‘Trading Fire’
3 November 2025
Four Corners
REPORTER: What do you hope to accomplish today with the Prime Minister?
DONALD TRUMP, US PRESIDENT: It’s great to have the Prime Minister of Australia. A lot of friends over there and this is one of them right here. In about a year from now we will have so much critical minerals and rare earth that you won’t know what to do with them.
ANGUS GRIGG, REPORTER: These once obscure minerals are now highly coveted.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Increasing the security for the region and the world, to take our relationship to that next level. Thank you very much, Mr President.
DONALD TRUMP: Well, thank you very much, Anthony.
ANGUS GRIGG: With deep reserves, Australia has become a global player.
IAN SATCHWELL, ASEAN MINERALS DEVELOPMENT ADVISER: Australia probably has the widest range of critical minerals on the planet.
DONALD TRUMP: We’re really working on anything having to do with military. Ships, vehicles, guns, ammunition, everything.
ANGUS GRIGG: The US needs these minerals to power its economy and its military – but there’s just one problem.
IAN SATCHWELL: China controls the market. While the rest of the world slept, China built end-to-end supply chains.
SCOTT BESSENT, US TREASURY SECRETARY: Make no mistake: this is China versus the world.
ANGUS GRIGG: You might think we’re all in with America but we’ve discovered Australia is supplying China with a mineral critical for its most advanced weaponry. This basin north of Perth contains key minerals for hypersonic missiles and nuclear technology.
PROFESSOR DAVID KILCULLEN, UNSW CANBERRA: It’s really important for us to have an understanding of where our minerals go.
ANGUS GRIGG: At the same time, we’re spending billions arming ourselves against China.
JENNIFER PARKER, NATIONAL SECURITY COLLEGE, ANU: The chances of conflict in this region are increasingly likely. And that means Australia is potentially targeted, in fact, likely targeted.
CHINESE COMMENTATOR: The Dongfeng 5-C can strike any target around the world.
PROFESSOR DAVID KILCULLEN: The buildup of Chinese nuclear weapons over the last five years is at a pace and scale that we’ve never seen.
ANGUS GRIGG: And if hostilities go nuclear, Australian minerals will have once again played a part.
JENNIFER PARKER: We need to look at how does our economic and our trade policy support our security strategy. And in that we need to ask a lot of hard questions.
ANGUS GRIGG: Would China target those bases?
PROFESSOR YANG YIWEI, RENMIN UNIVERSITY: If there’s a war. Definitely.
TITLE: TRADING FIRE
ANGUS GRIGG: In WA’s remote northwest, the Indian Ocean collides with this ancient landscape. Once a cold war outpost, the North West Cape is now, more than ever, prized for its strategic value. We’ve come to RAAF base Learmonth, 1,200 kilometres north of Perth.
WING COMMANDER GREG PORCHE, RAAF: This was a bare base. Normally bare bases don’t have people. They’ll have a caretaker and that’s about it.
ANGUS GRIGG: It’s quiet right now, but that’s changing. The Australian Government is spending $880 million to make this base battle ready.
WING COMMANDER GREG PORCHE: What’s going to happen is they’re going to upgrade the taxiway. So it’s used as an alternate main runway.
ANGUS GRIGG: Showing us around is Wing Commander Greg Porche.
ANGUS GRIGG: So, in effect, you’ll have two runways here.
WING COMMANDER GREG PORCHE: In effect. Yes. We can actually launch aircraft, refuel them. That extends the range, and therefore we can operate further north than what we would normally do. And that’s what they mean by holding an adversary at length.
ANGUS GRIGG: What is it that’s so strategic about this location?
WING COMMANDER GREG PORCHE: Basically, it’s right in the northwest. So, if you look at the map and you tilt it sideways or on an angle, what you’ll end up doing is looking out across Indonesia, up into the South China Sea, China. That area. That’s the location of it.
ANGUS GRIGG: Is there a sense of urgency around upgrading this base?
WING COMMANDER GREG PORCHE: I believe so, yes. These bases haven’t had a lot of work done in the last 35 years. It’s a matter of bringing them up to speed, making it contemporary in order to operate the platforms we need.
