- by Denis Doherty
- The Guardian
- Issue #2201
Pat Conroy is the Minister for Defence Industry. He’s taken up the main role on negotiations to do with AUKUS and has just visited the US. In a recent interview, Conroy made some gobsmacking assertions.
Australia has no US bases said Conroy. He said that if the US transited forces through Australia, then there was no base. He claimed the rotation of US marines through Darwin during the dry season as another example of there not being a US base because the Marines only stayed for a few months per year.
Despite Conroy’s assertions and attempts to obscure the issue this is the reality. We have US bases. There are permanent quarters set aside for the Marines built at some cost in Darwin with permanent bombing and firing ranges made available for them. Each year US forces make themselves at home in the Northern Territory to complete training and joint exercises.
US President Obama, inaugurating the base in Darwin said, “You work together so well, it’s often said you can’t tell where our guys end and you guys begin.” Sometime later Obama angrily complained he was not informed about the sale of the port of Darwin to a Chinese company. He acted as all US presidents do – as if Australia is a vassal state. Conroy tries to obscure our vassal status and the ALP’s complicity in it.
Pine Gap is also not a US base according Conroy. It is a “joint facility.” That’s another sleight of hand to mask the reality. The Deputy of Pine Gap is Australian, but all decisions are taken by the US Director, their US subordinates and associated US arms corporations’ employees. Australians are mainly gardeners and guards.
David Vine is an expert on US bases. According to his book Base Nation, a base is any place, facility, or installation used regularly for military purposes of any kind. On this definition Australia has more than 50 bases in Australia.
The ALP has a dreadful record of accepting more US bases. The Hawke government accepted that all Australian military bases are to be regarded as US Bases and they can use them as they see fit. The Rudd government agreed to extend the powers at NW Cape facility. The Gillard government introduced Marines into Darwin and now the Albanese government has accepted that the US can have two US nuclear submarine bases in Australia.
Pat Conroy has tried to walk back this shameful record by retreating to the nonsense of transiting troops and joint facilities and stressing there are “no US bases in Australia.” This is just empty spin and must not be believed.
Not so stirling
Next year at the Stirling Naval Base in Western Australia, a US nuclear submarine will be stationed at the base along with accommodation for family and the whole set of resources needed to keep a nuclear-powered and quite possibly armed submarine operational.
Whatever you do don’t call it a US base! Pat Conroy calls it ‘Submarine Rotational Force West.’ Conroy was asked if the US sub would have nuclear weapons on board. He didn’t really answer, so the interviewer asked if “the US respects our support of Treaty of Rarotonga, or the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty.”
The interviewer tried again. Did the US feel it necessary to have nuclear weapons on board? Finally Conroy replied that “Australia has full knowledge and concurrence with US actions.” If that means anything, it means the US bringing nuclear weapons into Australian waters is fine with Conroy.
For the edification of Pat Conroy, we say a base is a base, and we cannot be an independent country while we have so many US military bases in our country.
