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It may come as a surprise to many but Australia actively sought nuclear weapons from their inception until the political climate changed in the 1970s. It eagerly participated in nuclear testing in the hopes of sharing nuclear information, and the whole reason for the purchase of the F-111 strategic bomber was that several nuclear bombs would be provided to fulfil their nuclear capability.
Thwarted in acquiring nuclear weapons through scientific co-operation, and later by direct transfer, Australia had advanced plans for the construction of a large nuclear reactor intended to produce weapons grade materials at Jervis Bay (which is under Commonwealth rather than State jurisdiction). The plan was fully costed and political influence was applied to ensure the reactor most suited to weapons production was chosen from among the rival tenders.
Australia was one of the last countries to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and ratification of the treaty was delayed until after a change of government because it would have interfered with Australia's plans to acquire nuclear weapons.
I hope to expand the nuclear section of the page to include this history. -- Dave 02:02, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
Does anybody have a source for the aparent claim in this article that the JASSM missile is nuclear capable? It appears to only have a conventional warhead and, as such, references to the RAAF's planned purchase of the weapons don't really belong in this entry. -- Nick Dowling 12:24, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
I am promoting your article to the GA level. It is hard to suggest improvements, you seem to have everything covered well.-- Konstable 13:43, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
I note someone recently removed the section on delivery systems and merged it into the nuclear section. I was the person who started the delivery systems section , and indeed the article itself. I put delivery systems in a seperate section because the systems can be used to deliver all categories of WMD, not just nuclear weapons. I suggest the person who merged the information into the nuclear section reverse the change, or consider how to incorporate delivery information into the other sections. Delivery systems are an important consideration for WMD, there is no point having weapons if they cannot be delivered to the target. Delivery systems are often put in place well before WMD are acquired, and Australia is a case in point. -- Dave 02:55, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
It is not disputed that the Australian government is purchasing JASSMs. It is further not disputed that they are capable of carrying nuclear weapons if appropriately modified. What I object strongly to is the statement that they were selected on the basis of their nuclear-delivery capability, which was supported only by one somewhat dubious reference. F/A-18's with JASSM armament have a great deal less strike range than the to-be-retired F-111. Even the F-35 JSF will struggle. Yes, you can use air-to-air refuelling, but the logistics of a strike on (for example) Indonesia with an F-35 equipped with JASSM are very difficult (you not only need a tanker close to Indonesia, but fighters to guard the tanker).
I again come back to the central point - if Australia wanted a delivery system for attacking regional targets, either we'd be retaining the F-111 or we'd be equipping the Collins-class subs with Tomahawk missiles (or developing ballistic missiles, for that matter). We're doing neither. Our long-range strike capability is going to be markedly reduced, not increased, over the next decade. That's why Labor and these guys have been squealing their heads off about the unsatisfactory nature of a JSF purchase. -- Robert Merkel 00:30, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
Even though it may be possible to swap warheads on JASSM, that's not enough to have a nuke capability. The aircraft has to be modified too. You also have to have the infrastructure to store, guard, maintain, monitor and test these special weapons. You also have to have procedures as well, military and civilian. Comms systems, protocols, aircrew qualifications etc etc etc. JASSM was purchased because we are about to loose a regional bomber type aircraft, and are trying to compensate for it. If we do intend for nuclear weapons use we would have had the infrastructure and procedures already but we do not and will not, because it's expensive, takes time to establish and is not cost effective. It's just not as simple as swapping warheads. You run the risk of being too suggestive. NiceDoggie 18:17, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
As per either a recent request at or because this article was listed as fully or partly unassessed at
Wikipedia:WikiProject Australia/Assessment I have just now completed a rating of the article and posted my results to this page. Those results are detailed above in the template box. Unfortunately, due to the volume of articles that need to be assessed, I am unable to leave detailed comments other than to make the following brief observation: article supplies sufficient depth of knowledge to be classed of mid importance
However if you have specific questions, please write to me on my talk page and as time permits I will try to provide you with my reasoning. Please put my talk page on your watchlist if you do ask such a question because in the case of these responses I will only post my answer underneath your question.