ANGUS GRIGG: And is it a case that once again, just like in World War II, this is now the front line?
WING COMMANDER GREG PORCHE: Yeah, it is very much the front line. We’ve operated in Afghanistan, we’ve operated in Iraq, multiple places around the world. This is about the homeland.
ANGUS GRIGG: As we discover, defending the homeland requires plenty of fuel.
WING COMMANDER GREG PORCHE: You’ll see the blast walls down there as well. And then you can see the fuel farm in the distance. Fuel is the bloodline of the air base. If we don’t have fuel on the base, we don’t operate.
ANGUS GRIGG: This base is just one part of the deepening alliance with the United States. US Defence documents show the Americans wants their own massive fuel farm here. Its capacity would be 500,000 barrels of jet fuel. That’s 40 times bigger than the current stockpile.
AIR MARSHAL ROB CHIPMAN, VICE CHIEF OF THE DEFENCE FORCE: We see advantage in the US being anchored in the Indo-Pacific region as a balancing weight against other forces in the region. Historically we’ve enjoyed a 10-year warning time to conflict. We now assess that that warning time has evaporated and that we need to be ready sooner than that.
ANGUS GRIGG: Learmonth is one of five bases being upgraded across northern Australia. This redevelopment of bases, ports and barracks – costing up to $18 billion – is designed to counter the growing threat from China.
AIR MARSHAL ROB CHIPMAN: So Angus, this is our network of northern bases. They stretch in Learmonth across in Western Australia to Curtin up near Derby. We’ve obviously got Darwin and Tindal which is one of our main operating bases that accommodate the F-35 and also our MQ-4 tritons. If they’re under attack, then we need to be able to manoeuvre our forces across this network of northern bases so that we can survive.
ANGUS GRIGG: The Vice Chief of Defence, Air Marshal Rob Chipman, wants Australians to know the risk of a major conflict is real and growing.
AIR MARSHAL ROB CHIPMAN: You can see how close China really is.
ANGUS GRIGG: And I guess you’re directly up into the South China Sea, which is the sort of area of potential conflict, right?
AIR MARSHAL ROB CHIPMAN: It’s certainly an area that we think very deeply about. What Australia offers is strategic geography. A place that the US can base its forces and project firepower into the region.
ANGUS GRIGG: If the US ever goes to war with China, Australia will have little choice but to support our longtime ally. Two months ago, the world got a taste of how that war might be fought.
XI JINPING, CHINESE PRESIDENT: Hello, comrades!
CHINESE SOLDIERS: Hello, President!
VICTOR GAU, CHINESE COMMENTATOR: If you want to defend peace, you need to be able to have one single, seamless, killing machine.
JENNIFER PARKER: We’re seeing a huge military buildup in China and the use of those military capabilities to bully areas in the region. We are entering a period where conflict is increasingly likely. Potentially conflict over Taiwan but there are other flashpoints in our region.
ANGUS GRIGG: Jennifer Parker is a former operations director for coalition forces in the Middle East. She tells us, this is the first time we’ve seen China’s new arsenal of hypersonic missiles.
JENNIFER PARKER: This is a road mobile hypersonic missile. If one was placed in the South China Sea, it could probably just reach the tip of Australia. But being a road mobile hypersonic it means it’s hard to target, hard to find where it is and hard to take it out.
ANGUS GRIGG: What are we looking at here?
JENNIFER PARKER: So, what we’re looking at here is actually really significant. It is the demonstration of the nuclear triad. So we’ve thought for a while that China had the ability to launch nuclear weapons from land, subsurface and from the air. But actually what we saw in front of us is the first demonstration of all of that together and really the first confirmation from China that they have that ability. Whilst China doesn’t have the amount of nuclear warheads anywhere near that the US has or Russia, the number of different delivery systems is phenomenal.
PROFESSOR DAVID KILCULLEN: All Western countries are a little bit behind the curve, given the massive military buildup, including nuclear buildup, that the Chinese have been engaging in. And that doesn’t mean we need to be aggressive, but it means we need to be realistic about the nature of the threat.
