Rarely a Dull Moment - AUKUS Petition, AUKUS Delegation, Public Question Time

Welcome back to Rarely a Dull Moment where today we cover the Ordinary Council Meeting of 29 January 2025.

A very Happy New Year to you all, by the way, Fremantle Shipping News Shipees and Trusty Crew alike!

Already shaping up to be a massive year and we haven’t even finished January yet. Well, very nearly!

While the agenda for the first Ordinary Council Meeting of the month is quite short by usual standards, at a humble 50 pages, it is important to note that there are many significant proposals in circulation, as we speak, and as a search on the City of Fremantle MySay page will reveal.

Take a look at the proposed Woolstores adaptive reuse proposal and the proposed Tree Retention Policy when you find yourself with a spare ten minutes. Fascinating stuff.

Now back to Council. Mayor Fitzhardinge was absent from this meeting with deputy mayor Cr Jenny Archibald acting as Chair in her stead.

INFORMATION REPORT – AUKUS PETITION RESPONSE

At the Ordinary Council Meeting of 14 August 2024, community member Sam Wainwright presented a petition to the City, signed by 415 locals, beseeching the City to uphold its own Nuclear Free Policy and Pledge. This would be achieved, it was contended, by pressuring the Commonwealth Government to prevent nuclear submarines from berthing at Stirling Naval Base on Garden Island, keeping residents and visitors informed on the issue, and confirming the City’s responsibilities in the event of a nuclear safety breach.

Image of a naval US ship from Council attachments

I will simply repeat verbatim the written response to each point in the officer report lest I risk glossing over important details inadvertently through paraphrasing:

We, the undersigned residents of the City of Fremantle, respectfully request that the Council:

1. Call on the Commonwealth Government to ban the berthing of nuclear powered or armed submarines at Stirling Naval Base given its proximity to a large urban population.

City response: “There is no foundation in the current Policy to call on the Commonwealth Government to ban nuclear-powered or nuclear-armed vessels at Stirling Naval Base, which is not located within the municipality. Further, point 8 of the Policy acknowledges that nuclear-powered or nuclear-armed vessels already visit the area. While the Policy explicitly advocates to ban these vessels from the inner harbour, it acknowledges that they would be moored at four points in Gage Roads. It should also be noted that the City has no head of power to enforce this aspect of the Policy.”

2. Explain how else it will respond to the fact that nuclear powered and nuclear armed submarines in Cockburn Sound are inconsistent with the City’s Nuclear Free Policy and pledge to support the Treaty to Ban Nuclear Weapons.

City response: “The presence of nuclear-powered or nuclear-armed vessels is not in contradiction of the Policy. Point 8 of the Policy acknowledges that these vessels already visit the area. With regards to pledging support to the United Nations’ Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, Council may wish to consider taking a position on this matter, but ultimately, it is noted that this is entirely within the remit of the Commonwealth Government to become a signatory to the treaty.”

3. Ensure that residents and visitors are immediately informed of the presence of nuclear powered and/or armed submarines, safety procedures in place and appropriate public response to accidents including the provision of iodine tablets.

City’s response: “Point 8 of the Policy states that the conduct of visiting nuclear powered and/or armed ships is controlled through a Commonwealth Government document called ‘Visits by Nuclear Powered Warships to Australia Ports’. These guidelines stipulate that each visit is individually planned by a committee comprising various federal and state government agencies such as policy, health department, navy, defence, state emergency service and the Fremantle Port Authority and an emergency drill is practiced before each and every visit. The City is not in a position to provide iodine tablets in the event of an accident.

Point 8 of the Policy also states that the presence of nuclear arms on a vessel may or may not be revealed. This is controlled by the Department of Defence in Canberra. Fremantle Port Authority has advised they would not expect to be informed, and as such, the City may also not be aware of the presence of nuclear arms on a vessel. The City is therefore not able to inform the community in this regard.”

4. Seek clarification of the extent of its responsibilities in the event of a nuclear safety breach.

City’s response: “The City acknowledges that this point is of utmost significance for the community. To that end, the City will remain engaged with all levels of government as an important stakeholder to ensure that the best-possible measures are implemented in case of a nuclear safety breach, and the role it will play as a local government.

In addressing the rationale in the petition, it is noted that, with the exception of the Council’s Nuclear Free Fremantle policy, the City is unable to address responsibilities that fall within the remit of the State and Commonwealth Governments, and the governments of the United Kingdom and the United States. As such, each of the points of the petition have been addressed against the content of the Nuclear Free Fremantle Council Policy (the Policy).

