingdom and United States intend to provide Australia with nuclear material in complete, welded power units that will not require refuelling during their lifetime;
The nuclear fuel that Australia receives cannot be used in nuclear weapons without further chemical processing, which would require facilities that Australia does not have and will not seek; and
This initiative will occur within the framework of Australia’s Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement (CSA) and Additional Protocol (AP) with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Why doesn’t Jim Chalmers extend the deal beyond 2027?
Chalmers:
There’s a fair bit to do between now and then. Four years away, when the deal was done, with our support, to give Western Australia its fair share of GST revenue, we proudly supported that deal. We have implemented in government. It’s meant that we have funded to multiple billions of dollars the other states to ensure that they aren’t worse off.
They know and you know that when the deal was first struck, there was a review built into it which is still some years away. We’ll turn our minds to it at the appropriate time.
You can tell the treasurer is in WA because most of the questions in this press conference is about the GST arrangement.
Chalmers is asked about comments from the Victorian treasurer, Tim Pallas, that the WA GST arrangement isn’t equitable:
Chalmers:
I say to Treasurer Pallas, he’s a friend of mine, someone who I have a heap of respect for, the GST deal ensures no state is worse off including Victoria. And that’s the deal that we committed to.
This is the undertaking we have given here in WA on multiple occasions. I don’t think I have been in WA in the last couple of years without being asked about it. And it’s an important opportunity for me to respond to some of the absolute rubbish that Michaelia Cash and others have been saying in recent days.
Today, the Commonwealth Grants Commission releases the new relatives for the GST allocation and I’m proud to say and pleased to say that instead of getting the ten cents in the dollar that WA would have been entitled to under the old regime – its lowest ever – WA will be getting 70 cents in the dollar and the difference between that is $5.6 billion next year.
This is a deal that we are committed to, this is a deal that we are proud of, this is a deal that ensures that we recognise that the Western Australian economy often keeps the world – wheels of the national economy turning.
This is a $5.6 billion thank you to the people of Western Australia for keeping the wheels of the national economy turning, not just in recent times, but before that as well.
I have said the premier McGowan and treasurer McGowan, I said publicly and privately here in WA, we don’t intend to change that deal. The Liberals are lying when they say that is the case.
There are regular reviews which happen all of the time and to treasurer Pallas and other friends and treasurers around the Australia, the current arrangements ensure that even as WA gets this funding that they deserve the other states aren’t worse off
Position on stage-three tax cuts unchanged, Chalmers says
OK cool, but we are rethinking the stage-three tax cuts right?
Right?
Jim Chalmers:
Our position on the tax cuts hasn’t changed. We’ve made it clear in other ways that we do need to find ways to make the budget more sustainable over time.
You know, the very modest but meaningful change that we announced a couple of weeks ago for example to superannuation, will make the budget a bit more sustainable over time. But we’ve got those five big pressures on the budget – defence is one of those. This is necessary spending. And we need to make sure that we can find ways to make the budget more sustainable more broadly.
So the stage-three tax cuts are part of that?
Our position on the tax cuts hasn’t changed.
How is Australia going to pay for it?
Jim Chalmers:
Well, Australia can’t afford not to do this. And this is a key investment. It’s a big investment.
But it’s an important investment which will deliver huge returns for our country, for our nation’s security and for its economy. In offsetting $9 billion over the forward estimates, we are not adding to the substantial pressure which is already on the budget.
Beyond that, we’ve already got the $24 billion attack class provision as the beginnings of offsetting what we can from the $50 billion to $58 billion cost over the coming decade.
We know that we’ve got substantial pressures on the budget. The big five fastest growing areas of spending on the budget are the interest costs on the Liberals’ $1 trillion debt that we inherited, the NDIS, aged-care, healthcare and defence.
What we’ve shown here is an ability to offset the cost of this over the forward estimates, partially offset the cost beyond that, but this is a game-changing investment. It will be worth every cent. When it comes to our national security, our national economy and the local economy of WA.
The treasurer Jim Chalmers is now speaking on the Aukus agreement from WA:
This is a big investment we’re announcing today but it has big returns as well. I talked about the $8 billion over 10 years in WA, $1 billion of that in the forward estimates, thousands of jobs for Western Australia and for the nation beyond.
The forward estimate cost of the whole program is $9 billion over the forward estimates.
That will be completely offset by defence, so that the combination of the $6 billion provision for the attack class plus $3 billion of additional offsets will mean that over the forward estimates this plan won’t add to the deficits over the four years of the forward estimates.
The ten-year cost is between $50 billion and $58 billion. Included or part of the offset for that will be the existing $24 billion provision for the attack class.
Over the life of the project, it will cost an average of 0.15% of GDP. That will average over the life of the project until the middle 2050s.
Today is not a day for partisan politics but it’s important to recognise what we provisioned in our budget is more substantial than our predecessors provisioned in theirs.
The costs we’re announcing today included some of the costs our predecessors did not provision for when it comes to sustainment and training and some of the other important elements of the cost that we are talking about today.
We’re being up-front about the cost of this. It is a big cost but it will deliver big returns for our national security and national economy and here in Western Australia as well.
Bureau of Meteorology set to declare an end to the triple La Niña
Peter Hannam
To some other news now
It’s been a long time coming but the Bureau of Meteorology is later today likely to formally declare an end to the La Niña event in the Pacific.
Conditions have been slowly drifting back to neutral conditions in the central equatorial Pacific for some time and the La Niña itself was never a very extreme one to start with.
