HIROSHIMA NEVER AGAIN! Five key demands for Hiroshima Day 2025

 Written by: Central Committee, CPA (M-L) on 14 July 2025

 

This year is the 80th annual August 2 Hiroshima Day observance.

It comes in the wake of the US use of “bunker buster” bombs to prevent Iran’s capacity to develop nuclear power, enabling manufacture of nuclear weapons.

Tensions surrounding the question of nuclear weapons have not abated in the 80 years since Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

 

The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist) joins with the people of the world in commemorating the dropping of the first Atomic Bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  

 

We raise 5 popular demands at this year’s Hiroshima Remembrance Day activities. recently voted to identify four key demands for participants in this year’s Hiroshima Day rallies.

 

The recommendation from our Party reads: “The Central Committee calls for Hiroshima Day activities to feature opposition to imperialist war and calls for nuclear weapons states to agree to declare they will not be the first to use nuclear weapons, and to agree to the complete destruction and thorough prohibition of all nuclear weapons. We call on the Australian government to sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. We also call for the freedom of Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu. We build the peoples' movement to cancel the US-led imperialist AUKUS pact and the acquisition of nuclear-powered war submarines; we call for closing Pine Gap, the secret US intelligence base and a critical part of the US nuclear command and nuclear war preparations and ending the US-Australia alliance and imperialist war.”  

 

The vast majority of the nuclear stockpiles are held by the US and Russian imperialists. Each has more than ten times the nuclear weapons of third-placed China.  According to GlobalMilitary.net, as of mid-2025, nine countries possess nuclear weapons, collectively holding approximately 12,300 warheads. This

 

Nuclear Warhead Estimates by Country (2025)

 

Country Estimated Total Warheads Notes

Russia ~5,449 Largest arsenal; includes deployed, reserve, and retired warheads.

United States ~5,277 Includes active and reserve warheads; part of a nuclear triad.

China ~500 Rapidly expanding arsenal; projected to exceed 1,000 by 2047.

France ~290 Maintains a sea- and air-based deterrent; recently enhanced cooperation with the UK.

United Kingdom ~225 Submarine-based deterrent; recently enhanced cooperation with France.

Pakistan ~170 Expanding arsenal; focus on regional deterrence.

India ~180 Developing triad capabilities; emphasis on credible minimum deterrence.

Israel ~90 Unacknowledged arsenal; maintains policy of ambiguity.

North Korea ~50 Continues testing and development; arsenal remains limited.

 

Note: These figures are estimates based on available data and may not reflect exact counts due to the secretive nature of nuclear arsenals.

 

The first five in the list are imperialist nations. The US and Russia are the most aggressive in the conduct of current conventional warfare. The rise of Chinese imperialism is a challenge to the global power of the US, and their rivalry continues to increase regional and global tensions. All imperialist and imperialist-backed wars in Ukraine, Palestine, Congo, Sudan and elsewhere must be opposed.

 

People everywhere must compel the nuclear-armed states to adopt a “no first use” policy as a step towards disarmament. The No First Use (NFU) demand is aimed at the immediate relaxation of international tensions prior to the agreement by nuclear weapons states to destroy their stockpiles. It commits a nuclear-armed state to never use nuclear weapons first under any circumstances, whether as a pre-emptive attack or first strike, or in response to non-nuclear attack of any kind.

 

To date, China is the only country to have made an unconditional No First Use pledge. It made it when it was still a socialist country under Mao Zedong’s leadership in 1964, following its first nuclear test explosion. The Soviet Union also had such a policy, but abandoned it in 1994 in the wake of the Soviet Union’s demise. Since 1998, India has maintained a policy of NFU with exceptions for a response to chemical or biological attacks.

 

People everywhere must demand the complete destruction and thorough prohibition of all nuclear weapons.  The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) was opened for signature on July 1, 1968, and entered into force on March 5, 1970. Since then, five countries have acquired nuclear weapons capabilities, namely India, Israel, Pakistan, North Korea and South Africa. (South Africa is unique in that it developed nuclear weapons secretly and then voluntarily gave them up, becoming the first and only nation to do so unilaterally.)

 

Countries that feel threatened by nuclear-powered adversaries will be tempted to acquire their own.  This was Pakistan’s response to India, and was the reason why Iran felt compelled to work towards nuclear weapons capacity given Israel's possession of a nuclear armament.