The Policy makes clear Council’s position on various nuclear activities within the municipality, particularly the construction of nuclear power facilities, the transport of nuclear materials, and its opposition to the construction of a nuclear waste facility in Western Australia. The Policy also provides a detailed outline of how visits of nuclear-powered or nuclear-armed vessels are conducted, including the prohibition of any such vessels mooring in the inner harbour.

As outlined in the response to the petition provided above, it is recommended that no further action be taken in response to the petition.”

The item was moved by Cr Archibald and seconded by Cr Mofflin for a modified officer recommendation, unanimously adopted following discussion, that Council:

1) Receive the information report regarding the response to the AUKUS petition, presented to the Ordinary Council Meeting on 14 August 2024, and
2) Request the CEO undertake a review of the relevant Council policies, to be brought back to Council at the next appropriate Council meeting.

For more on what AUKUS and the outcome of the US election means for Australia, and in turn Western Australians, I’d recommend giving Martin Drum and Michael Barker’s excellent podcast View from the Roundhouse a listen.

REPORT ON THE PERTH SOUTH WEST METROPOLITAN ALLIANCE BOARD DELEGATION TO THE US

Speaking of AUKUS, the next item discusses the forward copy of the draft report to be presented to the Board of the Perth South West Metropolitan Alliance (PSWMA) on the “delegation to the United States of Mayors and Chief Executive Officers in September 2024”.

This includes two reports, one on the implications for AUKUS at Stirling Base and one on “additional findings and observations of the various areas visited during the delegation.”

The officer report explicitly emphasises that this report is an FYI only as far as the Council is concerned.

The AUKUS Delegation – sourced from Council report attachments

To recap, in September last year a local delegation travelled to the US east and west coasts for 14 days to “explore best practices in local government and defence relationships”. It responds to the strategic international direction of AUKUS, the Australian-United Kingdom-United States alliance announced in September 2021, with its “primary objective being to strengthen security and defence cooperation between the three nations in response to the evolving geopolitical landscape of the Indo-Pacific region.”

As a minimum, Australia will acquire nuclear-powered submarines capable of being submerged for months at a time, and they will reside at the largest naval base in Australia, Stirling Naval Base or on Garden Island (next to Rockingham), until they are required. The first of this fleet are expected to arrive in 2027, thereafter in the 2030s it is planned that nuclear-powered submarines will be constructed in Australia.

Not without controversy, as anyone who watched Public Question Time at Council recalls.

This delegation comprised of Mayors and Chief Executive Officers of the six alliance councils (including Fremantle, East Fremantle, Melville, Cockburn, Kwinana, and Rockingham), along with the Australian Submarine Agency and PSWMA officers.

Locations visited include AltaSea at the Port of Los Angeles, San Diego in California, the Hampton Roads region to Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia, Naval Station Norfolk (the world’s largest naval base), and Brooklyn in New York.

The delegation sought to understand the interactions of defence and local government, how to develop that relationship, and how defence interacts with their communities. Particularly how defence builds social licence within their communities, which we understand is apparently already well established within the US.

Additional facets of life are also outlined in the report relating to “homelessness, public transport, sustainability initiatives, cultural precincts, tourism, property and urban development, repurposed public spaces and buildings/infrastructure, policing and safety.”

What a shopping list for 14 mere days, including travel.

The report on the implications of utilising HMAS Stirling base for AUKUS notes that:
“While there is some community concern—yet to be fully measured—the tight and relatively inflexible timeline for implementation necessitates proactive engagement with local governments and their communities.”

And it goes on in a Clarke & Dawe-esque admission to point out that while there will be tailored community engagement in the future, including industry breakfasts, centralising communications from a single source of truth, employing community liaison officers, monitoring of social media to combat misinformation and the formation of community reference groups, “it is important to note that neither the Alliance nor the community were part of the decision-making process leading to the Defence posturing in our region.”

On an upside, efforts to foster community acceptance would potentially, surprisingly, include greater public access to currently off limits naval base territory in order to “demystify it” (an allusion to Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory was made), easing homesickness for navy staff by celebrating Thanksgiving locally, and commuting could be aided by implementing “vanpool” systems as “when comparing Perth with US cities, Perth may have stronger public transport usage” carpooling still lags behind. (That is news to me. Which cities?)

Community engagement will centre on explaining the rationale behind this approach to strategic defence partnership, accommodating current and future AUKUS personnel within our communities (hello, sailor!), and how best for local businesses to capitalise on the billions this is expected to bring to the WA economy.

It will also respond to prevailing community concerns that AUKUS will act as a stepping stone to storage of nuclear waste at Garden Island and the introduction of nuclear weapons to our shores whilst making it a strategic target in international conflict. There is also the concern regarding the future of eventual defunct naval bases, greater strain on housing supply, and the construction and dredging of environmentally sensitive areas off the coast of Rockingham and Cockburn Sound currently host to little penguin colonies, dolphins, and seagrass meadows.

