Australia and Weapons of Mass Destruction - Biological Weapons

Biological Weapons

Australia has advanced research programs in immunology, microbiology and genetic engineering that support an industry providing world class vaccines for domestic use and export. It also has an extensive wine industry and produces microorganisms on an industrial scale to support other industries including agriculture, food technology and brewing. The dual use nature of these facilities mean that Australia, like any country with advanced biotechnological industries, could easily produce biological warfare agents. Some disease research laboratories in Australia currently own strains of the Ebola virus.

The Australian Microbial Resources Research Network lists 37 culture collections, many of which hold samples of pathogenic organisms for legitimate research purposes. In the wake of the Japanese advance through South East Asia during World War II, the secretary of the Australian Department of Defence, F.G. Shedden, wrote to Macfarlane Burnet on 24 December 1946 and invited him to attend a meeting of top military officers to discuss biological warfare.

In September 1947, Burnet was invited to join the chemical and biological warfare subcommittee of the New Weapons and Equipment Development Committee and subsequently prepared a secret report titled "Note on War from a Biological Angle". In 1951 the subcommittee recommended that "a panel reporting to the chemical and biological warfare subcommittee should be authorised to report on the offensive potentiality of biological agents likely to be effective against the local food supplies of South-East Asia and Indonesia".

The activities of the chemical and biological warfare subcommittee were scaled back soon after, as Prime Minister Robert Menzies was more interested in trying to acquire nuclear weapons. Australia signed the Biological Weapons Convention on 10 April 1972 and deposited a certificate of ratification on 5 October 1977.