AUSTRALIA will have nuclear subs, but will Newcastle?
It's a difficult question to answer based on the information made publicly available so far. What we know is that at least $268 billion is earmarked over the next three decades for the AUKUS plan, delivering a fleet of eight nuclear-powered submarines until an SSN AUKUS-class hybrid vessel enters service in roughly 2043. We also know that Newcastle made it onto a shortlist to base them here alongside Port Kembla and Brisbane.
What we don't know definitively is which of those places has pulled ahead, although there are reports Port Kembla has firmed as favourite. If defence requires forward planning decades into the future for purchasing, surely where we will put such valuable pieces of hardware is an equally pressing question. These are not cars that can be garaged easily or anywhere, as the scale of Williamtown's RAAF base can attest.
Shipyard upgrades to build the vessels, work that will take place in areas including Adelaide and Western Australia, are due to begin later this year. That is understandably more pressing than declaring where the vessels will stay, but there has been little public indication that question has been fully broached since then prime minister Scott Morrison's announcement last March that Newcastle was in the running.
Former senator Rex Patrick is clear that "some things need to be operationally secret but the location of a submarine base is not one of them". Given that, the clear question is one of clarity. Mr Patrick notes that the Chinese stake in the Port of Newcastle lease would be a problem, so when is that to be rectified if the decision on where the base will be located is not made soon?
That is not to mention the blow ongoing uncertainty could deal to the port's prospects of delivering a container terminal now that state legislative hurdles fall.
The region has already dealt with a scrapped container terminal that could have underpinned significant development. What the government does ripples out, or doesn't if there is no discernible direction.
Perhaps Newcastle is already out of the running for the proposed East Coast submarine base, a prospect Hunter opponents of nuclear in Australia would relish. Perhaps Williamtown's considerable presence combined with submarines would make this city too tempting a target. If that is the case, where is the danger in knowing that?
