Letter to PM and Deputy regarding missile factory in the Hunter

1st June 2025

The Hon Anthony Albanese MP                   

The Hon Richard Marles MP

Parliament House, House of Representatives,  PO Box 6022 Canberra, ACT 2600

Dear Prime Minister, and  Minister Marles,

RE:  WORK BEGINS ON HUNTER’S MISSILE PLANT

The members of Hunter Peace Group were extremely deflated and saddened to read in our local newspaper that work has begun on Hunter’s Missile Plant.    

Since the AUKUS Pact was first announced by ex-Prime Minister Morrison, a secret deal that sadly has remained pretty much the same since ALP won power federally, Hunter Peace Group has advocated strongly against the pact and all that it is bringing with it to make Australia a nation with a very aggressive, offensive defence policy, rather than a  nation with a stand-alone defensive defence policy that protects our shores our airspace and your people without the foreign militarisation build-up that Australia has entered into since the US Marines were first given sanction to set up camp near Darwin.

We have listened to all the reasons the government has given about why it is so important to take this road.   We have listened to the rhetoric about how China is a threat and we must protect ourselves from them and protect our neighbours. The neighbours that knew nothing about the fact that Australia was to become a nation with nuclear powered submarines, open up some ports to foreign nuclear-ready submarines from the United Kingdom and the United States (and no doubt more), and expand the military footprint of the USA within our country to  its current extent, with  more to come.

We are all listening to the now familiar hype the USA expounds when wanting to go to war with another country – how they accuse such countries of all kinds of bad intentions and questionable happenings until they get an opening to start a war with them, drawing in “allies” along the way.   

Have they actually been successful with any of these wars?; but they have caused a dynamic amount of suffering to the country and its  civilians  and  infrastructure, and their own, and their allies,  armed forces personnel - many of whom are still suffering the consequences either mentally or physically, or both today.

So no wonder members of Hunter Peace Group members are deflated and saddened, because here we are again reading about another armaments industry being opened up (worse for us as it is within our region, with a caption stating “The Norwegian company hopes to help the Hunter as its industrial base transitions away from coal and energy production”   Missiles are better?  Missiles are safer?  Missiles don’t harm the environment?

To help transition an industry making solar panels, windmills for our offshore windfarms, An industry making demountable housing within a factory so a house can be erected in a short period of time (as is very prevalent in Europe).  We could build buses, trains, peaceful products and the list is long, but no,  it looks like another term of Australia becoming a country that will excel in manufacturing warmongering products.   

There is a growing movement within Australia that want to see the end of AUKUS, the end of the USA footprint in Australia , the closure of Pine Gap and our Government create a defence and foreign policy that holds out the hand of peace and friendship to our neighbours and builds strong trading between nations that is not based on militaristic goods.   Hunter Peace Group supports this movement and call on the Government to walk this road.

Yours in peace and friendship,

Lynda Forbes                                                                                                                                                   

Secretary Hunter Peace Group 

Cc to Minister for Defence Industries The Hon Pat Conroy;                                                                           

Federal Member for Newcastle Sharon Claydon MP.