 

The 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons leaves nuclear weapons in the hands of those that currently have them, and does not prevent their relocation to other host states (Belarus in the case of Russia; Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey in the case of the US).

 

The Australian people must call on the Australian government to sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. For the first five years of the Treaty, Australia followed the US in voting against it. In 2022, it timidly took a step outside the US shadow and abstained on the vote. 

 

Labor leader Anthony Albanese pledged in 2018 to sign the TPNW, and must be held to his word. We support the campaign led by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) to demand Australia sign the TPNW as a step towards the complete prohibition and thorough destruction of nuclear weapons.

 

People everywhere must call for the freedom of Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu. He is a Moroccan born Jew who at the age of 9 years was taken by his parents to live in Occupied Palestine (Israel). In October 1971, he was conscripted into the Israel Occupation Forces. Following his discharge, he studied physics at university and took a job at the Negev Nuclear Research Centre. He began to develop a critical view of Zionism and supported Palestinians. In 1985, he smuggled a camera into the Centre and took 57 photographs which proved that Israel had developed nuclear weapons. 

 

Visiting Australia in 1986, he converted to Christianity and met a British journalist from the Sunday Times which subsequently published his claims.

 

As a result, Mossad agents drugged and kidnapped Vanunu during a trip to Rome, took him back to Israel, where he was tried and jailed for 18 years, the first 11 of which were in solitary confinement.  Since his release he has been forbidden to talk with foreigners and has restrictions on his movements. He has been jailed several times for violating those conditions.

 

Vanunu does not wish to remain in Israel. He is kept there by the Zionist authorities who have never admitted to possessing nuclear weapons. By not acknowledging possession of nuclear weapons, Israel avoids a US legal prohibition on funding countries that proliferate weapons of mass destruction. Such an admission would prevent Israel from receiving over $2 billion each year in military and other aid from Washington. Vanunu’s freedom to travel and to speak would be an embarrassment to both the US and Israel.

 

Vanunu must be granted his freedom to leave, and should he choose to do so, to be granted asylum and citizenship by Australia.

 

The Australian people must oppose the AUKUS arrangements. They are part of US imperialism’s preparations for war with its rival, China. Former Prime Ministers Keating (Labor) and Turnbull (Liberal) warn that the arrangements tie us to the US in violation of Australia’s sovereignty and independence. 

In our view, imperialism and its military industrial complex spawn the proliferation of nuclear weapons and nuclear war.  Mobilised and united working people will put an end to imperialism and its imperialist wars.

 

We put forward these five demands in the hope that they will continue to be pursued independently of the important Hiroshima Day observances.  

Port Adelaide Community Opposes AUKUS

Written by: Nick G. on 27 October 2024

 

More than 120 residents of the Port Adelaide area attended a meeting yesterday, called by the Port Adelaide Community Opposes AUKUS (PACOA).

The meeting began with MC and local resident Eileen Darley introducing former WA Senator Jo Valentine by video link. Jo expressed solidarity from WA opponents of AUKUS and gave a detailed account of developments over there.

The meeting closed with messages of solidarity from the Wollongong Against War and Nukes (WAWAN) group which has held very large protests against a suggested nuclear submarine base at Pt. Kembla harbour.

Residents then brainstormed ideas for further developing their campaign against AUKUS and the radioactive waste it brings.

Speakers at the meeting included former SA Senator Rex Patrick (who will be standing as a Senate candidate with the Jacqui Lambie Network – Lambie herself was seated in the audience), economist Prof. Al Rainnie, Michael Williss (speaking as a member of the Independent and Peaceful Australia Network, IPAN), Amanda Ruler from the Medical Association for the Prevention of War), and co-leader of the Greens in the SA Parliament, Tammie Franks.

We are reprinting here the talk by Michael Williss. 

Talk at the Take Action Against AUKUS meeting October 26, 2024
Port Adelaide Community Opposes AUKUS

Thank you for inviting me to speak on the unceded lands of the Kaurna people. What a pity Australia is not an unceded independent nation state instead of a grovelling puppet of the United States.

But let’s start in the traditional way…with a pub quiz. 

I’m going to list ten wars, and I want to know the odd one out: Sudan Campaign, Boxer Rebellion. Boer War, WW1, WW2, Korea, Malayan Emergency, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq.

