Looking into Australia Together - Part 4

Strategies for peace, security and independent defence of Australia.

In this series of articles I’m providing brief summaries featuring some of the Targets and Strategies in Australia Together.

Australia Together is the nation’s first long term, integrated plan for a better future for everyone. It is being progressively developed by Australians for Australians so that we can tell our governments what we want them to do for us as a cohesive, democratic community.

At the moment, governments tell us what we can and can’t have. Australia Together turns that on its head. It allows we the people to set our own preferred national agenda and then tell governments what we do and don’t want. You can read the latest issue of Australia Together, Issue No. 7, here.

The purpose of Australia Together

The whole purpose of this plan is to help Australians design, build and secure their particular preferred future. More specifically, it is to make the Vision for Australia Together a reality. This Vision describes in one page the sort of nation and country Australians aspire to live in by 2050 or sooner. It is a draft based on the responses of Australians about the best future they can imagine whenever they have been asked about that in surveys, community forums and research programs in the 21st century. You can read the latest draft of the Vision for Australia Together at all times on the ACFP website.

Peace is central to the Vision for Australia Together. So if Australians want to maximise their chances of making their preferred future a reality, they need to be confident that governments will ensure that Australia can avoid war wherever possible but reliably and ably defend itself if war comes.

In Australia Together it is assumed that war in the Asia Pacific region, especially between superpowers, will devastate Australia’s prospects for prosperity. If it involves nuclear weapons it will risk our extinction. Strategies in Australia Together are therefore built on the premise that the first responsibility of governments is to create the conditions conducive to an enduring peace and to do this first by non-military strategies – in other words by diplomacy, global cooperation, conformance to international law, maintenance of our independence and sovereignty, and respect for the sovereignty of all other nations. It’s assumed that this in itself will create the sort of security Australians crave including physical safety, economic security, and the environmental sustainability necessary for survival of all life on earth.

It’s also assumed that independence in sovereignty is absolutely necessary to our safety. In particular it assumes that the reliability of our defence systems cannot be assured without independence. To put that another way, it’s assumed in Australia Together that no nation in the 21^st century can rely on another to defend it. 

The responsibility of governments to provide for the military defence of Australia is considered in Australia Together to be secondary to this prior responsibility to assure ongoing peace and independence in our sovereignty. Accordingly, Strategies for military defence in Australia Together have been selected wherever they support the avoidance of war. Strategies that may function to provoke war are inconsistent with the Vision for Australia Together. This is why defence programs such as AUKUS can have no place in the plan. AUKUS increases Australia’s exposure as a target in any war between superpowers because it is designed primarily for intrusion and aggression in foreign territories against other sovereign nations, not for the safe territorial defence of Australia or Australians. It also significantly weakens our chances of building the military capability that we need for our territorial defence and to make sure that it will be ready in time to protect us if war comes. 

All Issues of Australia Together therefore prioritise Strategies for achieving enduring peace and security and they tailor Strategies for defence to that main purpose. Today I’ll summarise the current key Targets and Strategies in that vein.

ACFP will be reporting on the performance of the current federal parliament and government in relation to these Targets and Strategies in its next major report, The State of Australia 2025. At present ACFP doesn’t expect to be able to reflect positively on the current government’s policies on peace, security and defence insofar as they might help Australians make the Vision for Australia Together a reality. But with the release of The State of Australia 2025 before the next federal election Australians will at least be able to use facts about these policies to help them make their own decisions on how they wish to vote.

As I’ve noted in the earlier parts of this series, Australia Together is a map through time of the safe routes to a destination of wellbeing and security for every single Australian by 2050 or sooner. Every Target and Strategy has a coloured map reference number. You can follow the map by using the map reference numbers or simply by searching on keywords which relate to your topic of interest.

