South Australia's premier has hit back at suggestions from Labor counterparts that his state should take nuclear waste from the future AUKUS fleet, saying the decision on where the waste goes should be based on the "nation's interests".
Peter Malinauskas is currently visiting the United Kingdom, where he has met with Defence Procurement Minister Alex Chalk and toured BAE Systems' facilities in Barrow-in-Furness, where Australia's first SSN-AUKUS nuclear submarine will be built.
Divisions within Labor ranks over AUKUS — including over its $368 billion cost, and its strategic aims and consequences — have become increasingly apparent since Paul Keating's blistering attack on what he described as the "worst international decision" by a Labor government since conscription.
While Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday rebuked Mr Keating, Labor premiers have since voiced opposition to accepting nuclear waste from the AUKUS subs in their states.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said yesterday it was not "unreasonable" to suggest that, since South Australia is gaining jobs, it should also accept the spent fuel rods when the submarines reach the end of their service.
"I think the waste can go where all the jobs are going," he said.
West Australian Premier Mark McGowan voiced similar sentiment, suggesting South Australia take on a nuclear waste facility.
But while Mr Malinauskas said that the possibility of SA taking waste could not be ruled out, he rejected Mr Andrews's claim that SA had a responsibility to take the waste because it was taking the jobs.
"No, because that implies that somehow that this isn't a national endeavour," he said.
"What should inform the decision about where the nuclear waste goes isn't some domestic political tit-for-tat or some state-based parochialism.
"We are building submarines in South Australia because we are the best place in the nation to do this. What should inform where the nuclear waste goes is where it is in the nation's interests to put it."
Mr Malinauskas reiterated that the waste would end up being stored on defence land, "and there is defence land scattered throughout the commonwealth, throughout the nation".
"This decision of the federal government needs to be done in a thoughtful, considered way and … the test that should be applied to where the nuclear waste is stored in Australia should be where is the safest place," he said.
Challenges extend 'beyond our civilisation'
On ABC Radio Adelaide this morning, Mr Malinauskas was pressed further about Mr Andrews's comment and asked whether he had a point, to which Mr Malinauskas replied: "No, no he doesn't."
"The problem with Mr Andrews's remarks is simply the assumption that somehow this program is about South Australia," Mr Malinauskas told hosts Stacey Lee and Nikolai Beilharz.
"It is true that South Australians will be doing the lion's share of the work but that's because no-one else in the nation can … [and] it's important for Mr Andrews, and everybody else in the country for that matter, to remember why we're building these submarines.
"The reason why we're building these submarines is in the interests of our national security."
Conservation Council of SA chief executive Craig Wilkins said discussion of a "short-term political stoush between state premiers" overlooked the major challenges involved in storing nuclear waste.
"We're talking about waste that needs to be kept safe from humans for tens of thousands of years, basically beyond our civilisation, so this needs to be an incredibly well-considered decision," he said.
"[There] needs to be a multi-billion-dollar project to house the waste."
Mr Wilkins told ABC Radio Adelaide that the proposed Kimba nuclear waste dump no longer made sense, and that any future site to store submarine reactor spent fuel should also accept waste that would have gone to Kimba.
"The proposed Kimba nuclear waste dump must now be dead in the water," he said.
Subs not a 'one-way street', UK minister says
Australia's first SSN-AUKUS submarine will be constructed in Barrow-in-Furness, with the first Australian-made model constructed at Osborne, near Port Adelaide, expected to be delivered to the Royal Australian Navy by the early 2040s.
Mr Malinauskas overnight met with apprentices at a BAE Systems site in the UK, and said he was keen for South Australia to "replicate a facility like this one".
"We know that we're going to have to embed workers from South Australia right here in Barrow as well as in the US to try and transfer some of that knowledge, but we also know that in a purpose-built facility like this one that there are key pieces of sharing of intelligence that can be passed on," Mr Malinasukas said.
"We can take all of the learnings that occur here in Barrow on that first of type and seek to apply that back home."
One of those "learnings", Mr Malinauskas said, was the need for a submarine-specific, rather than a general shipbuilding, skills base.
"You cannot assume that people who have got a naval shipbuilding background, that is building surface ships, that their skills will automatically be able to be applied on a submarine-building program," he said.
"The two aren't necessarily as compatible as what you might immediately assume."
The British defence procurement minister said development and construction would not be a "one-way street".
"We recognise there's a huge amount of expertise in South Australia which we will benefit from here," Mr Chalk said.
"Being more than the sum of our parts is ensuring that we have a combined industrial base, a combined supply chain — that's what creates the resilience, that allows us to develop our submarines, you to develop your submarines."