ANGUS GRIGG: Happening at the same time as this global military build-up is a shadow race for raw materials. In this race, China is miles ahead – and it’s not just because Beijing has greater mineral reserves. As we’ve discovered, Australia supplies China with one crucial commodity required to build hypersonic missiles, fighter jets and nuclear-powered submarines.
IAN SATCHWELL: From a strategic perspective, critical minerals are-, are really vital. The demand for them is rising. But for so many, China controls the market. While the rest of the world slept, China built end-to-end supply chains. The rest of the world’s woken up now.
ANGUS GRIGG: This vast expanse of mineral sands north of Perth is rich in zirconium, an element vital to China’s military buildup. Australia has the world’s largest reserves, but China dominates processing.
IAN SATCHWELL: We’re in the middle of one of the world’s largest fields for heavy mineral sands.
ANGUS GRIGG: We’ve come to meet adjunct professor Ian Satchwell, one of Australia’s leading authorities on critical minerals.
ANGUS GRIGG: What’s the significance of this area?
IAN SATCHWELL: Heavy mineral sands generally have, you know, come out of volcanoes, been worn down into sand stirred by the sea and the tides over many, many millions of years and not degraded. So they are very robust minerals. Zirconium has a wide, wide range of uses. Everything from whitening our bathroom tiles and our basins and toilets, uh, through to sheathing nuclear fuel rods.
ANGUS GRIGG: China needs zirconium – and lots of it. With a melting point of more than 1,800 degrees, it’s used in the protective coating for hypersonic missiles that travel at more than five times the speed of sound.
IAN SATCHWELL: It exists in some places in abundance, particularly in Australia, but in other places like China they have very little or none of it.
ANGUS GRIGG: Beijing clearly understands its strategic weakness. A study in May from China’s National University of Defense Technology – a research arm of the PLA – spells out how vital zirconium is. It outlines zirconium’s increasingly important role in new weapons systems including “hypersonic technology”, “aerospace vehicles” and nuclear reactors. The paper warns China faces “severe challenges” securing all the zirconium it needs.
VLADO VIVODA, DEAKIN UNIVERSITY: China did understand the strategic value of these minerals at a time – China was getting very strategic about commodities back in the 1990s. Their companies have been encouraged to go overseas and find resources.
ANGUS GRIGG: China has put this strategy into action. Just two hours north of the Perth CBD is where a Chinese company, with deep links to Beijing’s defence industry, purchased a stake in the ASX-listed Image Resources. Australia’s Foreign Investment Review Board waived through the deal in 2015. If that deal was put forward today, would it be approved?
IAN SATCHWELL: It would certainly have much more rigorous scrutiny from FIRB. Australia has recently tightened up, its FIRB oversight of investment. And a number of Chinese investments have been refused or modified.
ANGUS GRIGG: The largest shareholder in Image Resources is China’s LB Group, which is also the major buyer of its mineral sands via a subsidiary.
VLADO VIVODA: It’s just gone under the radar.
ANGUS GRIGG: Academic Vlado Vivoda studies the shifting geopolitics around critical minerals.
VLADO VIVODA: It would be very difficult to argue that there is no state intervention and some sort of a controlled-, or leverage over these entities, even though they’re on paper fully private.
ANGUS GRIGG: The level of state intervention is revealed in LB Group’s Chinese company filings.
ANGUS GRIGG: Looking through the LB Group annual report, there’s 11 pages detailing all the subsidies and assistance it gets. Now, I spent six years as a correspondent in China and I’ve never seen this before – and it really shows how closely connected this company is to the Chinese government.
ANGUS GRIGG: Its annual report shows LB Group enjoys a tax rate of just 15 per cent in China – a generous discount due to its status as a strategic enterprise. It received grants for its production of nuclear-grade zirconium, and “special funds” for its “strategic innovation”. Last year, it reported $85 million in Chinese government assistance.
VLADO VIVODA: China puts massive amounts of money into research and development in critical minerals, particularly if there is a need for-, for defence and, you know, military applications where it could give China, you know, a level up in terms of-, with strategic competition with the United States.
ANGUS GRIGG: In China, it’s standard practice for civilian industry to be harnessed for military use.
DAVID KILCULLEN: China has the military civil fusion doctrine, which has been around for about 10 years, which puts commercial companies and commercial tech development under the control of the military.
