 I'm a union organiser at the University of Wollongong and I can tell you that staff and students are horrified by the prospect of Hitler's sons sitting in our port. For 34 years I was an Australian diplomat, I was an ambassador in Vietnam in South Korea, in Mexico and Cuba. I've never been in a situation that we're now in. This is an existential problem. The United States is pressuring Australia to buy nuclear-propelled submarines to be based here at Port Kimbleau. The only purpose for these submarines, ladies and gentlemen, is for war against China. If that happens, it will be an apocalypse and Australia will suffer. The United States can always withdraw across the Pacific. We can't. This is our neighbourhood. As Paul Keating said, we should be building our security within the region, not against the region. Absolutely! And that's what's going to happen. He said when I was in Hamas, I was building it with the Vietnamese and with all the countries I served in, Japan and Korea and the Philippines as well as Vietnam. We talk to people, they're all very sensible. This is a really important thing, and as Alison said earlier, this kind of grassroots support is gaining more and more people around Australia. And here in Wollongong, you're doing exactly the same as people in all the states of Australia. I think the government is running scared. I think even Penny Wong is beginning to think maybe we should sign the Treaty to abolish nuclear weapons. That would be great. Our port, as people here know, and I'm sure if you're a local, you know this well, is key to our city. It's key to our history, and it's also key to our future as well. And part of that future is to shift renewable energy and our city taking a leading role in taking action. In the submarine base, at the entrance to our port, an impossibility to transform our city and take a lead on... Alison Brinowski, we're in Wollongong in Port Kembla talking about nuclear submarines. I just missed you. Can you tell me what you said to the crowd, please? What I said to the crowd was we're here partly about nuclear submarines, but we're here about war in general and the prospect of Australia as is predicted by numerous American generals being at war against China within two or three years. The most horrendous prospect for us. Yeah, well that was what was predicted by one of the generals from the United States. The US would be... Again and again. ...within three years, isn't it? Again and again. And our problem with that is that this is in our region, this is where we live, this is where we have to continue to live, while the Americans can retreat across the Pacific if they want. We don't want to be involved in this, and the AUKUS agreement is one way which government is positioning Australia to be involved. Right. So the workers at Port Kembla, this being one of the potential sites, they're kind of worried about using the technology. Is it dangerous for the workers? Nuclear technology is dangerous for everybody, wherever it is. And that's why we, one of the reasons why we don't have nuclear power plants because they'd have to be around the coast, and there is no area where the local government would say they want a nuclear power plant in their region. We can't dispose of the waste we have already. We couldn't dispose of the waste from nuclear submarines. We have no idea how we're going to do that, and the government doesn't either. Yes, well it's high grade nuclear waste. Whether it's low or high grade. Many thousands of years. Exactly. It doesn't matter which it is. It's still toxic, and we don't need it. Yes. And we still have no idea about where to put it? No, no. Or how to store it? That seems terrible. So how certain is it that it will be Port Kembla where these subs are supposed to be dogged? Well, nothing is certain. From one of our leading experts on this matter, Hugh White, he says he doesn't believe we'll ever get them. And that would be a great solution to the problem. But because they will be out of date by the time we get them, let alone unaffordable. Let alone we don't have the skills to prove them or to maintain them, and the costs will absolutely be astronomical. And when Australian people realize that they don't have decent schools, roads or hospitals because we're paying for this expensive way to kill people, I think there will be a political upsurge that the present government cannot resist. What do you think the chances are of China invading Australia? Absolutely zero. The Chinese have said themselves many times they have no such intent, no such interest, and there is nothing in it for China to do that. What there is though for the Americans is a big agenda of pushing back against China because they are determined that no other country will challenge America's global hegemony. And that is the whole reason for this antagonism towards China. To some extent, the Chinese are responding as any nation would with defiance. You can understand that, but their defiance is not for the moment directed against Australia. Our problem is that by positioning so much American weaponry, bases and so on in the north of our country, we make Australia potentially a surrogate target for the Chinese. If they were pressed by the United States to say, all right, we'll pick off your bases in Australia just to show you what we can do and that would be absolutely toxic for us. Well yes, so that would probably be pine gap, the poor people of Alice Springs first. And Darwin. And Darwin as well. So do you think that we're actually in danger of being a member of Orcus, tiny Orcus against the rest of the world? Well, we volunteered to sign up for it. It's our fault. It's not been imposed upon us. Scott Morrison wanted it. And unfortunately, his successor, Mr. Arbenese, signed up for it overnight, we are told. I'm sure he knew what it was about and he signed up for it rather than lose the election. Which he knew it would be turned against him because he would look as if he was some sort of dangerous pacifist. You can't have that. Dangerous pacifist? That's funny. Tell me, do you think that Australia would do better joining BRICS rather than Orcus? That's an economic question. BRICS is one of several new, shall we say, global south organisations that are forming around the world, which are very interesting because the countries that are forming them in some cases are really not aligned. And what they're saying is, in our experience, alignment with major powers is a dangerous track to be on. We're actually on the wrong track. What we should be doing is picking up where we left off years ago and looking at the question of armed neutrality or non-alignment for Australia, getting alongside countries whose interests resemble ours, and staying away from the fight between great powers altogether. Look, I've heard that quote just recently from Kissinger that sounds remarkably like this, where to be the US's enemy is dangerous, but to be their friend is special. Is that what Malcolm Fraser was talking about in Dangerous Allies? What Fraser said in his book in 2014 published just before he died was that the greatest