Strategies in Australia Together for peace and security

Targets and Strategies designed to help Australians ensure that that we can avoid war wherever possible but ably defend the country if war comes appear in Australia Together in Chapter 8 in the section headed Governance 12 - Peace & Security under the map reference numbers of Gov12.01 through to Gov12.06. However, there are a number of other Targets and Strategies that are integral to the success of those under Governance 12 that are spread through the Society, Environment and Economy chapters and other parts of the Governance chapter.

To illustrate how critical these other Targets and Strategies are to our peace and security I’m going to spend some time here going through examples of Strategies that on the face of it don’t seem to be directly related to peace, security and defence but which in fact are vital to it. These are:

1. Strategies to deal with climate change: These operate in Australia Together on the assumption that if we don’t stop climate change in accordance with the Strategy under Env01.01, we will increase our exposure to war, invasion or foreign political interference as other nations struggle (or fail) to sustain their populations in situ and protect themselves from the ravages of climate change, such as sea level rise and famine.

2. Strategies to stop racism: These are included in the plan because if we don’t eliminate racism and permissions for racism in Australian law in accordance with Soc07.03, we will embed at home a culture vulnerable to misinformation about other nations and their intentions towards Australia, especially China and perhaps other Asian countries. The fear of other peoples and nations caused by this will prevent Australians and their governments from understanding the best way to get along with other countries and will entrench aggression in our defence policies, regardless of whether aggression is necessary or in Australia’s interests.

3. Strategies to meet global goals for environmental and economic sustainability: These are included in Australia Together because if we don’t undertake serious planning to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals under Soc01.09 and also provide humanitarian aid under Governance 11 and 13, we will aggravate the current disparity in economic equality and capacity between developed and developing countries. This will result in displacement and possibly starvation of many millions of people, which will set countries against one another with many resorting to war. They may not make war on Australia but the economic cost of the disruption of their wars will be very significant, possibly cutting Australia off from vital supply lines and thereby sharply increasing our cost of living. There is no war anywhere in the world that is good for Australia. They adversely affect every aspect of our social, environmental and economic security as well as the strength and inclusiveness of our democracy. In wars – and in the preparation for them – states resort quickly to authoritarian crack-downs on democratic and human rights. Australia is resorting to that already. Evidence for this is provided in Chapter 6 of my book The People’s Constitution, accessible via the ACFP website.

4. Strategies to stop corruption: These are highly relevant because if we don’t stop government ministers and high level public servants from being able to rotate between public office and jobs in the arms and defence industries in accordance with Gov05.05, we will never break the nexus between corporate profits and war (the “military industrial complex”) and therefore never stop the need to recruit and sacrifice young Australians in wars and murders that serve corporate rather than national interests.

5. Strategies promoting and protecting truth in public discourse and the media: These are vital because if we don’t stop mainstream news media and social media from publishing misinformation, disinformation, propaganda and lies as per Gov10.03.01, we will start wars that should be easily avoidable, are contrary to our interests and are entirely unnecessary.

6. Strategies promoting transparency in government: These are essential because if we don’t make it illegal as per Gov05.02.03 for governments to withhold reports and information from the Australian people that are vital to their security, safety and sound decision making in relation to threats such as those from climate change, ecocide, pandemics, state failure (inside or outside Australia), loss or ceding of our sovereignty, and vital resource loss (including threats to food production and water supply), we will be led into wars that are more immediately disastrous than these other threats and that will make it impossible to deal with those threats.

7. Strategies to protect whistleblowers: These are also vital to our safety because if we don’t ensure, in accordance with Gov05.02.01 and Gov05.02.02 that governments establish systems to protect whistleblowers in both the public and private sector from making genuine public interest disclosures, we will be unable to ensure that Australia’s involvement in wars is being conducted in accordance with the law and that any wrongdoing by the state or the military in relation to war can be uncovered and stopped.

8. Strategies to stop unnecessary state secrecy: These are necessary because if we don’t ensure as per Gov05.02 that national security legislation safeguards democracy by achieving a reasonable balance between the secrecy necessary for genuine national security and the openness necessary for the public’s right to know when the government is and is not acting in the public interest, we will be risking our human rights and will be unable to determine whether decisions to enter wars or warlike operations in foreign countries are based on truthful information about the need for war.

