Just asking...

Why? who against?
NZ series makers comes to mind.

Unless it is an urban myth we already have it.
Victors write the history of war, we may not always be on the winning side.
But do we want to be an overnight defeated country, truly?
The deterrent factor alone is enough for me to say yes if we do not already have it get it.
And yes get nuclear power too.
While those opposed to both may feel warm and compfy about their idea of what is good for the planet surely the simple truth, others do not share that concern is enough to consider joining me in wanting to protect what we have, an in regard to power truly cut green house gas

Didn't Australia sell iron which was made into guns for use against us?.

Now we sell uranium for enemies to make bombs against us when we do not even have A bombs or H bombs of our own.

What?.
They have agreed not to make bombs from our uranium?.
That's OK then.

Any one who thinks some of our near northern neighbours won't get the bomb, & sometime soon, is a fool. Don't think being nice to them will help, in future. Many Ozies died, keeping the commies out of Malaya. Fat lot of thanks we got there.

Next time our blokes have to fight, it would be nice, if we gave them some chance of winning. It would be nice if we did not repeat the sending Wirraways against Zeros, in Rabaul, & Darwin.

We send them to fight with vehivles that would be unsafe at a Hong Kong cracker night, & sob when they are hurt.

Our blokes are very good, but we need a proper deterrent, because we could never hope to defend ourselves with the numbers we have in uniform.

The MAD strategy [mutually assured destruction] kept us all safe, through the cold war. A small version of that will be needed to keep us out of trouble, as the US slides into history.

Examinator,

For now Australia does not need a nuclear deterrent. Our land is, as the saying goes, girt by sea. The only country with the logistic capability to invade us is the US and, hysterical anti-Americanism notwithstanding, that is a very unlikely scenario.

The future, however, is an unknown country. Our biggest and most troubling neighbour is Indonesia. At the moment they have neither the capability not the inclination to pose a military threat. However,

--They are ten times our size.

--Their economic power is growing rapidly. In the foreseeable future they will be able to afford a potent military.

--In Sukarno's day they did have designs upon Australia. Fortunately Sukarno turned out to be a blowhard

--The Indonesian brand of Islam is relatively gentle but that could change.

If there is going to be a threat it is most likely to emanate from Indonesia – especially if, as I suspect, the era of Pax Americana is drawing to a close.

And that brings me to the Lucas Heights reactor. Economically it never made sense. The only rationale for its existence must be to keep in being a corps of scientists which would provide the nucleus (pardon the pun) of a weapons program should the need arise.

I suspect that is also why the Howard Government wanted to embark upon an uranium enrichment program and why the Rudd Government should reconsider its position on this.

I would day the correct nuclear posture is this:

Australia must have the capability to deploy a nuclear deterrent faster than any threat requiring such a deterrent can develop.

Since I would imagine any threat requiring a nuclear deterrent is AT LEAST 10 years away we could probably do it if things looked like going badly wrong.

Japan does not have nukes but it is an open secret that it is a virtual nuclear power. It could deploy nukes in less than a year. I think we're headed in that direction if American power wanes.