ALSO if you do not agree with the rating you can list it in the "Requesting an assessment section", and someone will take a look at it.--
VS
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10:22, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
This article has been reviewed as part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/Project quality task force in an effort to ensure all listed Good articles continue to meet the Good article criteria. In reviewing the article, I have found there are some issues that may need to be addressed.
I will check back in no less than seven days. If progress is being made and issues are being addressed, the article will remain listed as a Good article. Otherwise, it may be delisted (such a decision may be challenged through WP:GAR). If improved after it has been delisted, it may be nominated at WP:GAN. Feel free to drop a message on my talk page if you have any questions, and many thanks for all the hard work that has gone into this article thus far. Regards, Jackyd101 ( talk) 20:03, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
The internet inline citations used in this article are improperly formatted and this problem may hinder this articles GA status. Internet citations require at the very least information on the title, publisher and last access date of any webpages used. If the source is a news article then the date of publication and the author are also important. This information is useful because it allows a reader to a) rapidly identify a source's origin b) ascertain the reliability of that source and c) find other copies of the source should the website that hosts it become unavaliable for any reason. It may also in some circumstances aid in determining the existance or status of potential copyright infringments. Finally, it looks much tidier, making the article appear more professional. There are various ways in which this information can be represented in the citation, listed at length at Wikipedia:Citing sources. The simplest way of doing this is in the following format:
<ref>{{cite web|(insert URL)|title=|publisher=|work=|date=|author=|accessdate=}}</ref>
As an example:
which looks like:
If any information is unknown then simply omit it, but title, publisher and last access dates are always required. I strongly recommend that all internet inline references in this article be formatted properly as part of this article's GA review. If you have any further questions please contact me and as mentioned above, more information on this issue can be found at Wikipedia:Citing sources. Regards
Have reverted the American spelling changes recently made. This article was originally written in British/Commonwealth/Australian English and the Wikipedia convention is that an article should retain the spelling it was originally written with. For a more full discussion of this, please refer to the discussion on the Population Ageing article Talk:Population_ageing Hybrazil ( talk) 06:48, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
Possibly of interest to some active within the article. Regards, -- 李博杰 | — Talk contribs email 02:20, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
This is a tendentious article evidently written by someone with a bee in their bonnet. The referencing is unacceptable (no page numbers, often no links). For example:
Colonial Period (1788 to Federation) According to a recent article in Bulletin of the History of Medicine[2] smallpox was used as a biological weapon against aborigines around Port Jackson in 1789. As the alternative source of infection (a transmission from Sulawesi) has been dis-proven,[3] some scholars consider it may also have been used near the Wellington Valley (New South Wales) around 1828.
Criticism (1): reference [2] does NOT claim that smallpox was used as a biological weapon. In accordance with the current state of knowledge, the source of the outbreak remains a mystery, but its deliberate importation is regarded as highly unlikely, both in terms of then current understanding of the nature of smallpox, as well as with respect to the threat that an outbreak would have posed the small colony. Criticism (2): with all due respect to the author of reference [3], an amateur historian, the Sulawesi hypothesis is still very much current. The standard view of this outbreak remains that we simply don't know what happened. Incidentally, the author of [3] also concluded that it was not released by colonists as a weapon. Criticism (3): no reference is supplied for the Wellington Valley claim.
In short, this entire section should be deleted because it misrepresents the sources it cites, and adds nothing further to support the hypothesis stated as fact by the contributor.
The remainder of the article requires similar re-writing to resolve problems related to references (not given, or not given in full), relevance, and insinuation (for example, "Australia has weapons systems which could be used to deliver nuclear weapons to its neighbours, if nuclear weapons were developed" ; my emphasis). While the original contributor might be excited by the possibilities of Australian weapons of mass destruction, this article needs extensive re-writing, although scrapping it and starting again would be more advisable.
Declaration of possible interests: I am an Australian university-trained historian of science and medicine; my poltics are social democratic; I am opposed to any country, including Australia, possessing or developing any ABC weapons (atomic, biological, chemical). 124.168.22.223 ( talk) 03:18, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
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