threat to Australia's security is posed not by any other country but by the United States, our major ally. And it is that that endangers us more than any other thing. And he has proved to be quite right. It is playing out before our eyes right now. When we talk about that opportunity on climate change and the opposition and the world among us in this building talk of subspace, they need to know, based on New South Wales Treasury figures, there are 240 energy technologies that will transform our city, transform our port and help to transform and save our planet. Where the real jobs are. Hi, Atchison. I'm with the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. I'm usually based in New York, but I'm visiting Australia right now and speaking at the rally against the nuclear submarine base that's just being held down the street. The conference that we're here protesting today is not a defence conference. It's a potential base for nuclear submarines. It's not about defence either. This is about militarism. We can't let the sanitized terms confuse us. Nuclear submarines are not strategic assets or defence assets. They're weapons of war. The proposal for $368 billion to be spent on nuclear-powered submarines is a scam of the system of militarism. It's a manufactured crisis, manufactured by those who profit from the building of weapons and their use in war. War is the industry, not defence. I live in the US where the war industry dominates the economy and the politics of the country. The weapons companies and labs have a great hold over US foreign policy and over the US budget. The US military budget right now is $858 billion a year. This is more than the next 10 countries in the world combined and over half of this goes to private companies. Meanwhile, people are suffering. Millions have been killed, injured, displaced and traumatized by US wars abroad, and millions within the United States live in poverty. Children don't have enough to eat, houselessness is rising, and the poor are being criminalized. They're being punished for being poor while the war machine eats its fill. The US continues also to extract fossil fuels to feed the war machine, which is one of the biggest polluters in the entire world. Is this the model that Australia wants to follow? Building a military base is definitely following in the US boot print. The US has about 750 military bases in 80 countries and colonies around the world. This is three times more than it has embassies and consulates. And it's used these bases to launch more than 25 wars or military operations since 2001. Military bases are sites of violence in themselves too. They correlate with sexual violence, abuse and trafficking. They cause environmental damage and they steal resources from local communities. Military bases undermine human rights, increase geopolitical tensions, and lead to conflict. As military bases expert David Vine has said, these bases lock us inside a permanently militarized society that has made all of us, everyone on this planet, less safe. Violence begets more violence. Militarism is not the answer to the problems we see in the world, problems that are generated by an already relentless pursuit of military dominance by a handful of countries. We must have the courage to build a path to peace instead of this radioactive path to war. The nuclear submarines will not be built. The military base will not be built. We have to organize to stop it now. We need to make sure to be centre of the opposition to the Orcas plan. Weapons expo in the Southern Hemisphere a conference centre full of arms dealers from a bunch of peaceniks. Every step of the way. And thanks so much for being here everyone. James Rummeld from ICANN. You're here in Wollongong talking about no nukes. I do remember you from a few years back. You won an award it seems to me as part of ICANN. Yes I can the Global Network International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons won the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize for our role in raising awareness of the humanitarian impacts of nuclear weapons and our role in achieving the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Right. Well so what are you doing here today? What particular role are you playing? Sure. Well I'm a Wollongong local. So I'm here as a local and also in my capacity as part of ICANN Australia. I'm opposed to the nuclear submarine base and this weapons conference for a number of different reasons including the increased safety risks, the threat to the global non-proliferation regime, the problem of the radioactive waste and many others. So are you certain that there's going to be nuclear subs here or is it just a possibility at the moment? Not at all certain and especially not with the amount of opposition that we're seeing from a range of different stakeholders already from unions, from the commerce, council, from some councillors, different civil society groups around the Illawarra. So I think there's a long way to go before there is enough support in the Illawarra for a nuclear submarine base to be built here and besides the government has said that it's certainly not announced, it's not their final decision and they've now said as of today that they won't make a final announcement on that until after the next federal election. So my argument to that is that then instead of keeping us in limbo they should drop this shortlist of Port Kemblah, Newcastle and Brisbane and just say that if they do need to look at sites then they would start again instead of carrying on with former Prime Minister Scott Morrison's shortlist. It's very close to the majority of Australia's population isn't it? Can't you get the people of Sydney on board as well because it's sort of in their backyard too. It is, yeah and there are a number of people here today from Sydney so I think there's a lot of support there. There are many other plans for the Port Kemblah port and one of those is in the future as an overflow from the Port Botany, the Sydney container ship port so there's that as well as big plans for renewable energy and an offshore wind farm all of which really need the port. So it's inconsistent to have both naval base and nuclear submarine base that would take up a lot of space as well as have these other industries that are much more positive and much more what this town is about and proposals that have been worked on for many years. And safe. And much safer too. So what can people do to get on board with this? Yeah I would suggest firstly follow there's a local group called Wuan, Wulungong against war and nukes. We have a Facebook page and that's where we share news and announcements. There will be an event at the Port Kemblah Community Centre on Saturday, April the 29th at 2pm and that's really for everyone to come and share their views especially for people in Port Kemblah and the region, the Illawarra region to share what questions they have for the decision makers and then there will be a really important March in Port Kemblah on May the 6th, the May Day March led by the unions and everyone's invited to be part of that.