Yes, the odd one out was WW2 – the only one of the ten in which our national independence and sovereignty were threatened. Japan bombed northern Australia at least 111 times between February 1942 and November 1943. The first time Darwin was hit, 262 aircraft killed at least 235 people and caused immense damage.  Other places hit over a nearly two-year stretch included Broome, Katherine, Townsville, Wyndham, Port Headland, Mossman, Milingimbi, Exmouth, Horn Island, Bathurst Island.

Every other war, in my opinion, has seen us surrender our capacity for independent decision-making in matters of foreign policy, and blindly follow either the British or the US imperialists into wars not required for Australia’s defence.

That is why AUKUS and talk of war preparations by the US against China don’t unduly worry some people.  Apart from WW2, our wars have been fought “up there” or “over there”.  A war with China, some think, will follow that pattern. If we follow the US into war with China, it is unlikely that these people have considered Australian cities looking like parts of Ukraine or Gaza or Beirut. Osborne and surrounds are just such a potential target.

Bur Gillard, Rudd, Abbott, Morrison and Albanese have almost guaranteed that as a continental-sized air craft carrier for the US military, we have cities and suburbs that will almost certainly be hit in a Chinese retaliation against our participation in a US war against China.

Post WW2 we have had US bases here: Pine Gap and North West Cape spring to mind. But a qualitative change occurred when Obama’s pivot to Asia was married to Gillard’s cheerleading for the US Empire.

Obama’s pivot occurred in the first year of Gillard as PM. Starting in 2012 with 200 Marines, their Darwin rotation has grown to around 2,500 Marines.
U.S. aircraft, including bombers and surveillance planes, use Australian airbases, such as RAAF Base Tindal and RAAF Base Amberley.   US B-52s can be nuclear armed, and Wong accepts this as the US’s right not to disclose. US B-2 bombers just recently bombed Yemen having used Australia as a stop-over.

The Force Posture Agreement (FPA) between the United States and Australia, signed in 2014, significantly enhances the U.S. military presence in Australia by formalising and expanding military cooperation between the two countries. It provides US forces with access to critical Australian military bases and infrastructure, including ports and airfields and allows them to station fuel dumps, equipment, and munitions wherever they like.

We are upgrading submarine docking facilities in WA at a cost of $20 billion, chicken feed perhaps alongside the $368 billion submarine arrangements.

Our country has been handed to the US on a plate.  You have no doubt seen statements by Paul Keating, Gareth Evans and Bob Carr deploring the surrender of our independence through the AUKUS arrangements.

As much as Morrison likes to boast of his role in creating AUKUS, it was really a rerun of an idea first put to Australia by the US in October2013 after Tony Abbott had defeated Kevin Rudd. Morrison was in Abbott’s Cabinet and would have known of the US proposal that Australia operate 10 or 12 Virginia class submarines. Under AUKUS he simply tweaked the proposal for leasing the submarines into purchasing them. 

Former PM Malcom Fraser saw the dangers to Australia of such a submarine deal, saying that “The reliance by Australia on the United States for military communications in reality means that we cannot conduct operations unless the United States approves of them. That is a derogation of sovereignty” (Fraser, Dangerous Allies p. 256).

He would no doubt laugh at the idea that flying an Australian flag on an AUKUS sub would allow us to make our own decisions.

We must stand up for the independence of Australia and break the US stranglehold on the decision-makers in the Liberal and Labor parties.

Thank you.

70th anniversary of Emu Field A-Bomb tests approaches

 

Written by: Nick G. on 22 September 2023

As a kid growing up in the western suburbs of Adelaide, a hand-painted slogan on the old bridge over the railway line on Henley Beach Rd (where the underpass is now) is firmly imprinted on my memory. I suspect it was done by CPA members in the late 50s.  It read “Ban all A- and H-Bomb Tests”.  It was unmistakable and lasted there for years.

A similar slogan had been painted on the wall of Government House in 1957 and a young member of the Moulders Union convicted and ordered to remove the slogan. 

The CPA paper Tribune gave regular coverage to atomic and hydrogen bomb tests on Monto Bello Island and at Emu Field and Maralinga. These were carried out by British imperialism and its local servants in violation of Australian independence and sovereignty, and against the wishes of the people.

