The federal government has backed away from its earlier lies about needing a new reactor in Australia to produce medical radioisotopes. The parliamentary Public Works Committee produced a bipartisan report in 1999 which said that the debate over radioisotope supply options "has not been resolved satisfactorily". Likewise, the federal Environment Department said in its 1999 review of the environmental impact statement on the new reactor that alternative technologies could partly compensate for the lack of a reactor - as strong a statement as could be expected given the political sensitivities.

So why a new reactor? The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) and the Australian Safeguards and Non-proliferation Office (ASNO) said in 1998 that the Lucas Heights reactor "first and foremost" serves "national interest requirements". (DFAT/ASNO, 1998, Submission to Senate Economics References Committee, Inquiry into Lucas Heights Nuclear Reactor.)

Likewise, the Department of the Environment and Heritage said that national interest / foreign policy issues form the "cornerstone" of the alleged need for a new reactor (report on ANSTO's EIS).

One of these foreign policy objectives is to consolidate the military-nuclear alliance with the US. This is dealt with in euphemisms by government agencies; for example DFAT/ASO claim a new reactor is required to train scientists to ensure "appropriate arrangements for nuclear ship visits as part of our alliance obligations". There's a simple answer to this, of course: ban the entry into Australian ports of nuclear armed and/or powered warships, whether from the US or elsewhere.

The visits of US nuclear warships form only a small part of the picture, however. In the broader US-Australian military alliance, Australia plays a watch-dog role in the Asia-Pacific and shares its intelligence with the US. Precisely the same arrangement applies in the nuclear field. In return for sharing nuclear intelligence, and for using Australian influence to block any serious momentum towards global nuclear disarmament, Australia is 'protected' by the US nuclear weapons umbrella.

Australia's place under the US nuclear weapons umbrella raises a host of contradictions. It means that Australia's professed commitment to nuclear non-proliferation is a sham: Labor and Liberal governments actively support the nuclear weapons program of the US (and to a lesser extent the other imperialist nuclear allies, the UK and France). Australia provides espionage and communications bases at Pine Gap and North-West Cape in support of US nuclear militarism; US (and more recently French) nuclear warships visit Australian ports; Australian governments have done nothing to prevent the US upgrading its nuclear arsenal (a clear breach of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty); the Coalition government did nothing when the US government announced its decision not to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty; Labor and Liberal government's have actively supported the US's Star Wars missile 'defence' program; and so on.

Australia's hypocrisy is frequently commented on abroad, for example following the nuclear weapons tests in India and Pakistan in 1998, even though the mainstream Australian media parrots the lie that Australia 'punches above it weight' in nuclear disarmament.

Uranium / plutonium

Another aspect of the 'national interest' agenda behind the reactor is the uranium industry. Australian uranium is partly converted to plutonium in power reactors. Increasingly, this plutonium is separated for reuse in reactors, but since plutonium is weapons-useable it must be carefully monitored. To do this, the government claims, it depends on expertise from the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), and then ANSTO claims it requires a new reactor at Lucas Heights to maintain a base of expertise! It's a vicious circle.

Moreover, Australia's approach to plutonium is selective: for example, Japan is permitted to stockpile plutonium derived from Australian uranium, but South Korea and North Korea are not. Thus, Australia fans the flames of regional tension in North-East Asia. Both North and South Korea use the Japanese plutonium program as a justification and incitement for their own nuclear programs and their flirtations with nuclear weapons.

In a nutshell, to use the Coalition's government's terms, building a new nuclear reactor and thereby training the 'next generation' of nuclear experts will support Australia's efforts in nuclear non-proliferation! It's as absurd and contradictory as it sounds - all the more so given the use of research reactors and associated technologies in support of covert weapons programs in 15-20 countries. In many countries it is argued that research reactors pose little or no risk in relation to weapons proliferation, but the Coalition government is treading new ground in asserting that a reactor will benefit non-proliferation initiatives. It is an argument which is difficult to reconcile with the international experience since World War II, which shows that research reactors are a recurring weapons proliferation problem (see www.geocities.com/jimgreen3/rrweapons.html).

A foreign affairs bureaucrat put the case for a new reactor in these words in his 1993 evidence to the Research Reactor Review: "If you want to have influence, you usually have to get your hands dirty". Getting your hands dirty means forcing a new reactor on southern Sydney residents, and forcing Aborigines and others in northern South Australia to accept nuclear waste from Lucas Heights.

Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)

The government claims that operating a nuclear research reactor is necessary to consolidate Australia’s position on the Board of Governors of the IAEA. That claim is open for debate, and in any case the IAEA position raises numerous problems, not least the active role played by the IAEA in the promotion of dual-use (civil/military) nuclear technologies.

Moreover, to maintain Australia’s position on the IAEA Board of Governors, Australia is expected to promote dual-use technologies (such as research reactors) and the products of dual-use technologies (such as reactor produced radioisotopes). As nuclear campaigner Jean McSorley wrote in Chain Reaction in 1996, "it would not be a bad thing if Australia were in there pushing for stricter safeguards, a separation of promotion and watch-dog activities and stringent safety laws. If Australia did that it would, more than likely, lose its Board of Governors seat. So, Australia has to be part of the promotional stakes to keep within the upper echelons of the IAEA."

Efforts to improve the NPT/IAEA safeguards system since the debacle of Iraq, which went on in spite of routine IAEA inspections,  have focussed largely on diplomatic/political issues (e.g. expanded inspection rights), on technologies (such as environmental sampling and video surveillance) which do not require reactor experience or expertise, and on the provision of adequate funding for safeguards programs. Australia’s contribution in these fields is not dependent on the operation of a reactor. In some respects the operation of a research reactor weakens Australia’s hand. For example, a new reactor will involve the expenditure of funds which would more profitably (in terms of non-proliferation goals) be spent on technical projects (such as video surveillance and environmental sampling) and diplomatic/political initiatives. Moreover, the Australian government would be better placed to put a more sober and less compromised view on the benefits and costs (including the proliferation risks) of research reactors if not for the domestic political imperative to stress the benefits and trivialise the costs and the risks.

The debate over Australia's role on the IAEA Board of Governors gets us back to the US alliance: The key issues in relation to the link between a reactor, ANSTO and the US alliance were summarised by Jean McSorley in 1999: "Is it that Australia is determined to keep its regional seat on the IAEA because it is part of the 'deal' that Australia plays a leading role in the (Asia Pacific) region's nuclear industry and, in lieu of having nuclear weapons, continues to be covered by the US nuclear umbrella? Taking part in 'overseeing' the activities of other nuclear programmes must meet an objective of the wider security alliance by playing an intelligence-gathering role - a role which the US probably finds it very useful for Australia to play. The pay-back for this is through its defence agreements with the US, that Australia gets to be a nuclear weapons state by proxy." (Jean McSorley, 1999, "The New Reactor: National Interest and Nuclear Intrigues", Submission to Senate Economics References Committee, Inquiry into Lucas Heights Nuclear Reactor.)

Further / final comments

Another opportunity cost associated with the operation of a reactor, and in particular the plan to spend several hundred million dollars on a new reactor, is the lost opportunity to take a leading role (in the region if not the world) in the development of non-reactor technologies (such as particle accelerators) for medical, scientific and industrial applications. The development and international promotion of non-reactor technologies would itself represent a useful, if modest, non-proliferation initiative.

The 2001 report of the Senate Select Committee into the contract for a new reactor at Lucas Heights said that "... the justification for the new research reactor solely on national interest grounds is not strong where national interest is defined on purely 'security' and non-proliferation grounds." The committee said the government's argument that a new reactor is required to facilitate nuclear disarmament and the implementation of nuclear safeguards is "tenuous". The committee went on to say, "The argument for the new research reactor on national interest grounds is more convincing when all areas of nuclear technology are considered, including its role in the region as an educational, research and training centre. The Committee believes, however, that this reason alone is not sufficient to justify the new research reactor. If the reactor is to go ahead, then the main considerations in establishing the need for a reactor must be its place as a research tool providing a neutron source for Australian researchers and products for industry, the health care system and the potential impacts on the environment."

There has been no serious public discussion of the "national interest" issues by the government or ANSTO - as at late 1999, the lengthiest statement from these sources on the national interest / foreign policy aspects of the reactor plan was a 7-page, unreferenced document from DFAT/ASNO. The only paper to address the 'national interest' issues in depth is that of Jean McSorley, which you can find here: <http://www.geocities.com/jimgreen3/mcsorley.html>.

ABC Radio National "Background Briefing" program (March 29, 1998) had some interesting quotes from an unnamed federal DFAT bureaucrat, from Jean McSorley, and from academic Andrew Mack: <http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/bbing/bb980329.htm>.