Still, the fact that we had three La Niña years in a row meant that a lot of catchments were sodden to start with and it didn’t need record-breaking rain to trigger big floods. (Of course, we did have some record falls too.)
The US National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration – which uses slightly different measures from our BoM – called an end to the La Niña last week.
Attention has been switching for some time to the prospect of La Niña’s opposite – an El Niño – forming in the Pacific later in the year. The models used by BoM continue to point in that direction at least for now.
A pretty fair chance that @BOM_au will today declare an end to the three-peat La Nina event, matching @NOAA. Models are still pointing to the development of an El Nino later this year (though models have the annual autumn ‘predictability gap’ to clear). pic.twitter.com/HA3tCT0UvH
— @phannam@mastodon.green (@p_hannam) March 13, 2023
La Niñas favour wetter than average conditions for much of Australia, and El Niños tilt conditions the other way. We won’t know for a couple of months whether an El Nino is certain but we can expect drier and hotter weather with the related risks of bushfires and heatwaves rather than floods.
Still, as we’ve seen in the Gulf region this week it’s still possible to get huge floods even with a waning La Niña.
It’s early days yet, but meteorologists will also be watching out for a late-season tropical cyclone (or two), with the possibility of one forming in the Coral Sea next week.
Meanwhile, many parts of eastern Australia might have felt as if summer had passed them by.
That could change in coming days with an extended spell of heat for parts of NSW in particular, with conditions even reaching ‘severe heatwave’ levels for parts of the state’s south coast.
Late-season warmth looks set to intensify in coming days across parts of eastern Australia. A region to Sydney’s south may even experience severe heatwave conditions, @BOM_au says. pic.twitter.com/Q1LqBEZeuv
— @phannam@mastodon.green (@p_hannam) March 14, 2023
Let’s hope the burst of warmth is not a precursor for what’s ahead next summer, whether or not an El Niño forms.
Nobel peace prize winner urges Australia to sign UN nuclear-ban treaty
Ben Doherty
Winner of the 2017 Nobel peace prize, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (Ican), has said that Australia’s decision to buy and build nuclear-powered submarines using highly-enriched uranium is both a major proliferation risk and could be seen internationally as a precursor to Australia acquiring nuclear weapons.
Ican argues that he “clearest signal that Australia could send to our region and the world” it does not intend to acquire nuclear weapons would be to sign the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons: the ban treaty that Ican has championed and to which 68 states around the world are now a party.
Australia’s acquisition of submarines fuelled by HEU undermines our commitment to non-proliferation. It goes against Australia’s past support and actions to reduce use and stocks of HEU, and negates Australia’s support for a proposed Fissile Material Cutoff treaty.
The particular capability of the planned submarines is to support the US in a war in northeast Asia. Whether with China, North Korea or Russia, there is an alarming risk of any such war escalating to use of nuclear weapons.
Nuclear-powered submarines, and their bases, would become high priority targets for conventional or nuclear attack from adversaries. We don’t need to escalate regional tensions with highly-enriched uranium powered submarines.
If Australia acquires nuclear-powered submarines it must unequivocally commit never to develop nuclear weapons, nor host another nation’s nuclear weapons. These are red lines we must not cross. The most effective assurance we can give would be to sign and ratify the UN TPNW.”
Coalition’s official response to Labor’s Aukus announcement
The Coalition’s official response has been released:
The Coalition welcomes the government’s announcement of the next step in the Aukus partnership established by the Coalition government in 2021.
The concept of Aukus was first conceived by prime minister Morrison in 2019 with the development process commenced in 2020. Today’s announcement is an endorsement of the Coalition’s decision to pursue the acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines.
It affirms the Coalition’s defence and national security strategy by enshrining the Aukus partnership as the centrepiece of our nation’s defence. The Aukus partnership will play a vital role in sustaining peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region for generations to come.
The Coalition will continue to seek further details regarding the prime minister’s announcement today, but will provide bipartisan support for the acquisition of nuclear powered submarines, which will radically transform Australia’s ability to defend ourselves and uphold our shared interests in preserving stability and peace for all nations in our region.
We firmly believe that the Aukus endeavour is too important to fail.
Aukus is a multi-generational nation-building task, commenced by the Coalition 18 months ago. Today represents the continuation of that task, as our country commences development of the SSN Aukus.
Aukus would not be possible, if the Coalition had not demonstrated Australia’s commitment to boosting our sovereign shipbuilding capabilities to our allies by commissioning the domestic build and upgrade of more than 70 vessels, and increased defence spending to over 2% of GDP, from its low ebb under Labor in 2013 of 1.56%.
While the purchase of the Virginia class vessels from the United States is a solution which we have advocated for some time, we call on the government to guarantee that this decision will result in no net job losses in South Australia or Western Australia in the short or medium term.
But we must be under no illusion that the pathway presented to us by the Albanese government is high risk and the government must provide surety that the risks in operating three classes of submarines is a feat which can be managed.
The Coalition is calling on the government to have a frank and honest conversation with Australians about the significant investment this decision represents to the national budget, and defence spending. This includes being upfront about what defence capabilities are being cut by $3 billion over the next four years to offset our contribution to US and UK submarine production.
The Coalition also acknowledges that this agreement remains true to Australia’s commitments to not acquire nuclear weapons and our obligations as a signatory to the South Pacific Nuclear-Free Zone treaty, and remains consistent with our position to nuclear non-proliferation. We welcome all three nations’ deep commitment to upholding leadership on global non-proliferation.
