By Jim Green
Behind the federal government's plan to build a new nuclear research reactor lie a set of national interest/security arguments. Essentially, the government wants to maintain a pool of nuclear expertise in order to monitor nuclear programs in Asia (and beyond) and to pursue its objectives in international forums.
It is likely that at least some of the key proponents of a new reactor want it in order to maintain a pool of nuclear expertise, thus leaving open the option of a nuclear weapons program in the future.
Like every nuclear reactor, that planned for Lucas Heights will produce plutonium, which could then be separated from the irradiated fuel and used to build bombs. The yield would not be high, but the reactor might produce enough plutonium for one or two weapons each year. The reactor could also be used for weapons-related research.
Of greater likelihood is the possibility that a new reactor may be a forerunner to the introduction of nuclear power in Australia.
The nuclear industry has been let off the leash by the Coalition government, and proponents of nuclear power are becoming more numerous and more vocal. There is a very real chance that, not too far into the new millennium, we will be fighting serious proposals for a nuclear power plant.
The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), which operates the Lucas Heights nuclear site, will be telling us that nuclear power can reduce greenhouse emissions from fossil fuels. ANSTO will tell us many other weird and wonderful things; it already claims that its nuclear research reactor cures cancer.
The Lucas Heights reactor provides a ticket into the international nuclear club, and thus provides opportunities for Australian scientists and diplomats to shore up Australian uranium sales. This is openly acknowledged.
Monitoring
It's claimed that a new reactor in Australia will facilitate the monitoring of overseas nuclear programs.
It is true that the reactor gives Australia a ticket into the nuclear programs of countries. But there are practical limitations in relation to the use of scientists as part-time spies. Whatever information might be derived from these channels, it will always be marginal in comparison with information gleaned from normal intelligence and communication channels.
Tied in with monitoring is some chest-thumping rhetoric about maintaining an "independent" source of expertise and advice to the government. This independent source is ANSTO, and its expertise is said to depend upon the operation of a research reactor.
But Australia will be dependent on outside sources for the vast majority of information on nuclear matters, with or without a domestic reactor.
Even more laughable is the notion that ANSTO is an "objective" source of advice. ANSTO routinely lies to the Australian public. While it is difficult to assess the
advice provided to government, because very little of that information is open to public scrutiny, we do have examples of ANSTO supplying false information to the government on matters of significance.
For example, several years ago ANSTO claimed that Japan would not stockpile plutonium, some of which is derived from Australian uranium, but that is precisely what happened.
On the strength of its nuclear industry and its stockpile of plutonium, Japan considers itself, and is treated by others as, a de facto nuclear weapons state. Both North and South Korea use Japanese plutonium program as a justification and incitement for their own nuclear programs and their flirtations with nuclear weapons.
Influence
As well as monitoring overseas nuclear programs, the government hopes to influence them. "If you want to have influence, you usually have to get your hands dirty", a hairy-chested Foreign Affairs bureaucrat (recruited from ANSTO) said in 1993. That means operating a nuclear research reactor in Australia.
The key is Australia's seat on the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). This is said to be dependent on the operation of a research reactor, although there is no certainty that it will be lost without a reactor, nor that it will be maintained with a new reactor. The make-up of the board is determined by the existing board.
Does the IAEA position really give Australia leverage? One of the few examples given is Australia's role in "forcing" North Korea to end its covert weapons program and to conclude a nuclear safeguards agreement. We are told that without the seat on the IAEA (and without a reactor to shore up that position), Australia would have had no involvement in the saga.
However, the situation would not have unfolded any differently without Australian involvement.
Another example provided by Foreign Affairs bureaucrats followed the Chernobyl disaster, after which there was an emergency meeting of the IAEA's Board of Governors. Australia took to that meeting a resolution to set up a process of negotiating some new nuclear safety conventions. Big deal.
For many years Australia was also encouraging Indonesia to build nuclear power reactors in earthquake-prone Java; so much for nuclear safety.
Whenever there is a disaster or a public outrage (for example, over weapons testing), there is a race to see who can be first to put up a vacuous resolution at an IAEA meeting. The rest of the time, Australia, like so many other countries, promotes the spread of the nuclear industry in all sorts of dangerous and irresponsible ways.
While the underfunded safeguards section of the IAEA struggles vainly to determine whether or not signatory countries are pursuing covert weapons programs, the IAEA also continues with its main function, which is to promote nuclear technology. The technologies it promotes, while ostensibly for civil purposes, can easily be used for weapons production: 90% of nuclear technologies are "dual use", in the industry euphemism.
As nuclear campaigner Jean McSorley writes, "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."
Australian governments have also pushed hard to secure the indefinite extension of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and to conclude the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Both entrench the division between the nuclear "haves" — the five declared weapons states — and the "have-nots".
During negotiations on both issues, Australia should have been pushing for complete, verified disarmament by all nuclear weapons states within a specified time. Instead, Australian governments have been far more concerned to shore up the US alliance.
Australia has little influence on the international scene, with or without a nuclear reactor. What influence Australia does have is used primarily to pursue imperialist objectives and the commercial objectives of the uranium industry.
If the government really wanted to pursue the national interest, rather than the interests of the nuclear industry and of US and Australian imperialism, then it would get serious about nuclear disarmament.
One positive step would be to close the Lucas Heights reactor without replacement. That in itself would have a powerful symbolic effect — an advanced industrial country deciding that life is indeed possible without a nuclear reactor.
[For a more detailed paper on these issues, phone the Senate Economics References Committee on (02) 6277 3740 and ask for: Jean McSorley and Jim Green, June 1998, "National Interests or Nuclear Interests", Supplementary Submission.]