It isn’t specifically claimed that Australia should adopt the US taxation system to allow local governments to actually benefit from the presence of AUKUS, but it implies it would be oh so ever helpful if they did.

Australian versus American Tax – in 3D – excerpt from Council attachments

That doesn’t necessarily guarantee the Perth South West Region will profit as extensively from AUKUS compared to San Diego, for instance, given our reliance on overseas supply and current size of the local manufacturing and defence economy, according to the report. The limited quantity of local shipbuilders (about 0.75% of our population, or just over 3000 people) and experienced veterans used to the realities of defence, also hampers smooth AUKUS integration.

The report intriguingly (and fittingly?) reflects on the mining industry as an example of the role of ‘Social Licence’ on the success of a project:

SLO’ Business Explanation – excerpt from Council report attachments

A wishlist for what we ought to ask for in return via the Defence Community Infrastructure Program (DCIP) might make a very interesting FSN discussion? The report suggests natural disaster resilience or active transport as a few examples.

At a minimum, we should expect to see an upsurge in State government-assisted housing supply and infrastructure expenditure that will transform the road network between here and the naval base (i.e. the planned Garden Island Highway).

Other interesting takeaways from the reports included:
• Comparisons between patriotism in the US versus Australia and impact on culture;
• Praise of efficiency in Perth’s planning system but note it comes at cost to social benefit;
• Amplification of local problems in the US experience (i.e. homelessness, income inequality, gun crime, delivery of parks, and traffic connectivity)
• Pressure for transparent public monitoring of radiation levels to address nuclear anxiety.

I expect we’ll hear plenty more then in the lead up to 2027.

Anyone who cares to learn more and read each of these 60-page reports is invited to do so via the link nere. P.S. in case you were curious, “HMAS” stands for “His (or Her) Majesty’s Australian Ship”.

The officer recommendation for this item was moved by Cr Archibald, seconded by Cr Lang.

Cr Lawver moved for an alternative recommendation to this item and queried when the decision was made by the PSWA for local mayors to go on the delegation (March 2024) and whether a discussion was held on how the funds involved could otherwise be spent (not confirmed, but reserves of the PSWA and surplus City funds accrued during the pandemic were used).

The original proposed amendment to the recommendation by Cr Lawver was to “Note that the Council did not endorse the ratepayer funded trip for the Mayor and CEO to the United States” but ultimately lost when voted upon by councillors.

Cr Lawver also pointed out that the report generalises the approach to taxation and in reality it is far less uniform and is rather “a hot mess” in comparison.

Cr Sullivan pointed out that the spending and composition of the PSWMA is an established matter “without strings” that councillors had “every opportunity” to challenge via a notice of motion since the AUKUS trip was announced, but haven’t. The opportunity remains for councillors to challenge this status quo if it bothers them.

Meanwhile, we note that the Council did not endorse the rate payer funded trip for the Mayor and CEO to the United States.

As an outcome of the discussion verging upon debate that ensued, a minor amendment was included in addition to the recommendation to note the receipt of the draft report:

Council note the two reports (Building Defence Social License in Perth South West Region, provided in Attachment 1, and Insights from Perth South West US Delegation, provided in Attachment 2) prepared for the Perth South West Metropolitan Alliance outlining the observations and learnings from the delegation of Mayors and Chief Executive Officers to the United States in September, 2024.
Note that the Council does not have a formal position on AUKUS.

Note that the decision to go on the AUKUS trip was made by the board of the PSWMA.

PUBLIC QUESTION TIME

Question time actually arises at the very commencement of an Ordinary Council Meeting, but for ease of reading, and in a sense to keep the best until last, we include it here.

In a passionate start to the proceedings, former City councillor Sam Wainright accused the City of side skirting its responsibility to ratepayers and residents due to concern about the proximity of AUKUS to dense urban environments. He considered the City’s approach to be a narrow sighted view of its own policy and therefore contradictory.

Sam also reminded the room that in 20 November 2018 former mayor Brad Pettitt signed in favour of supporting UN position of nuclear free cities. Cr Lang asked Sam Wainwright if he was satisfied with the City’s response to his question, forcing Deputy Mayor Cr Archibald to defend herself and the City’s position further, asserting she wasn’t trying to dismiss the matter but rather it is a complex matter and by no means is that the last of it.

In the same vein, Leonie Lungi reminded the Council that the City’s Nuclear Free Policy opposes the construction of nuclear waste facilities in Australia. The petition was lodged prior to disclosure of the proposed temporary low-level storage of nuclear waste at Garden Island. The storage is necessary for the rotations of the US nuclear powered submarines locally.