Even before the tests, the CPA had begun a campaign against the creation of the Rocket Range on Mt Eba pastoral station. A town, later known as Woomera, was built to service the testing of rockets. Alf Watt, SA State Secretary of the CPA, published a booklet in the late 1940s titled Rocket Range Threatens Australia which first raised the issue of threats to First Peoples from the weapons tests.

The Central Australian Aborigine Reserve is to be violated. Across its 65,000 square miles there will pass a rocket range 200 miles wide. Falling missiles, some fitted with war-heads (including atomic war-heads) will endanger both the lives and food supply of the natives. With observation posts placed at I00 mile intervals along the range, the Reserve will be opened to white men, with disastrous effects upon the aborigines and their tribal organisation. 

Another crime is to be added to the long list by which the aborigines chiefly know us. It is the fashion of governments to proclaim New Deals for the natives. But practice, without exception, has been to destroy the aborigines as a race, and turn the survivors into virtual chattel slaves for the white exploiters.

The following drawing illustrated the passage above:

When the first tests of atom bombs on Australian soil were announced in 1953, Tribune again exposed the dangers to First Peoples:

Truth (October 4) said that “nomadic tribes of Aborigines have been rounded up…It is impossible to round up these tribes, impossible to stop them returning to their hunting grounds…Even if the atom blast does not kill and mutilate a number of Aborigines, it will devastate their hunting grounds, destroy their water holes, and devastate tribal territory that is sacred to them, and to which they believe their spirits will return after death. The inevitable result will be disastrous to the tribes.

Tragically, the scenario painted by the Tribune materialised with the first A-Bomb test at Emu Field on October 15, 1953. A second A-Bomb was detonated on October 27, 1953. The effect of these explosions was to render Emu Field contaminated by nuclear radiation, so the test site was moved to Maralinga where further tests were held in 1956.

Aboriginal people did die as a result of nuclear explosions on their lands. Yankunytjatjara man Yami Lester later became well-known for having suffered blindness from the black mist which blew across his family in the aftermath of a test. He became a much-admired activist against nuclear energy and for the rights of First Peoples. Paul Kelly’ song Maralinga references Yami Lester.

On September 21, 2023, the Adelaide Advertiser revealed that for nearly 70 years, the British imperialists have kept hidden from nuclear veterans and First Peoples the results of their blood tests taken between 1956 and 1960. The blood tests would have benefitted doctors treating people exposed to radiation from the bomb tests, but would have significantly assisted those tested in lodginf claims for compensation from the British and Australian governments. Keeping these blood tests secret for all these years is a crime against the people concerned. Yami Lester’s daughter Karina has called for the records to be made public. 

During the time that atomic and hydrogen bombs were tested on Australia soil, the Communist Party encouraged unions and peace committees and the Union of Australian Women to condemn the tests and demand their cancellation. 

This was a strong campaign, but ultimately unsuccessful in achieving its objectives.

As the 70th anniversary of the Emu Field tests approaches, we must redouble our efforts against the contemporary abominations of the AUKUS arrangements, the preparations for fighting the US war against China, and the push to create an Australian nuclear energy industry.

Please seek out Emu Field commemorative activities and take part in them.

Nuclear Weapons: Support Demands for No First Use and Complete Prohibition

 Written by: Nick G. on 24 June 2023

 The Russian imperialists have confirmed the movement of tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus.

Tactical nuclear weapons can range in size from the equivalent of one kiloton (one thousand tonnes) of explosive TNT to 200 kilotons, the latter dwarfing the 15 kiloton bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Russian President Putin has declared that the nuclear weapons would only be used if Russia's territory or state was threatened. 

Putin cannot be trusted. He strenuously denied that the Russian troops massed along the Russia-Ukraine and Belarus-Ukraine borders were not there for the purpose of invading Ukraine, a denial repeated right up until the day of the invasion.

The invasion was then justified on three grounds: it was needed to de-Nazify Ukraine, to protect ethnic Russians and Russian-speaking Ukrainians in eastern Ukraine, and because NATO expansion posed a threat to Russia’s territory and state.

Putin has threatened to use tactical nuclear weapons before, earning a rebuke from his Chinese friends who, in their February 23 Twelve-Point Peace Plan for Ukraine, stated: “Nuclear weapons must not be used and nuclear wars must not be fought. The threat or use of nuclear weapons should be opposed. Nuclear proliferation must be prevented and nuclear crisis avoided”.