9. Strategies to secure our human rights: These are possibly the most important of all. If we don’t at last enshrine our human rights in Australian law in accordance with Gov03.01 we will be unable to bind governments in law to observe their obligations to provide for the safety and wellbeing of Australians and do all things necessary for their peace and security.

10. Strategies for international cooperation: These are obviously essential because if we refuse to participate cooperatively and ethically in international forums such as the United Nations and refuse to use those forums to promote treaties on human rights and climate change – such as the Earth Systems Treaty under Gov11.05.01 – we will end up miring UN deliberations in matters of war instead of matters of the health and survival of all living things.

In short, a wide array of Targets and Strategies, rather than a narrow focus on military defence, is required to secure wellbeing and peace for Australians.

We should of course insure ourselves against the risk of war by building an independent defence capability sufficient to convince other countries that the price for attacking Australia will be high and not worth the effort. But we should also acknowledge that spending beyond that and spending on bellicose rather than defensive military strategies will detract more from the health and wellbeing of Australians than it secures. Indeed if nothing is spent to stop climate change Australia could well end up with as much if not more than the level of devastation we might expect from a war within the continent of Australia. With this perspective and with the Vision for Australia Together both in mind, I’ll now list the current Strategies that are directly focused on both prevention of war and defence of Australia. Like all Strategies, these will be added to and modified as and when research suggests a need.

Integrated Strategies in Australia Together for defence and foreign policy

Strategies for defence and foreign policy in Australia Together are aimed at securing ongoing peace. Hence the main Targets for defence and foreign policy are:

1. Gov12.01 – which states that “Participation by Australian armed forces as combatants in military operations (other than genuine peacekeeping and humanitarian aid sanctioned by the United Nations) is zero unless Australia has been directly attacked or unless both houses of parliament agree in the majority that its security has been directly, demonstrably and imminently threatened”.

2. Gov12.01.01 – which states that “The proportion of Australians preferring neutral postures in military conflicts, especially between major powers, does not diminish.” This target is included to monitor whether an appetite for war is growing within Australia. Growth in this would be an early and alarming sign of abandonment by Australians themselves of the Vision for Australia Together and all its promise of safety and security.

3. Gov12.01.02 – this relates to Australia’s preference and readiness for independent defence capability versus dependence on the US alliance. This Target is intended to ensure that Australia preserves its sovereignty and is able to independently pursue strategies for safe passage through international conflicts and to eventual global nuclear disarmament.

The following Strategies for defence and foreign policy arc towards those three Targets:

a) Strategies for independence in defence:

• Gov12.01.03 on government readiness for independence – This is a Strategy designed to ensure that Australians can fulfil the needs for peace and security that they expressed in the national people-led Inquiry held by the Independent and Peaceful Australia Network (IPAN) in 2022. This inquiry considered Australia’s involvement in US-led wars and in the US alliance and it promoted alternatives to dependence on the alliance including a defence policy that upholds the fundamental objective of protecting territorial Australia and its air and maritime approaches without foreign assistance. Strategies in Australia Together are consistent with the preferences of Australians as expressed in this Inquiry. You can read the report of the Inquiry on the IPAN website. It’s called Charting Our Own Course.

b) Strategies for arms control:

• Gov12.02 – which prohibits all weapons exports; and

• Gov12.02.01 – which requires ratification of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (the TPNW).

c) Strategies for reducing foreign influence in Australia:

• Gov12.03 - which prohibits funding of public institutions and officials by foreign owned or domestically owned/operated arms dealers or manufacturers. Gov12.05 which in part requires the abolition of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) is related to this Strategy. ASPI is funded in large part by foreign owned arms and military industry players.

d) Integration of Strategies for defence with those for diplomacy and security:

• Gov12.04 – which requires the federal government to establish a fully open program of community engagement to develop a draft Integrated Defence, Diplomacy and Security Strategy. This is designed to achieve the primary objectives of security, national resilience, economic prosperity and peace in our region. Considerable detail is provided on both the principles that should drive this integrated strategy and the rationale behind it. In summary, the strategy should be designed in recognition of the declining utility of Australia’s alliance with America and the necessity to reverse the current strategic framework where strategies for defence are being set to disable strategies for security, independence, sovereignty, growth in national resilience and peace.