ANGUS GRIGG: David Kilcullen is a military strategist and former adviser to the US secretary of state. Can you separate China’s civilian nuclear program and its military nuclear program?
DAVID KILCULLEN: Everything now, not only in nuclear technology but writ large is dual use, and that’s particularly true of nuclear capability. Big Chinese companies have not only a communist party branch, but in many cases a Chinese people’s militia branch. They are under very strict control by the Chinese Communist Party. And of course, unlike a commercial firm in the United States or Australia, the difference between a Chinese commercial firm and a government-owned enterprise is basically one phone call.
PATRICK MUTZ, CEO, IMAGE RESOURCES: Image Resources is a smaller, more nimble company than perhaps some of our competitors at this time.
ANGUS GRIGG: Image Resources doesn’t hide the potential military applications for its minerals. Its latest annual report states zirconium can be used in nuclear energy, jet engines, rockets and hypersonic vehicles.
PATRICK MUTZ, CEO, IMAGE RESOURCES: It’s the newer, higher-end uses of these materials that are making the demand grow even higher.
ANGUS GRIGG: In a 2017 interview, Image Resource’s CEO Patrick Mutz talked up zirconium’s use in China’s nuclear industry. He said a related company was one of the few in China: “… licensed to produce nuclear grade zirconium … for nuclear reactors.” Mr Mutz declined an on-camera interview. In a statement he did not address the possible military uses for the company’s mineral sands, saying it sold “small quantities” to customers who further processed it for use in everyday products such as paint, pigments and floor tiles. He said the company meets its government requirements and its mineral sands are covered by export permits.
DAVID KILCULLEN: I think it’s really important for us to have an understanding of where our minerals go, and there are conflict minerals agreements about a number of different commodities, and I think that it’s appropriate to be applying those to things that might be used for nuclear or missile production. It would be something that any Australian government would want to be tracking pretty closely.
ANGUS GRIGG: Australian zirconium isn’t just going to China. Our research suggests it could be helping Vladimir Putin’s war machine. The year Russia invaded Ukraine, its imports of zirconium from China surged more than 300 per cent. LB Group, the largest shareholder in Australia’s Image Resources, is a key player in this trade. In one 12-month period, it sold more than $5 million worth of zirconium to Russia.
JENNIFER PARKER: We need to look at how does our economic and our trade policy support our security strategy? And in that we need to ask a lot of hard questions about what we are trading, who we’re trading it with, what does that mean for their capability, and what does that mean for vulnerabilities for us?
ANGUS GRIGG: Trade data shows the biggest buyer of Chinese zirconium in Russia is manufacturing giant, CMP. It’s an arm of Russia’s state-owned nuclear corporation, Rosatom. CMP produces the cladding for nuclear fuel rods and the alloys in hypersonic missiles – the weapons changing how modern wars are fought.
DAVID KILCULLEN: A hypersonic by definition just is faster than Mach-5, right? So faster than five times the speed of sound, but it’s manoeuvring hypersonic missiles that can evade defensive systems that are the real sort of gold standard now. What are sometimes called carrier killer missiles that are able to, you know, penetrate the defences of a fleet, get in and sink a major ship.
JENNIFER PARKER: In terms of missiles and delivery vehicles, the US is only really now fielding hypersonic weapons for their navy and their army right now and their air force soon. So they are at least five years behind.
ANGUS GRIGG: The War in Ukraine is the first time these hypersonic weapons have been used in combat. Last year, Russia used its hypersonic missile dubbed the “Zircon” against civilian targets. Defence Minister Richard Marles understands the military uses of zirconium. He doesn’t think tighter controls on Russia and China are the answer.
RICHARD MARLES, DEFENCE MINISTER: Well, there are challenges in this space. I-, I-, I very much accept that. There are other sources of zirconium from around the world such that Australia withdrawing from the zirconium market would not mean that the military use of zirconium would also stop.
ANGUS GRIGG: We’ve discovered that zirconium is being re-exported from China to Russia and is most likely being used as part of Vladimir Putin’s war effort against Ukraine. Does that concern you?
