Port Kembla named preferred Australian base for nuclear submarines, sparking union alarm

A labour union has expressed alarm about newly released documents that reveal Port Kembla to be a preferred Australian base for nuclear-powered submarines, saying it would “place a massive target on our backs”.

The South Coast Labour Council has warned federal and state politicians of “political fallout” should they proceed with “surrendering Port Kembla to Trump’s Navy” as an Aukus base.

Documents prepared by the former New South Wales Liberal government and tabled in state parliament on Friday named Port Kembla – 75km south of Sydney – as the preferred east coast base for Australia’s proposed nuclear submarine base. The documents warned it could make the area “a target for Australian military adversaries”.

The secretary of the SCLC, Arthur Rorris, said: “The secret report also tells the government that what they really need to worry about is the political fallout. They got that right.”

Rorris said there were schools within walking distance of the proposed base and the project would have significant effects on health services, roads and house prices.

“The admission by the government’s own reports that our transport, health, security, industrial land capacity and housing will all suffer tells you why the government kept it secret from our people,” he said.

The outcry comes as Australia’s Aukus spending blows out and US submarine building falls years further behind, fuelling concerns that the Virginia-class nuclear submarines Australia is depending on the US to deliver to kickstart its nuclear fleet will not materialise under Australian command.

Rorris said it was becoming clearer that there would be no Australian nuclear submarines and Port Kembla would be “a base for US subs that we are paying for”.

In March 2022 the then Coalition government announced that it intended to build an east coast submarine base to station the new nuclear-powered submarines promised as part of the Aukus agreement. Port Kembla was shortlisted as a potential base, alongside Brisbane and Newcastle.

After the Albanese government’s 2023 defence strategic review, Labor said a decision on an east coast base would be made towards the end of the decade.

The Labor Against War national convener, Marcus Strom, said the group unequivocally opposed the “creation of a US nuclear base on the east coast of Australia” and promised to work with the communities of the Illawarra region to take a stand against any proposal or project.

Strom said the group would take its opposition to Aukus and any proposal for a Port Kembla base to the NSW state conference and the national ALP conference.

“We’ve been saying the whole time that Aukus doesn’t make us safer, it makes us an active participant in US war planning and that will just make us a target,” Strom said.

He called on the NSW government to “reassure the people of the Illawara” and “rule out a base at Port Kembla”.

Many Port Kembla residents have expressed opposition to the proposed base. In September more than 40 organisations signed the Port Kem Declaration, insisting that their community should not be the site of a nuclear submarine base. In 2023 4,000 residents marched from Wollongong to Port Kembla to protest against an Aukus base.