• Gov12.04.01 supports this. It requires the federal government to develop a Green Paper and establish a fully open program of community engagement with Australians to design a transparent Statement of Australia’s Strategic Interests in Territorial Sovereign Defence. This would place Australians at the centre of determining where our interests lie geographically and what they are in our near shores and further afield. The purpose is to “design a Statement that will provide sufficient guidance to parliaments and ensure that any decisions made on territorial defence will in fact be in the acknowledged best interests of Australians and will thereby safeguard our independence, sovereignty, security and peace.” Decisions about war are currently made in the absence of an agreed understanding of Australia’s interests, which means we are being forced to risk ourselves in wars that are highly likely to be and have been contrary to our interests. Development of an agreed transparent statement of these interests is essential if Australians are to be able to hold governments accountable for their decisions on entry into wars when we have not been attacked. It is also essential if we are to be able to assure other countries that our defence strategies and purchases are not geared to aggression against them but are designed strictly in accordance with our legitimate interests.

e) Strategies to avoid starting and losing wars:

• Gov12.04.02 – which requires the adoption of a legally binding commitment to neutrality for Australia in international confrontations between major powers such as the US, China and Russia. This Strategy follows a logic that the surest way to avoid losing wars is to not get involved in the first place. This logic flows from the evidence of repeated loss of wars in which Australia has been involved since WWII and from the evident truth that in a nuclear age, no nation can reliably expect to fully control the outcome of any war or that the costs of the war will be less than the benefits.

f) Strategies to regain Australia’s lost sovereignty in decisions on war:

• Gov12.04.03 – which requires development of a national plan for safe withdrawal from activities, agreements and alliances inhibiting sovereign independence and peace. This obliges our governments to:

  • firstly, give full and serious consideration to methods for beginning processes of disarmament and/or disengagement from arms build-up, wars, warlike operations and other military operations and intelligence; and

  • secondly, it obliges the federal government to develop a defined and public plan for safe withdrawal from any activities, agreements (including AUKUS) and alliances which inhibit Australia’s capacity for:

    • independence in defence and sovereignty,

    • neutrality in military confrontations involving one or more major powers, and

    • promotion of peace.

g) Strategies for war powers reform:

• Gov12.06 – which requires reform of Australia’s Constitution to provide for parliamentary supremacy in decisions on entry into war, transferring this power from the executive to the parliament. This Strategy also prohibits:

  • entry into wars and warlike operations not authorised by the UN Security Council (i.e., it prohibits entry into illegal wars); and it prohibits

  • parliamentary or executive approval of entry into wars and warlike operations in other countries without an explicit and comprehensive public demonstration of how it is in the national interest and how participation is consistent with and seeks to uphold the values and rights of Australians.

h) Strategies to strengthen the capacity for and the quality of Australia’s diplomacy:

• Gov12.05 – which requires the government to review the capacity of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) to lead in oversight and management of the Integrated Strategy for Defence, Diplomacy and Security proposed to be developed with the participation of Australians under Gov12.04. This Strategy is built on the premise that diplomacy should drive decisions on Australia’s needs in defence, not the other way around, and to that end it requires development of a new workforce plan for DFAT.

Important note: Implementation of strategies to strengthen our diplomatic capacity under Gov12.05 and Gov12.06 is likely to be negated by policies arising from the report released in 2023 by a federal Parliamentary Joint Committee on its Inquiry into International Armed Conflict Decision Making, especially insofar as the Committee recommended that:

• the executive retain the power to approve entry into war or warlike operations, including illegal wars; and that

• the government introduce legislation to establish a Joint Statutory Committee on Defence to supersede the defence related functions currently undertaken by the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade.