RICHARD MARLES: Well, I-, I mean, I-, I-, I come back to the point that I’ve made earlier. I don’t for a moment think that an Australian withdrawal from this market would stop any country from developing their military capability.
ANGUS GRIGG: Doesn’t it show, though, that Australia’s sort of economic policy and its security policy in this instance are working at cross purposes?
RICHARD MARLES: No, but it does-, it does show that there’s a complexity here, for-, for sure. We do engage with China in terms of trade and commerce. There are thousands upon thousands of jobs in our economy, which are based upon that. And that has really been very important in terms of Australia’s economic growth for decades. So, you know, that you can’t divorce yourself from-, from that reality. Ultimately at the heart of the question that you’re asking is the fact that, you know, China is our largest trading partner on the-, on the one hand. And-, and it is our biggest source of security anxiety on the other. And that’s just-, that is the way the world is.
ANGUS GRIGG: Beijing’s Chang’An Avenue – the avenue of eternal peace – divides Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City.
CHINESE COMMENTATOR: The second nuclear missiles formation. The Dongfeng 5-C-
ANGUS GRIGG: It’s where China’s Communist Party recently unveiled its growing arsenal of nuclear weapons.
CHINESE COMMENTATOR: Can strike any target around the world with its extensive shooting range.
ANGUS GRIGG: For years, Australia’s supplied uranium to China. After record exports in 2017, trade data shows within a year those shipments suddenly ceased. It was around this time China stopped reporting key details about its stockpile of nuclear material. But it’s not just uranium that China needs. Any country seeking to expand its nuclear arsenal also needs zirconium, which is used in reactors to clad nuclear fuel rods.
JENNIFER PARKER: We’ve seen a doubling of China’s nuclear warheads. So from about 300 or just under five years ago to about 600 now. The estimate is, it’s going to be about a thousand by 2030. Their breadth of capabilities to employ those nuclear weapons is actually much broader than the US.
DAVID KILCULLEN: The buildup of Chinese nuclear weapons over the last five years is at a pace and scale that we’ve never seen. Just having those nuclear weapons creates a significant, effective deterrent for China as it’s building up its conventional forces.
ANGUS GRIGG: China doesn’t like to talk about its nuclear weapons program. What the world does know, is partly thanks to this man.
DECKER EVELETH, CNA ANALYST: We had seen some indications that they were planning for some sort of major expansion. And we had heard rumours and some-, some talk about the scale of that expansion.
ANGUS GRIGG: In 2021, Decker Eveleth began searching for China’s rumoured nuclear sites.
DECKER EVELETH: You’re talking about probably thousands of square kilometres of terrain to look through.
ANGUS GRIGG: After more than a hundred hours scouring satellite imagery, he uncovered a field of nuclear silos – the infrastructure for launching intercontinental ballistic missiles or ICBMs. Other US researchers later found two more silo fields.
DECKER EVELETH: Combined, we’re talking about 320 solid fuel nuclear missile sites, spread across three different, uh, missile fields. And that alone represents about a fivefold increase, uh, in the, uh, number of nuclear ICBMs China was fielding at the time. That’s going to put them, if not at parity, but close to parity with the United States, in terms of land-based ICBMs. China believes that ambiguity is a deterrence mechanism that can work very effectively by basically obfuscating the number-, the exact number of launchers, missiles, platforms that they have.
ANGUS GRIGG: Professor Wang Yiwei is a former diplomat now with the school of international studies at the People’s University in Beijing. He says China’s nuclear weapons buildup is a response to US aggression.Why does China not talk about its nuclear program? Doesn’t that add to the risk of miscalculation or destabilisation?
PROFESSOR WANG YIWEI: China’s nuclear weapons is very limited compared to the United States. Now the United States want to put China in the place of Russia for the nuclear disarmament negotiation. China said, no, we are the second class. You are the superpowers. It’s your business. It’s not China. It’s the old game during the Cold War period.
ANGUS GRIGG: Decker Eveleth’s findings clearly show the world is now dealing with three major nuclear powers.
DECKER EVELETH: Now, we are in a world in which we have three major nuclear states. There are a lot of dangerous unanswered questions about how this is all going to work.
DAVID KILCULLEN: Deterring in a multi-actor environment’s completely different, much more complicated, much more dynamic and non-linear than just a straight up, mutual assured destruction.
