Dr. Green,
I have read your papers. It is no secret that there are nuclear armed weapon states. There are other states that are capable of acquiring nuclear weapons. All this is in the public domain. Details of the weaponry, rules for their deployment, the motivation for states to acquire weapons etc can only be guessed.
I differ from you viewpoint in the following matters.

1. A civil nuclear program is not a necessary prerequisite for a military program.
2. A civil program is not necessarily a façade to cover a weapons program.
3. The design of a weapon, especially the gun type seems simple enough. In reality much information is not available to the public. The resources in terms of money, engineering skills, physics and chemical know how are rare. For this reason I suspect other states have not gone down the nuclear path. In case of Libya and South Africa abandoned the path.
4. Delivery systems too require technical sophistication and are not cheap.
5. A weapons maintenance system is again expensive and difficult to organise. Neutron triggers require maintenance, for instance in the case of the bombardment of Be-9 with alpha particles from Po-238. Po-238 has a half life of 138.4days.
6. The nuclear proliferation treaty, IAEA safeguards and so on may not be perfect. This does not mean that they are valueless.
7. Do you really think the governments of say Iran, North Korea, and so, are going to be influenced by FOE, Greenpeace.
8. Do you really believe feel good anti-nuclear marches in capital cities influence government?
9. The benefits of nuclear technology and its applications in medicine, industry, research are clear and overwhelming.
10. The economics of both mining uranium and a nuclear generation industry are currently under expert consideration from a government panel chaired by Dr. Dr. Switkowski. We wait the report with interest.
11. Should Australia acquire nuclear weapons? This is a matter which can only de decided by the government of the day. Any decision may not be made public for decades.

anti-green
You said:
>“Do you really believe feel good anti-nuclear marches in capital cities influence government?”

Marches are undertaken by people who want to be heard. They march to gain public awareness, and they do. Demonstrators do not agree with government actions. They are not prepared to sit by and do nothing. For every person who is prepared to get up and march, there are 10 more who would, if they could. There are many who are also angry but too busy with their day to day lives to participate in such demonstrations. There are many more who are just not ready to take to the streets, actually, taking to the streets is quite a “radical” thing to do for Mr and Mrs Average Joe.

Our “honourable representatives” should be hourable enough to actually REPRESENT the wishes of their people. That is why our Governments are elected you know, so that our money is spent in the way that we choose.

Our elected representatives are elected to represent “US”, the PEOPLE – and NOT the wishes of the government of the U.S., or the shareholders and executives of Rio Tinto?

Your words attempt to undermine people who take action for what they believe in, when in fact, you reason that marching for adequate, honest and fair representation is only conducted for the sake of the individual’s ego.

then you say:
>"Should Australia acquire nuclear weapons? This is a matter which can only be decided by the government of the day. Any decision may not be made public for decades."

The “Government of the day” must represent the wishes of the people who put them into their positions of power. EVERY decision made by a representative of the people should be OPEN and PUBLIC! Not conducted behind closed doors, with golden handshakes utilising the money of the PEOPLE.

Bring on the elections, I’ve certainly had enough of this arrogance!

Austalian physicists were involved at Los Almos and in fact headed the British team. When the US refused to help the UK develop nuclear weapons, owing to the UK's pre-emptive actions in the Suez Crisis, the Brits came to us for help.

Under "Black Knight" nuclear weapons were co-operatively developed. Australia at that time was not keen to have a visible stockpile. The silos would have been targets. We probably did not and do not have nukes. Jervis Bay might have once been a past site for the storing of weapons grade material... who nows?

Hand-in-hand with "Black Knight" was "Blue Streak". If memory serves, ex US Mercury-Redstones were modified and two stages added to allow medium to long distance delivery. What North Korean is doing now the US was doing in 1958 and we were doing in 1967.

Also, with regard to Lucus Heights, be aware that powerful isotopes (e.g., Cobolt 60) are currently developed for military purposes.

Above is public domain. Can't say more.

Australia has shown itself responsible and can handle adding value via enrichment. It would be a good industry.

The US is on the record in saying Australia and Canada are exceptions to its nuclear containment policies.

We can have a BOOM without a BANG.

The Prime Minister is starting to sound like a generic,he has lost the plot,and the opinion of this writer is get out of politics,ask your wife to buy you some knitting needles,and some wool

GOOD NEWS

As you would have heard (Jihad) Jack Thomas (JJ) has been put under a control order.

Thomas has been told to return to Melbourne from eastern Victoria, where he was on holiday with his family, and remain in his home under curfew between MIDNIGHT and 5am.

Under the Anti Terrorism Act, control orders can be used where they “substantially assist in preventing a terrorist act or where a person has trained with a terrorist organisation” [JJ has admitted he's trained with Taliban where he met bin Laden!?!].

The orders must be issued by a court – in Thomas’ case it was the Federal Magistrate’s Court. A spokesman of the Court said the Court issued the interim control order order after the AFP was able to satisfy the court it was necessary.

A confirmed control order can last for up to 12 months. The penalty for breaching a control order is up to five years in jail. http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,20275891-2,00.html?from=public_rss

This might reduce the substantial security resources necessary to keep tabs on JJ. These resources would be better used against homegrown terrorists (or al Qaeda sympathisers) who are probably idealising JJ's "religious good boy stand".

aka Spooky Pete
http://spyingbadthings.blogspot.com

TOXIC NUCLEAR WASTE

Another destructive legacy for our children?
As if they won't have enough to contend to.
Even if nuclear development starts today, its is unlikely to absorb the effects of a collaspe of the oil industry.

We live in interesting times.