Russia and the United States each have up to 2000 tactical nuclear weapons. Russia justifies basing some of its weapons in Belarus because the US imperialists have at least 150 spread across Europe with 50 in Turkiye and others in Italy, Belgium, Germany and Holland. 

Just over a week ago, on June 12, the Stockholm International Peace Institute released its 2023 Year Book, with the following table of major, non-tactical nuclear weapons distribution in the world:

Russia and the US are the standout leaders of the nuclear weapons club. They each have over 5000 nuclear warheads, with a sizeable proportion of those already attached to missiles and in readiness for immediate attack.

All nine nuclear weapons states have consistently voted against an annual UN General Assembly resolution since 2018 that welcomes the adoption of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and calls upon all states to sign, ratify, or accede to it “at the earliest possible date”.

The Treaty prohibits nations from developing, testing, producing, manufacturing, transferring, possessing, stockpiling, using or threatening to use nuclear weapons, or allowing nuclear weapons to be stationed on their territory. It also prohibits them from assisting, encouraging or inducing anyone to engage in any of these activities.

For the first five years of the Treaty, Australia – which is to the US imperialists what Belarus is to the Russian imperialists – voted against the Treaty in the UN General Assembly. Last year, it timidly took a step outside the US shadow and abstained on the vote.

Labor leader Anthony Albanese pledged in 2018 to sign the TPNW, and must be held to his word. We support the campaign led by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) to demand Australia sign the TPNW as a step towards the complete prohibition and thorough destruction of nuclear weapons.

We also support the demand for all nuclear weapons states to pledge not to be the first to use nuclear weapons.  The No First Use (NFU) demand is aimed at the immediate relaxation of international tensions prior to the agreement by nuclear weapons states to destroy their stockpiles. It commits a nuclear-armed state to never use nuclear weapons first under any circumstances, whether as a pre-emptive attack or first strike, or in response to non-nuclear attack of any kind.

To date, China is the only country to have made an unconditional No First Use pledge. It made it when it was still a socialist country under Mao Zedong’s leadership in 1964, following its first nuclear test explosion. The Soviet Union also had such a policy, but abandoned it in 1994 in the wake of the Soviet Union’s demise. India maintains a policy of NFU with exceptions for a response to chemical or biological attacks.

Neither China, India, Pakistan, North Korea nor Israel have nuclear weapons currently attached to missiles. 

It is important that pressure be placed on the Albanese-Wong-Marles group within the Labor government leadership to demand that US imperialism make an NFU commitment. A US refusal to join China, its main adversary, in a NFU policy exposes it as a country prepared to use nuclear weapons aggression.

Refusal by the US to commit to NFU strengthens our case for withdrawal from the AUKUS arrangements which could involve Australia being complicit in any such US nuclear aggression.

The demand is more likely to be achieved than an agreement to destroy and prohibit all nuclear weapons in the near future. Both Obama and Biden have given support to NFU, although they have not enacted it as a policy.

The demand should also be made on all nuclear-armed states, especially Russia. 

At the present time, the main danger of the use of nuclear weapons, tactical or otherwise, comes from the pushing and shoving between the US-NATO on one hand, and the Russian imperialists on the other.

While revolutionaries must never be afraid of nuclear weapons, their capacity for massive destruction is very real. That includes Australian territory where US bases would be attacked in the event of a US war with China. The most important of those bases, including Pine Gap, North West Cape, the marine rotational base outside Darwin, and the Tindal Air Bae outside Katherine, are on unceded First Peoples’ lands, endangering their communities and nearby non-Indigenous Australians in the event of an attack.

Whatever contributes to the complete prohibition and thorough destruction of nuclear weapons must be supported.

Looking Back to See the Future - Woomera/Maralinga to Nuclear Submarines -All to Protect The "Free World"

 

Written by: Ned K. on 16 April 2023

Australian historian Michael Wohlltmann's latest book, Looking Back to See the Future about the history of Woomera is a "warts and all" history of the military and space technology base and town of Woomera established by the British and Australian Governments in the 1940s.

Wohltmann's purpose in writing the well-researched book was to "provide a holistic perspective on the Woomera story through the lens of the Military Industrial complex" and "to provide some light on the secrecy and coverups that are part of the Woomera story."