REP. JOE WILSON, US HOUSE OF ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE: It’s rapidly expanding its nuclear arsenal. China is also working to further its effort to undermine American influence and alliances around the world, and we cannot let them succeed.
ANGUS GRIGG: Decker Eveleth, who works for CNA, the US Navy’s research body, says America is moving to counter China’s nuclear expansion.
DECKER EVELETH: The United States is investing in a sea-launched to nuclear cruise missile to put aboard some of our nuclear submarines.
ANGUS GRIGG: Could they be deployed on the Virginia-class submarines that we will see rotating through Australia?
DECKER EVELETH: Sorry, I’m hesitating for some information quarantine reasons. I know the answer. Yeah. Okay.
ANGUS GRIGG: I’ll ask you that again. The nuclear cruise missiles, could they be deployed on the Virginia-class submarines that we will see rotating through Australia?
DECKER EVELETH: Yes, absolutely. If US submarines visit Australia, they may or may not be carrying nuclear weapons.
ANGUS GRIGG: Defence Minister Richard Marles says Australia respects the longstanding US position of neither confirming nor denying the presence of nuclear weapons on its ships or aircraft. Australia’s alliance with the US is meant to protect us. But if a regional conflict goes nuclear, then Australia could become a target.
DAVID KILCULLEN: If it escalates to a nuclear exchange there are all kinds of sites in Australia that would be on an adversary’s nuclear target list. Tindal and Darwin would potentially be on that target list. So would Pine Gap. Nuclear-armed submarines in port in Western Australia, for sure, that would be a potential target as well.
ANGUS GRIGG: Would China target those bases in the event of a conflict?
PROFESSOR WANG YIWEI: If there’s a war, definitely. Because you are allies of United States, and then you have their military bases, including their nuclear submarines, pose a direct and serious threat to China. If there’s a war, definitely China can attack.
ANGUS GRIGG: As the risk of nuclear conflict grows, the global arms control regime is breaking down.
JENNIFER PARKER: There are no real effective nuclear arms control agreements, discussions between China and the US. And part of that is because China won’t really come to the table on talks until they see themselves on par in terms of number of nuclear warheads with the US. That is deeply concerning.
DR TILMAN RUFF, INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN TO ABOLISH NUCLEAR WEAPONS: On several occasions the world has come perilously close to nuclear war. The US alone has threatened to use nuclear weapons on at least 25 occasions
ANGUS GRIGG: Melbourne physician Tilman Ruff and his colleagues won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017 for spearheading a global campaign to ban nuclear weapons.
DR TILMAN RUFF: No nuclear-armed state is disarming. Instead, all nine are investing massively in modernising their nuclear arsenals.
ANGUS GRIGG: Their campaign paved the way for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons – known as the ban treaty. It has been signed by 95 countries. In 2018, Anthony Albanese and Richard Marles publicly endorsed that treaty at the ALP’s national conference.
ANTHONY ALBANESE: This is a Nobel Peace Prize, awarded to an organisation made up of activists concerned about our place in the world.
TILMAN RUFF: So, Labor took an important step at its national conference in 2018 in Adelaide.
ANTHONY ALBANESE: Labor in government will sign and ratify the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. This resolution is Labor at our best.
TILMAN RUFF: Championed by the current Prime Minister, Mr Albanese, Labor enshrined in its national policy platform a commitment to in government sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
ANGUS GRIGG: Richard Marles stood up to second that motion.
RICHARD MARLES: We have today before this conference, a resolution that we can all agree upon. We can all agree on the aim of the ban treaty to remove nuclear weapons from the world.
ANGUS GRIGG: Six months into its second term, the Albanese Government still hasn’t signed the ban treaty. In 2018, the ALP national conference agreed to sign or adopt the Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty. Why has that not happened?
RICHARD MARLES: Well, we-, we-, we-, we have been consistent with our position in relation to this. The-, I mean, that is a decision of-, of government and government has been consistent in terms of-, of its position in respect of that treaty.
ANGUS GRIGG: You said you were going to sign the treaty and you haven’t done it.
