Peacebuilding, Defence and Military
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Secrecy thy name is AUKUS: How Labor’s closed-door committee further entrenches excessive secrecy
From Crikey, ALBERT PALAZZO, 2 December 2025 A committee tasked with reviewing AUKUS should have been a good thing. But one designed to ensure that there are no contrary voices destroys its value from the start. Well, the government has done it again. Instead of taking the opportunity to support the open scrutiny of AUKUS…
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A House of Dynamite: should we be worried?
By Marianne Hanson, Co-Chair, ICAN Australia 11 November 2025 If there’s one message we should take away from Academy Award winning director Kathryn Bigelow’s new film A House of Dynamite, it is this: nuclear weapons cannot keep us ‘safe’ indefinitely. Sooner or later, the kind of scenario depicted in Bigelow’s film will occur. Indeed, many…
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Getting away with murder: What happens in Australia if Israel gets away with genocide?
Dr Julie Macken, 30 October 2025 Yes, the first response to that question is rightly, who cares? It is Palestine and Palestinians who should be the focus of any such question. When it comes to Israel getting away with murder, it is Palestinians that have paid the price. That is increasingly self-evident as will be…
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Arms industry infiltrates National Press Club, Michelle Fahy, 1 Nov 2025
More than a quarter of the National Press Club’s sponsors are part of the global arms industry or working on its behalf. The National Press Club of Australia lists 81 corporate sponsors on its website. Twenty-one of them (listed below) are either part of the global arms industry or actively working on its behalf. Ten…
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The Big Fix: Rebuilding Australia’s national security, by Albert Palazzo, Melbourne University Press, 2025.
An urgent call for a new Australian defence policy The character of war is constantly changing, and so too must the approach to national security. But Australia’s defence policy is broken. Successive governments have not approached the nation’s security with the intelligence, resoluteness and seriousness it requires. After more than 120 years of defence policy…
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Clearing Gaza rubble could yield 90,000 tonnes of planet heating emissions
Nina Lakhani Climate justice reporter, The Guardian, Tue 22 Jul 2025 19.00 AEST Millions of tonnes of rubble left by Israel’s bombardment of Gaza could generate more than 90,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions – and take as long as four decades to remove and process, a study has found. Israel’s destruction of Palestinian homes,…
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AUKUS is a $368 billion risk and the US is a chaotic partner. Australia needs a Plan B
Only the most naive still believe that America will come through on its side of the AUKUS deal. Luckily there is another way. Dr Albert Palazzo As the inherent risks of AUKUS become more apparent and as the United States sinks further into chaos there is a pressing need for Australia to recalibrate the foundation…
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APSF Submission to ANU National Security College Consultations on ‘Securing our Future’
The Australian Peace and Security Forum (APSF) is pleased to provide this submission for consideration of the ANU National Security College. Read more
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Rebuilding Australia’s National Security, Dr Albert Palazzo
First broadcast on ABC Radio Sydney, Wed 30 Jul 2025 at 10:00pm Australia’s defence outlook and the preparedness of our nation to adequately defend itself is currently under review and worth further discussion. Not only the AUKUS deal, but also climate change, factor into our strategic calculations for the next few decades. Nightlife is…
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APSF submission to the inquiry by the UK House of Commons Defence Committee into AUKUS: An Australian perspective
The Australian Peace and Security Forum (APSF) is pleased to provide this submission on AUKUS for consideration of the UK Defence Committee.[1] An Australian perspective on AUKUS is relevant to the deliberations of the UK Defence Committee, not least because Australia is the ultimate recipient of the proposed AUKUS submarine capability. It is important that…
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CONFIRMED: AUSTRALIAN WEAPONS SOLD TO ISRAEL
With the Federal government covering for them, a Canberra-based company has supplied lethal weapons to a country accused of war crimes and genocide. by Michelle Fahy | 26 Apr, 2025 The Australian counter-drone weapons system seen at a weapons demonstration in Israel recently is actually just one of a few that were sold by the…
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Security without submarines: the military Strategy Australia should pursue instead of AUKUS
The Conversation – 21 April 2025. For more than a century, Australia has followed the same defence policy: dependence on a great power. This was first the United Kingdom and then the United States. Without properly considering other options, successive federal governments have intensified this policy with the AUKUS agreement and locked Australia into dependency…
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Does China threaten Australia’s future peace and security? Dr Vince Scappatura
APSF Webinar 18 February 2025 – transcipt Introduction The topic and question for tonight’s webinar is, Does China threaten Australia’s future peace and security? It’s an important question that has dominated Australia’s national security discourse for almost a decade now – if not longer – and I’m grateful to be given the opportunity tonight to…
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Australia-China relations: A question of trust
By Jocelyn Chey Let’s restore the trust in China that we once enjoyed. This was the key message I presented to an online forum titled Does China Threaten Australia’s Peace and Security hosted by the Australian Peace and Security Forum on 18 March. Following is a condensed version of my talk. In December 1960, the…