Senate committee backs AUKUS over concerns treaty ‘unfairly weighted’

A bipartisan committee has brushed aside concerns about unfairness to back the AUKUS treaty, while urging governments to make nuclear waste storage a “priority”.

The Senate’s joint committee on treaties decided the agreement, and the nuclear-powered submarines it will eventually deliver, would give Australia a “clear advantage” in the “most complex and challenging strategic environment since the Second World War”.

The inquiry into the broad military alliance with the US and UK heard concerns from Australian National University law Professor Donald Rothwell and others about the wording of the agreement being too heavily in favour of London and Washington.

He said AUKUS offered “an enormous amount of flexibility” for the UK to US to withdraw, without giving Australia the same leeway, describing the agreement as “somewhat exceptional”.

The international law expert argued the deal handed Australia all the risks while indemnifying its allies and also raised concerns about a lack of certain mechanisms to resolve future disputes. 

The committee put concerns over the wording down to the treaties decades-long lifespan rather than it being “unfairly weighted” against Australia. It anticipated further agreements, called instruments, to emerge in the future and called for parliament to closely scrutinise them.

Labor committee chair Lisa Chesters said the committee had determined the agreement was in the national interest.

“Australia’s acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines provides our nation with not only a strategic advantage, but also an opportunity to grow Australian jobs, education and infrastructure,” she said, in a statement.

“‘The successful implementation of AUKUS will require upskilling the Australian workforce. This is an opportunity for our education sector and will create jobs that last for the life of the agreement and beyond. 

“The 20,000 jobs added by the AUKUS program will diversify Australia’s workforce and will provide high-paying jobs for trades and tertiary educated workers alike.”

She called for an education campaign to plug the deal’s benefits and dispel “myths”.

The deal, signed three years ago with the aim of maintaining a “free and open Indo-Pacific” in the face of China’s increasingly muscular stance, provides for a new fleet of eight nuclear-propelled submarines.

The initial stage is set to cost up to $368 billion by 2055 to build, with the first vessels operating out of Adelaide by the 2040s.

US and British nuclear submarines will deploy out of Western Australia from 2027 until the Royal Australian Navy until the nuclear-powered alternatives, whose advantages include increased range and being able to stay underwater for longer, are ready.

The subs are nuclear-powered and won’t carry nuclear weapons but running them out of a non-nuclear country will still require outside help for maintenance, raising concerns from some over sovereignty.

Maintenance will also produce limited amounts of nuclear waste, something that was a concern at some of the hearings.

“The issue of nuclear waste disposal needs to be addressed in a timely and transparent manner,” the committee wrote.

“While the committee acknowledges that the disposal of the nuclear fuel used to power the submarines will not be required until the 2050s or later, the decision of where to store the small amounts of low-level waste created during routine maintenance of the nuclear-powered submarines needs to be a priority.”

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