Australia becomes radioactive at Pacific Islands Forum as nations eye revamp of nuclear treaty

In the Pacific region, where whole islands were obliterated in mid-century atom bomb tests and where nations have since agreed to ban the use of the weapons, nuclear fallout has once again become a top political issue. 

At this week’s Pacific Islands Forum, member states have voiced concerns about Australia’s AUKUS pact, which will facilitate the transfer of nuclear-powered submarines from the US. 

Japan’s release of treated wastewater from the 2011 Fukushima power plant disaster has caused worry as well.

“We’re expecting [nuclear issues] to be quite a strong focus at the summit,” Griffith Asia Institute Pacific Hub project lead Tess Newton Cain told Crikey. She’s present at the forum in a freelance capacity and has been following the discussions closely. 

“The expectation is we’ll see a significant consideration of a range of nuclear issues,” she said. 

The forum members could go so far as to revisit the 1986 South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty, also known as the Treaty of Rarotonga, which bans the placement of nuclear weapons in the region. 

“I think the most likely outcome this week will be to do some work around that, to establish a working group tasked with doing some technical work around how that treaty needs to be amended … we may well see a significant commitment to address it,” Newton Cain said. 

Forum chair and Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown has said it might be time to “reinvigorate” the treaty, making a veiled reference to AUKUS, the Australian Associated Press reported.

“Tensions have again escalated … tensions between the US, China and now the conflict occurring in the Ukraine, the conflict in Israel and Gaza, [and] the increase in military positioning of countries like the US, Australia and the UK,” Brown told TVNZ.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese indicated at a press conference on Wednesday he did not agree the treaty needed to be revisited.

“It is a good document, it has stood the test of time. All of the arrangements that we’ve put in place have been consistent with that, and it retains our support,” he said when asked by a reporter whether he agreed with Brown’s comments.

Meanwhile, a bloc of Polynesian nations have called for a “pause in the discharge of treated radioactive water” into the Pacific Ocean, Cook Islands News reported. 

Australia and New Zealand support the release of the water. A statement from the Australian government in August said it had “confidence in the process”, which is being monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). 

Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka on Wednesday apologized to his counterparts in the forum’s Melanesian caucus for previously endorsing the water release. 

“I want to make it very clear that I was not opposing your collective views. I issued that statement as a sovereign nation’s leader’s view based on the science,” he said, according to the Fiji Times.

Newton Cain said that apology came after Rabuka “appeared to flip and say the opposite” of his fellow Melanesian leaders: 

“He has now come back to that caucus and made a formal apology … we know that group is looking for a very strong criticism of that Japanese discharge.”

“Other [nations] have been a bit more ambivalent, but I think generally, the feeling is that this is something the Pacific should be criticising and the sign-off by the IAEA is not necessarily seen as being as reassuring as one might think.” 

Newton Cain said Australia should not expect that the Japanese issue would overshadow concerns about AUKUS: “I don’t think that’s the way it’ll go down at all. The impression I’m getting is that [the forum members] want a total package approach.”

The AUKUS deal isn’t in violation of the 1986 treaty, but some states feel it’s contrary to the spirit of the agreement, she said.

“There may be a push to close some of the loopholes that exist within the treaty, including this kind of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ position about [nuclear-armed] vessels that come from either the UK or the US. At the moment Australia has this position that they don’t ask, so they don’t know whether there are nuclear arms on those visiting vessels, so they’re not in breach of the treaty.”

“If Australia knew there were nuclear arms and they allowed them to be stationed, they would be in breach of the treaty, so they avoid that by not asking.” 

In the 1940s and 1950s, the US conducted several atomic bomb tests in the Marshall Islands, staging enormous blasts that ruined local environments and caused severe health problems to people living in the area.