RICHARD MARLES: What’s really clear is that the conference understands that this is a decision of government. And-, and that is-, and-, and-, and that is a-, a-, and a decision of Labor in government. And the decision that Labor has made in government has been to follow the Non-Proliferation Treaty. And-, and the NPT is at the core of-, of-, of Labor and government’s policy.
ANGUS GRIGG: The NPT or Non-Proliferation Treaty is something entirely different. It seeks to limit the number of nuclear-armed states, not ban nuclear weapons. It’s been Labor policy for more than 50 years.
ANTHONY ALBANESE: I don’t argue that this is easy. I don’t argue that it’s simple, but I do argue that it’s just. I commend the resolution.
ANGUS GRIGG: Anthony Albanese stood outside parliament and campaigned very fiercely in Opposition for support of that treaty. Surely that’s a broken election promise?
RICHARD MARLES: It’s definitely not.
ANGUS GRIGG: If Labor had signed the ban treaty, Australia would be the first nation under America’s so-called “nuclear umbrella” to take that position. It would mean nuclear-armed submarines or bombers would not be welcome here.
TILMAN RUFF: The main obstacle has really been concern about the United States’ reaction and opposition from the United States.
ANGUS GRIGG: Critics would say that in government, the US has lent on you and said that that treaty, the nuclear weapons ban treaty, is inconsistent with Australia falling under the US nuclear umbrella and indeed the ANZUS Treaty. Is that correct?
RICHARD MARLES: That’s not correct and I’ve not had a-, a single conversation with an American counterpart about any of this.
ANGUS GRIGG: Critics might say that you taking that to national conference and advocating for that treaty was either naive or dishonest.
RICHARD MARLES: Well, again, I don’t accept that. And I-, I mean, you know, this is an issue that had been worked through at length. And-, and-, and we arrived at the position that we did.
ANGUS GRIGG: Do you think the age of disarmament and nuclear arms control is over?
TILMAN RUFF: Yes, unfortunately it really does seem to be the end of an era. At a time of weakened international cooperation it significantly increases the urgency of getting disarmament, preventing nuclear war.
ANGUS GRIGG: Australia has a role to play in this new age of nuclear expansion. At the Tindal air base south of Darwin, the US and Australia have been busy upgrading facilities. The runway’s being extended, fuel tanks enlarged and ammunition dumps constructed. As Four Corners revealed in 2022, the centrepiece will be a giant expanse of concrete for six, nuclear-capable B-52 bombers.
TILMAN RUFF: We’re seeing a transformation to actual operational basing where nuclear weapons operation can actually be launched from Australia, particularly from B-52s that might be based in Tindal.
ANGUS GRIGG: How does China view the stationing of B-52 bombers, American B-52 bombers in Australia?
PROFESSOR WANG YIWEI: Well, definitely it’s a threat, firstly. Secondly, I don’t think China are so afraid because China now has so many more advanced weapons. You can be the allies of the United States, no problem. But not to do-, to harm to China. Why you against your most important client in the-, in the economic to-, to-, to appease the United States? To be-, in Chinese understanding is-, you are, you are just used by United States to-, against China. You are just a scapegoat.
ANGUS GRIGG: As the world inches closer to a possible nuclear conflict, Donald Trump wants to cut a deal with China and Russia.
DONALD TRUMP: We have the most nuclear weapons, Russia’s second. China is actually third by a long way. But they’ll be even within four or five years. We are talking about de-escalation. That’s already being talked about.
JENNIFER PARKER: I think we need to say that the chances of conflict in this region are increasingly likely. We are likely to experience significant loss of life if there was a conflict of not only ADF personnel but civilian population. It means that the Australian way of life and this fundamental safety that we’ve all been born in would, would absolutely change.
AIR MARSHAL ROB CHIPMAN: We are paid to be pessimists. We are paid to think about the world’s worst days and make sure that we are prepared for those. And so, it is natural that I worry about what might be in our future.
DAVID KILCULLEN: The single organising principle of all Australian state craft, diplomacy, military, economic, everything for the next 30 years needs to be preventing a war between the United States and China. t’s an issue for the whole of nation, um, and the whole of society. So we all have to start caring about it. Fact is, it’s something that we all need to be worried about.