The National Union of Students – the nation’s peak union for university students – has called on the nation’s tertiary education sector to boycott the provision of training or technology for the AUKUS submarine program.
NUS Education Officer Xavier Dupé, said the partnership increased the risk of war or nuclear environmental damage, and universities should not participate in it.
“The AUKUS deal escalates the threat of war in which students and workers will suffer,” Mr Dupe said. “The government wants universities to provide research and skilled workers for this war drive, but students have a right to education that’s for the public good, not an arms race that threatens our future.”
In March, the Albanese government formalised its support for the development of a new security partnership between Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom. It followed the cancellation by the previous Morrison government of a $90 billion French contract to build military submarines in Adelaide.
The ‘AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine pathway’ means that in partnership with the US and UK, Australia will become one of only seven countries world-wide – the United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, France, India and Australia – to operate nuclear-powered submarines.
In a joint Australia-US-UK statement, the governments claimed the “pathway” would “deliver significant long-term strategic benefits for Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States”. “It strengthens the combined industrial capacity of the three partners, with increased cooperation making trilateral supply chains more robust and resilient,” the joint statement read.
It will also cost Australia hundreds of billions of dollars: eight nuclear-powered submarines will be built in Adelaide, to begin service in the 2040s, and the Albanese government has revealed the full cost, including maintenance, will run anywhere from $268 billion to $368 billion, by 2055.”