The PJC argued that the new committee, splitting the forum for consideration of defence matters from those on foreign policy and trade, would increase scrutiny of defence. But it would actually reduce transparency, accountability and parliamentary scrutiny because it would restrict the new committee members from disclosing any material placed before them, regardless of whether the disclosure was required in the public and national interest. Such a committee would have a greater propensity to drag Australia away from the Vision for Australia Together than towards it. It adds no comfort whatsoever that decisions by the executive on war will be made in the interests of Australians. It simply stops a few more parliamentarians from revealing that they weren’t.

Government or parliamentary support of the recommendation to split a Defence Committee off from Foreign Affairs and Trade is a strategy that cannot attract a positive score in The State of Australia 2025. Like AUKUS, it simply doesn’t fit with the Vision or safe Directions. However, rejection of AUKUS in Australia Together leaves a blank space in the plan about the defence force and armaments plans that would help us make the Vision a reality, safely. There’s a critical question still to be answered here. How should we design and arm the Australian defence force so that it makes the Vision a reality, safely?

Experts in this field have asserted that Australia would be far better off focusing on non-nuclear options and maintaining fully independent command of our armed forces, rather than locking them into the control of other countries. In future Issues of Australia Together, Strategies will be suggested to fill this blank space. Without pre-empting the Strategies, it’s likely that they won’t resemble those announced by the Minister for Defence Richard Marles recently in his National Defence Strategy and Integrated Investment Program. These all push Australia away from the possibility of making the Vision a reality. They make us more unsafe than safe. As such, it’s not at all apparent that they could have a place in Australia Together. Having said that, if there are aspects of the minister’s plans that would help us make the Vision a reality safely, suggestions can be made in that regard by using the suggestion form on the ACFP website at https://www.austcfp.com.au/make-a-suggestion.

The current Strategies in Australia Together for peace, security and independent defence of Australia are the product of research by a wide array of experts and thoughtful civil society groups. ACFP is particularly indebted to the Independent and Peaceful Australia Network (IPAN), Australians for War Powers Reform, Emeritus Professor Hugh White, Dr Alison Broinowski, Geoff Raby, Allan Behm, the late Bruce Haigh, David Brophy, Dr Rebecca Ananian-Welsh, Dr John Jiggens, the Lowy Institute, the Institute for Integrated Economic Research Australia, Transparency International, the Human Rights Law Centre, Griffith University, the Commonwealth government and the Parliament of Australia, Greenpeace, the CSIRO, Australian Aid Tracker, Essential Research, the United Nations, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Julian Cribb, and the Council for the Human Future.

National Integrated Planning & Reporting - inclusive, community-driven national planning

Australia Together is generated using a process developed by ACFP called National Integrated Planning & Reporting or National IP&R. This process allows any and all Australians to select Targets and Strategies that are safe and discard ones that are unsafe or which will have the effect of disabling other safe Strategies. The plan contains 57 generic safe Direction statements for our society, environment, economy and governance. These function as a signpost system for arriving at our preferred future without excluding anyone, without tripping each other up and without slowing our progress. They chart the safe course towards realisation of the Vision for Australia Together.

Any Australian can comment on or make suggestions about the Vision and Directions for Australia Together at any time. Provide feedback on the Vision and Directions here.

Any Australian can also suggest targets and strategies for inclusion in Australia Together. Find out how to suggest inclusion of a Target or Strategy in Australia Together here.

Next week in the State of Australia Substack

Next week in the State of Australia Substack I’ll post about: Strategies for ensuring prosperity through lifelong educational opportunities. In the meantime, the Australia Together Podcast this week will feature a conversation about strategies for peace, security and independent defence of Australia.  A link will be circulated in a couple of days.

Find out all about ACFP

Become involved in building plans for a better Australia here.