In June 2024, Dr Margaret Beavers from the Medical Association for the Prevention of War exposed the circulation of misinformation by “defence” and the Australian Submarine Agency about the grade of low-level waste to be generated and managed. It had previously been asserted the “vast majority” of this waste was analogous to the level of medical nuclear waste produced by hospitals, which can be disposed of in ordinary bins within a considerably short timeframe of a few months as opposed to the 300 years of isolation from the environment required for this grade of nuclear waste.

Leonie Lungi reminded the room that she previously asked Council at its meeting on 10 July 2024 if it would reconsider its position on the basis of this information.

The dry dock for depot submarine maintenance at Henderson will also entail a similar waste facility. Leoni again appealed to the City to “pay attention” to these developments and withdraw its support of AUKUS. Cr Archibald took the statement on board for discussion later.

Greens candidate for the State seat of Fremantle, Felicity Townsend, responded to an elector query regarding the US study trip and emergency management procedures. She considered it unacceptable that the delegation report fails to mention due diligence in response to emergency management and voiced concerns about how AUKUS will exacerbate housing shortages. She further questioned the City’s “PR role playing for defence”.

Louis de Villiers queried an error he identified in the report that it is not the City’s responsibility to assist WA Police and other State agencies in advising the public of nuclear-related accidents, and acknowledge HAZMAT Annexe A as per the Emergency Management Act of 2005. He entreated Council to not the support the officer recommendation on this basis.

Former journalist Adrian Glamorgan spoke of his experiences in being associated with an individual affected by nuclear weapons in Kazakhstan, who has witnessed “jellyfish babies” born in the Marshall Islands as a direct consequence of the infamous Maralinga and Emu Fields nuclear weapons testing fallout. He warned of trusting government promises and assurances that “every safety measure and precaution would be observed” in respect to nuclear testing. Council is meant to represent the whole of the community. Adrian claimed the City has a current “self-deception” regarding the conversion of the Cockburn Sound to a strategic target and focus on military issues at the cost of bolstering community power and awareness. It is also harrowing to note that just the day before, the Doomsday Clock was moved a second closer to midnight which is the closest it has ever been to indicating a global state of outright destruction. Accordingly, Adrian levelled an accusation against the City that it is focussing on war, not peace, and does not build on core business and community trust. He also asserted the petition concerns matters that are real and deserves the City’s response.

Former City of Vincent councillor and now Freo resident, Ian Ker then went on to question Council about more “mundane matters” (his words, not mine) ) relating to an issue with the defective concrete slab laid for the troubled South Beach toilets, and the rust treatment of the galvanised steel poles. In a nutshell, the City has a good rapport with the contractor and it is all in hand.

Barry Healy talked about the wonderful community contributions to the Nannine Commons community garden, of which he is chair, and the social housing proposal in White Gum Valley advertised last year. He offered to prepare a project management plan for Council community development staff to help prepare the way for the settlement of the social housing, for “community mapping” of existing nearby residents and resources such as the local Repair Cafe willing to help welcome in the new community members. Good show, Barry.

Forner councillor John Alberti from Justice of the Peace Office provided an update on operations. The Justice of the Peace voluntary organisation, which witnesses passport applications and wills among other duties. commenced in 1948. 8,010 people have been involved since its origins. John, aged 76, is one of the longest serving members. There is a strong need for more, and younger(!) JP officers to assist them. Council received the report from John Alberti and noted the City’s support of the Justice of the Peace, as well as a core of thanks for their work and dedication.

Mark Woodcock wished all attendees a Happy Chinese New Year and asked about the local government election procedures as governed by the WA Electoral Commission, specifically in respect to past legal proceedings, as well as legal costs, cost comparisons, and encoded spare ballot papers among other matters.

Cr Sullivan took a moment to acknowledge the passing of Richard Longley, architect and “Fremantle Legend”, and discussed his role in advocacy relating to the past Three Harbours Proposal at South Beach. Rest in peace.

Cr Lawver also pointed out that the Cook Labor government has endorsed the Future Fremantle preferred scenario and he, and his constituents, continue to advocate for public transport and bequeath land to the Whadjuk Nyoongar people as part of the project.

IN OTHER NEWS

Other items discussed in the first agenda of the year included the Local Government Election going postal, Silverback Enterprises (Paramount Security) contracted as Fremantle Art Centre’s security for two years, and appointment of Cr Jemima Williamson-Wong to the currently vacant position in the City’s Towards 2029 Working Group.

If you fancy a bit more exposure to Council matters before the next Meeting, don’t forget that the Annual General Meeting of Electors will be held on 3 February 2025. See you there?

Until next time, dear readers.

By Gayle O’Leary. If you’d like to catch up on more by Gayle here on Fremantle Shipping News, look right here!

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