Speech
at the opening of the Cape Leeuwin Hydro-acoustic Station
Cape Leeuwin, 15 April 2002
Opening of the Cape Leeuwin Hydro-Acoustic Station
Introduction
I warmly welcome you here today to mark the opening of an important
new station in the monitoring system of the Comprehensive Nuclear
Test Ban Treaty – the Cape Leeuwin Hydroacoustic Station.
I want to acknowledge the presence today of the Executive Secretary
of the Preparatory Commission for the CTBT, Dr Wolfgang Hoffmann. Dr Hoffmann has travelled from Vienna to be with us today.
Efforts to ban tests of nuclear weapons date back to the very birth
of nuclear weapons. But it was not until the 1990s that the opportunity
for the international community to negotiate a ban at the Conference
on Disarmament in Geneva came about.
Adoption of the Treaty by that Conference on Disarmament was blocked
at the last moment. But all was not lost – I am proud of the Australian
initiative to take the treaty to the UN General Assembly in 1996.
Because we oppose nuclear testing – as successive Australian governments
have done – we also support the CTBT. For thirty years Australia
has taken every opportunity to oppose testing and to create an international
norm prohibiting further tests.
The coalition government opposes testing not because we are idealists. We oppose testing because it is in our interests – our security interests
– and in the security interests of all nations. For without tests,
developing – and spreading – these weapons becomes much harder.
The terrible attacks on 11 September have brought home to everybody
how crucial it is that we do everything we can to stop weapons such
as these falling into the wrong hands, and underline to us just how
relevant a ban on nuclear tests is.
The CTBT was opened for signature six years ago – 165 countries have
signed since, and 90 have ratified. By any measure this is solid
support. But meeting the particular requirement that 44 named countries
must ratify for the Treaty to enter into force remains uncomfortably
distant. 13 of those 44 are still to ratify. And the US Administration
has announced that it will not reconsider ratifying the CTBT – a disappointing
move.
Despite these challenges, Australia remains committed to the CTBT. We recognise the security benefits of the test-ban. We will continue
urging other countries to sign and ratify – especially countries in
the Asia-Pacific region, and countries whose support is required for
the treaty to enter into force – including the United States. Last
year we co-sponsored a seminar on CTBT verification while the CTBT
Article Fourteen Conference was held in New York.
The CTBT may not yet have legal force – but a ban on testing nuclear
weapons has become a strong and widely accepted standard of international
behaviour. The fact of so many signatures and ratifications of the
CTBT is itself an expression of that norm. The moratorium on tests
by nuclear weapons states means that they, too, recognise the strength
of the norm. And if you recall the reaction to the tests by India
and Pakistan in 1998, then you will know that any further testing
will be deplored – virulently so – by the international community.
Indeed, the reaction to the 1998 tests highlights the security benefits
of an effective CTBT verification system and our ability to detect
nuclear tests. The International Monitoring System may be unfinished,
but it is quite capable. And we rely already on the data from IMS
stations as part of the nuclear test monitoring program that Australia
has run for many years.
So, even before we have a CTBT in force, we have a very useful tool
for building international confidence that no country is testing nuclear
explosions in secret.
Our support for the CTBT is not simply laudatory. We don’t just
state our position at international conferences or plaintively assert
the legal status of a ban on testing. Our support is real, and practical. We will host 20 monitoring stations in the International Monitoring
System, as well as a laboratory – the third largest number of any
country.
Six of our stations have been certified as meeting CTBT requirements. Seven others are operating. Data from all of them is now contributing
to the global picture that the International Monitoring System offers
each signatory country to the CTBT.
The new station I am opening today here at Cape Leeuwin is important. Not only it is one of our six certified monitoring stations. It is
also one of six hydrophone stations globally. And its position at
the South West tip of Australia allows it to monitor large areas of
the Indian, Southern and Pacific Oceans.
For all this impressive capacity, there is not much here to see! A key part of the station is 100 kilometres out to sea – and one kilometre
under the ocean’s surface. The signals come here by cable that is
either underwater, or underground, for its entire length. And the
same signals are sent directly for analysis in Vienna.
So the apparent simplicity of what we see here today belies a much
more complex, and greater, international effort of which Australia
is a leader.
I want to thank the Government of Western Australia for its consistent
support and help over the past two years, to ensure this project has
succeeded. I welcome Ms Adele Farina and other state representatives
here today.
I also want to acknowledge the outstanding work of the CTBT Preparatory
Commission which is establishing the International Monitoring System. Australia is grateful to Dr Hoffman and his staff for the work here
at Cape Leeuwin, and at 320 other IMS stations around the world.
My thanks would not be complete if I did not take a moment to recognise
a Western Australian company, Nautronix, in bringing us this new station. Nautronix is a leading player in off shore technology. And I am very
pleased they were able to contribute to the station, as I understand
they are now doing for other IMS projects.
We may need a little patience before the prize of a CTBT in force
is ours, but we have come a long way over the years toward that goal. Australia will continue to work energetically to achieve a ban on
all nuclear tests for all time through the entry in to force of the
CTBT. We will also work tirelessly to ensure that the Treaty’s verification
system, both here and overseas, is ready for that day.
I declare the Cape Leeuwin station open.
This page last modified:
Friday, 19-Jul-2002 15:57:43 EST
Local Date:
Sunday, 07-Sep-2008 17:42:53 EST