The military and space base at Woomera and the nuclear bomb tests at Maralinga to Woomera's north-west were part of the Anglo-Australian Joint Project. The Joint Project was the complete subservience to British imperialism by the Menzies Government in particular in the context of the Cold War between the USSR and western powers led by the USA.

The book is a rich source of how Woomera and Maralinga were an integral part of the British and US imperialist Cold War military preparations and experiments with devasting impacts on First Nations Peoples in particular.

Part of the Anglo-Australian Joint Project were the British Government nuclear weapons development tests at Maralinga and beyond between 1952 and 1963.

One of the striking aspects of this period is that the subservience of the Australian Government to the British imperialists and the language used by Ministers of the Menzies Government is so similar to language used by the Albanese Government Ministers today when they try to justify the $380 billion nuclear submarine extravaganza planned for Australian ports, particularly at Osborne near Port Adelaide in South Australia.

Familiar Language?

An example of the similarity between the subservient Menzies Government and the subservient Albanese Government to imperialism's military needs is the excerpt from Michael Wohltmann's book below in the chapter on Woomera and Maralinga.

“In 1954 the Australian Government gave formal approval and a year later, the Australian Minister of Supply Howard Beal responded: 'England has the know how: we have the open spaces, much technical skill and a great willingness to help the Motherland. Between us we should help build the defenses of the free world, and make historic advances in harnessing the forces of nature.'”

Now in 2023 the "free world" is not a term used by Albanese, Wong and Marles. They use the term "democracies", their euphemism for western imperialist forms of government with the enemy not called "communism" but "totalitarian" in reference to China and to a lesser extent Russia. 

Just like the Menzies Government of the 1950s, the Australian Government of today sees no problem with nuclear waste being dumped in the same area of South Australia. In the 1950s nuclear waste from the bombs was spread over the land and towns whereas today the Australian Government is going for the more sophisticated nuclear waste dumps to store nuclear waste from the nuclear submarines to add to their planned nuclear waste dump a Kimba which is in the same part of SA as Woomera and Maralinga.

Despite these differences, the essence of the roles of the Menzies and Albanese Governments is the same in relation to the dominant imperialist powers in Australia.

In the 1950s, it was British imperial needs closely followed by the US imperialist needs.

Today, the Australian Government subservience has reversed the order with US imperialism being followed first with British imperialism in second place. The enemy for the USA and Australian Governments has changed from USSR to China.

The idea that Australia should keep out of war plans of imperialist powers was inconceivable for the Menzies Government and appears to be inconceivable for the Albanese Government as well.  

Looking Back to See the Future  is a self-published book (2022) available from projectfalstaff.com.au

Australian government sinks to a new low

(Above: No Nuclear Waste Dump rally, Adelaide 2016.    Photo by Bill Doyle)

 Written by: Bill F. on 19 March 2023

Just when many people thought that the AUKUS deal and nuclear submarines was the limit to Australia’s subservience to US imperialism! Now the Albanese Labor government has not only agreed to the US ‘neither confirm or nor deny’ policy for nuclear weapons on its visiting B-52 bombers and nuclear submarines, they have also agreed to “manage” the nuclear waste from “our” submarines at the end of their use-by date.

So, in addition to the proposed nuclear medicine waste dump in Kimba, South Australia, which is hotly opposed by the Barngarla people and local farmers (see Barngarla court case begins with early morning rally), there will be another site on Defence land somewhere not yet declared. Safe storage of high grade radioactive waste for hundreds of thousands of years is unproven, but the huge risks of removing and transporting this material are well known and will alarm the workers, towns and farming and indigenous communities that have to cop this environmental crime. Already the Western Australian and South Australian state governments are bluing over this.

And it’s not as though Australia will have the necessary skills and expertise to do this, possibly within the next ten or twenty years. Nuclear submarines are the thin edge of the wedge for the corporations to line up and lobby for a full nuclear industry, complete with uranium mining and export, nuclear power stations and contracted international nuclear ‘waste management’.

This is the essence of US imperialism – the military hand and the industrial hand clapping over the prospect of new profits and new missile bases for their hegemony over the Indo-Pacific. They don’t give a damn for the millions of people threatened by their war plans, or for the environment polluted by their chemicals and fossil fuel emissions, or for the cruel loss of biodiversity they cause across the planet. Their class rule is enforced by the US government which bullies, sanctions and bribes other governments/leaders to cower before it, in pursuit of “US interests”.

