Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

We contributed to a dissenting report on this matter for some of these same reasons. We are not really satisfied that the agreement between the government of Australia and the government of the United States of America relating to the operation of and access to this communication station at North West Cape is good enough. Senators will be aware that the base sits right on Ningaloo Reef, which is Western Australia's Great Barrier Reef. I spoke about the risks faced by Ningaloo Reef due to climate change earlier today during the carbon debate. The North West Cape base emits very low frequency communications, and these are of abiding concern to marine biologists and environmental campaigners due to the possible ecological impacts of these sound waves on creatures that inhabit this precious marine sanctuary.

As we learned through the inquiry, there is disagreement between the US government and Australia on a couple of matters. For over 10 years it has been very difficult to tell who is responsible for cleaning up contaminated sites up there, and while that situation exists we have asbestos and quite serious diesel contamination of the groundwater very close to one of Australia's most important marine parks. The national interest analysis also states that there are unresolved issues on the worth of assets at the base. We are about to enter into another 25-year agreement—should we not perhaps clear up whether this thing is an asset or liability, and which of the two governments holds those? The Australian Greens believe that a new agreement should not be entered into before these matters are cleared up.

The base did attract controversy—here is this paragraph again, Senator Birmingham—during the Cold War in the role it played as a command control and communications centre for US submarine warfare against the Soviet Union. These are ballistic missile submarines whose entire purpose for being constructed and operated is to cruise the world's oceans completely out of sight, in communication only with bases such as this one, in the event that military or political commanders either in the US or in the former Soviet Union decide one afternoon to end civilisation. They are there in the event that someone decides to incinerate civilisation with nuclear weapons. That is their purpose; that is what they are for.