Australia and the South Pacific nuclear free zone treaty: a reinterpretation

Abstract

A number of analysts have identified the 1986 South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone (SPNFZ) Treaty as one of Australia's major achievements in the area of arms control diplomacy. This article challenges the orthodox view in the secondary literature that Australia's pursuit of a SPNFZ Treaty was motivated exclusively by a desire to protect the nuclear dimension of its alliance relationship with the United States from more ‘radical’ proposals in the region. Drawing on previously unreleased documents made available to the author by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade under the Commonwealth's Freedom of Information Act, this article argues that the Hawke government's pursuit of a nuclear‐free zone in the South Pacific was motivated primarily by what it perceived as an opportunity to promote Australia's image as an activist middle power committed to bolstering the coherence of the global non‐proliferation regime.

Notes

For example, Mogami (1988, 419) claims that the Hawke government's SPNFZ policy activity simply ‘aimed to pre‐empt anti‐nuclearism in the South Pacific and … to reconcile it with American (‐Australian) interests’. Bolt (1990, 54) argues along similar lines that the Hawke government ‘watered down the SPNFZ Treaty to accommodate the United States' insistence on its right to send nuclear‐armed and powered warships through the zone’. And McDougall (1998, 227) has observed that Australia's SPNFZ activity was motivated by an endeavour to ‘forestall proposals from the Lange Labour government in New Zealand, which was more radical on nuclear issues’.

At the 1976 SPF meeting, Australia and New Zealand—both under newly installed conservative governments—successfully blocked the adoption in the Forum communique of a draft declaration by Fiji that would have committed Forum members to a SPNFZ. See DFA (1976, 158–9).

Unless specified otherwise, government documents in this article have been released to the author by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade under the Special Access provisions of the Commonwealth Freedom of Information Act.

See the answer provided the government leader in the Senate, Senator John Button, to a question‐without‐notice in Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates (Senate) 7 September 1983, 403–4.

This is despite the final report of the Working Group phase being made public; see Sadleir (1985). There were five Working Group meetings in total: 13–16 November 1984 in Suva; 29 January–1 February 1985 in Canberra; 3–10 April 1985 in Wellington; 13–21 May 1985 in Suva; and 10–13 June 1985 in Suva.

For a useful background to the nuclear policies of the various South Pacific Island states, see Ogashiwa (1991, 35–62).

In a submission to New Zealand Prime Minister David Lange (passed to Australian representatives in Wellington), the head of New Zealand's delegation to the second Working Group meeting noted that ‘[t]he next [Working Group] meeting will be critical in clarifying whether political leaders in Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and Nauru … are prepared to reaffirm the Tuvalu mandate. There is, we think, a good prospect that this will occur and that continuing gentle persuasion from New Zealand and Australia will produce a consensus draft for the Rarotonga Forum in August’ (emphasis added). See DFA (1985a, 3).

After the third Working Group meeting, the Deputy Secretary of the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Chris Beeby, informed Australian representatives in Wellington that a senior member of PNG's delegation had been ‘persuaded’ not to pursue ‘several subjects which he knew would be unacceptable to Australia and New Zealand’. See DFA (1985d, 2).

In mid‐ to late 1985, the New Zealand Labour government was in the process of preparing draft legislation aimed at enshrining its anti‐nuclear policy in law. The New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament and Arms Control Bill was introduced to the House of Representatives on 10 December 1985. For one of the more thoughtful discussions on the sources of New Zealand's anti‐nuclear initiative, see Huntley (1996).

This was despite successful Australian resistance to suggestions during the Working Group negotiations that the SPNFZ Treaty incorporate the Federated States of Micronesia (which did not attain their formal independence from the United States until 1986).

The South Pacific Forum adopted three separate Protocols at its 1986 meeting: Protocol I invited Britain, France and the United States to abide by the non‐proliferation provisions of the Treaty in regional territories under their control; Protocol II invited all five nuclear powers to undertake ‘not to use or threaten to use’ nuclear weapons against Treaty members; and Protocol III invited the nuclear powers to undertake not to test nuclear weapons within the geographical radius of the SPNFZ.

It should be noted that despite Washington's refusal to support the Rarotonga Treaty Protocols, the Reagan administration indicated that it would not act in the South Pacific in ways that were inconsistent with the aims of the Treaty.

The United States, United Kingdom and France eventually signed the Rarotonga Treaty Protocols in March 1996 following the cessation of France's nuclear testing program in the South Pacific.

In his Vladivostok address, Gorbachev flagged increased Soviet engagement in the diplomatic, economic and strategic architecture of the Asia‐Pacific.

In 1978 the USSR stated that it would not use nuclear weapons against non‐nuclear states that had entered into formal non‐proliferation commitments and who did not station nuclear weapons on their national territory.

In a cable to Hayden in late November, his department noted bluntly that the Soviet Protocol statement ‘carries a suggestion of a threat to use nuclear weapons against Australia unless it … disrupts its alliance [with the United States]. This could be described as nuclear blackmail’ (DFAT 1987i, 1–2).

Andrew O'Neil is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Political and International Studies at Flinders University. His research interests include Asia‐Pacific regional security and Australian foreign and defence policy. The author thanks this journal's anonymous referees for useful comments. He also acknowledges the assistance provided by the Historical Documents Unit of Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in processing his request for access to archival material cited in the article. The usual caveats apply.