 

Barngarla court case begins with early morning rally.

 Written by: Nick G. on 6 March 2023

Nearly 70 people gathered outside the Federal Court at 8.30am this morning in Adelaide to mark the beginning of what is expected to be a five-day hearing which it is hoped will overturn the decision to locate a nuclear waste dump on Barngarla land at Kimba on the Eyre Peninsula.

Kaurna elder Uncle Fred Agius welcomed those present to Country and praised the Barngarla for the stand they have taken against the dump proposal.

Waiting for the rally to begin, Barngarla elder Uncle Harry Dare said that the Barngarla were fighting not just for themselves, but for all Australians. 

“This affects everyone, not just those living near Kimba,” he said.

He was scathing about the federal Labor government which is expected to spend more than $4 million in legal fees fighting the Barngarla.

“This is money that should be spent on housing and hospitals, not wasted fighting us.”

Not long after the election of the Labor government, we profiled its Resources Minister Madeleine King, saying that she would back the Kimba dump. You can see that profile here.  

I asked Uncle Harry whether he had met Madeleine King when she visited Kimba in early January.

He said he had, but added “She’s just ignorant. She doesn’t understand.”

He said he couldn’t speak for the chosen site, at Napandee, in particular because it was a women’s site.

“It is part of the Seven Sisters Dreaming,” he said.  “If that site is lost, so is the story and with it the identity of our women.”

The songlines of the Seven Sisters (the star group known as the Pleiades) intersect across the length and breadth of the continent, connecting First Peoples on different Country to each other. It is one of the most powerful elements of First Peoples’ cultures.

The Barngarla have developed a united front with Kimba farmers opposed to the dump.

(Above: banners representing the Barngarla and farming communities)

Their organisation, No Radioactive Waste on Agricultural Land in Kimba or SA, sent a message of support to the rally saying they "fully support the Barngarla Determination Aboriginal Corporation in their legal proceedings against the Federal Government as they strive for their voice to be not only heard but listened to."

"The process the Federal Government have undertaken to site a National Radioactive Waste Facility has been heavily flawed and deeply divisive. Their illogical plan involves double handling Australia's most toxic waste, moving it halfway across the country to store it in a shed for decades awaitng the finding of another suitable site where it can be finally properly buried.

"We continue to advocate for the waste to remain in its current secure location at ANSTO until the final deep geological disposal site is found. Productive Farming Land in Kimba is no place for radioactve waste and we will continue to fight this proposal to the end.

"We stand as one with the Barngarla people."

Uncle Harry and his niece Linda Dare both addressed the rally after Uncle Fred’s Welcome.

Others to speak were the Conservation Council’s Chief Executive Craig Wilkins, and State Secretary of the Communications, Electricity and Plumbing Union (CEPU) John Adley, on behalf of SA Unions.

Uncle Fred Agius welcoming to Country

Uncle Harry and Linda Dare

 

Kimba Nuclear Dump and The Voice from First Nations’ Journalist Perspective

(Above: sourced from the "Barngarla : Help Us Have A Say on Kimba" Facebook page)

Written by: Ned K. on 5 March 2023

A feature of the Adelaide Festival of Arts is Writers' Week held in the first week of March.

This year's Writers' Week theme according to its Director Louise Adler is "the notion of truth - truths we acknowledge, truths we feel are debatable and those beyond debate".

One session programmed was "Open Your Hearts Australia" about the Uluru Statement From The Heart and the Referendum on The Voice later this year. The presenter for this session, Cobbie Cobbie woman Professor Megan Davis, could not attend.

In her place three First Nations journalists, Nat Ahmat, Jodan Perry and Jack Latimore shared their experiences with Nat and Jodan working for SBS and  Jack for The Age as First Nations journalists.

They said that their main objective leading up to the Referendum on The Voice was to engage with the incredibly diverse First Nations peoples across the whole of Australia so their voices were heard during the lead up to the Referendum. They said there was no one view among what they called "their mob" about The Voice and constitutional recognition of First Nations people. 
However, they all said that despite the diversity of views and level of understanding of the government's idea for a Referendum, there was one Truth that "their mob" all understood. That is the "white fella society" is a settler society on their land.

That was one the fundamental Truth. Whether the Voice and Referendum would progress the First Nations’ people cause, the journalists said there was nowhere near a unanimous view within First Nations people based on their conversations with "their mob" so far.

On the same day as the three journalists gave their presentation at Writers' Week, there was a small snippet on the 24 hours mainstream media cycle that First Nations people on Eyre Peninsula in SA had lodged a Federal Court appeal against the proposed Nuclear Dump on their land near Kimba on Eyre Peninsula.

The federal Labor Government and SA Labor Government leaders regularly start speeches with Acknowledgment to Elders Past, Present and Emerging and that they are on Aboriginal Land, always was and always will be.

If the First Nations people on Eyre Peninsula do not want a nuclear dump on their Land, that should be the end of story to uphold the Truth that Aboriginal Land always was and always will be.

What will be the meaning of The Voice if settler governments and their Federal Court ignore the First Nations people of Eyre Peninsula regarding their opposition to the settler society proposed nuclear dump?  

Labor splashes more money around Kimba to buy support for the nuclear dump.

 Written by: Nick G. on 22 January 2023

Resources Minister Madeleine King visited the Eyre Peninsula town of Kimba earlier this month to show her support for the construction of a low- and intermediate-level nuclear waste dump near the town.

The intermediate-level waste will be stored above ground in sealed containers for up to 50 years while a search is made for a suitable underground repository.  The low-level waste is mainly materials associated with nuclear medicine: gloves, swabs, syringes, mops, dressings. It can have a half-life of less than three months and is usually stored by the facility creating the waste until it is no longer radio-active, and then disposed of as general rubbish on-site. There is no need for it to be taken to Kimba – it is simply an excuse for having a nuclear dump built somewhere in Australia.

The Kimba community is deeply divided over the proposed dump.

Local farmers fear the grain-growing area will lose its “clean green” image in international markets.

Native title land-holders, the Barngarla are opposed to having the mine on their lands.

The Barngarla, who live in various parts of the Eyre Peninsula, were excluded from a community vote by a racist decision justified on the grounds that it was “too hard” to determine who were the members of the Barngarla. 

They have since initiated Federal Court proceedings to prevent the dump.

Despite the fact that those proceedings are ongoing, the Albanese government authorised the beginning of “preliminary works” at the dump site at Napandee, 24 km west of Kimba.

Both Liberal and labor federal government have poured money into Kimba as bribes to secure community support for the dump. The third round of community grants announced on November 2, 2022 injected a further $2 million into projects such as upgrades to the Kimba District Hospital facilities, a new Kimba Youth and Community Hub, a ‘shop local’ marketing initiative to support local businesses, and refurbishment of the Kimba Op Shop. This builds on $4 million of grants and 50 projects already funded in Kimba under the program.

Referring to the Kimba Hospital funding, King said that “The upgrades to the Kimba Medical Centre will drive health and social improvements in a community that sorely needs it.” No-one would begrudge any rural community such an upgrade, but it should be funded on the basis of need by the Minister for Health, not as pro-dump pork-barreling through the “National Radioactive Waste Management Facility Community Benefit Program”.

Many regional and remote communities could make out a very strong case for “upgrading” of existing – or introduction of new – medical facilities.

Existing South Australian legislation makes the construction of such a facility, and the transportation of wastes to it, illegal. 

The Keating government began searching for a site to store the nation’s nuclear waste as early as 1992.

In 2012 the Gillard government passed a controversial bill to create the nation’s first nuclear waste dump – saying it hadn’t yet decided on a location, although many believed it was destined for remote Aboriginal land in the Northern Territory.

Cabinet papers from 2002 released in January 2023 show that the Howard government was already looking at Kimba and at using federal law to override the SA legislation. They also discussed compulsorily acquiring the site as a way of extinguishing native title over it. That was in fact what occurred, allowing former Resources Minister Keith Pitt to say that the Barngarla were not entitled to a say over the dump because they were not the native title holders to the site.

We hope that the Barngarla succeed in their Federal Court action, but they need the visible and vocal support of Australians around the nation. 

Further reading:
Our comment on the decision to exclude the Barngarla from the community vote 
The Barngarla appeal for support   
General background on Kimba and the dump proposal   
On the official announcement of Kimba as the site for a nuclear dump     
Important background on Labor’s Resources Minister Madeleine King and her ties to the mining industry