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Australia is working to shore up its own nuclear-powered submarine production pipeline to ensure the nation’s security needs are met for decades to come.
The Commonwealth will hand over defense land to South Australia to enable the Osborne shipyard to become the fourth production line for nuclear-powered submarines, alongside those of the US and the UK.
The federal government will also support an additional 800 university places in South Australia for engineers and scientists.
The first 200 places will start in 2024.
A training academy will also be established in Osborne to provide apprentices and professional training.
A possible exchange of defending and leased land north of Adelaide in Cultana has also been noted.
It comes a day after the Australian, US and UK governments announced a path to procure eight nuclear-powered submarines over the next three decades.
Defense Minister Richard Marles said the massive effort has been demanded by Washington and London to ease the strain on nuclear submarine production lines, with both nations currently at full capacity.
“Developing this capability for our nation will make our nation more secure. Building this capability for Australia will make us taken more seriously around the world,” she said.
“We have to take the step of developing the ability to operate a nuclear-powered submarine so that we can deliver a much more self-sufficient nation to our children and grandchildren.”
South Australia Prime Minister Peter Malinauskas says the state is ready to do whatever it takes to meet the nation’s security needs.
“The Commonwealth sees in South Australia the ability to build the most complex machines ever produced in human history.”
But the plan to dispose of nuclear waste from submarines in the future is already becoming a point of contention.
The Australian Conservation Foundation said the government had been silent on how the nuclear material that feeds submarines would eventually be disposed of.
The foundation’s nuclear analyst, Dave Sweeney, said Australia did not have the experience and expertise to manage high-level radioactive waste.
“AUKUS presents by far the biggest threat yet of Australia becoming a dumping ground for the world’s worst nuclear waste,” he said.
Marles said the underwater debris would be disposed of on defense grounds and Australia had time to ensure the process was done correctly.
A plan outlining how the waste will be managed will be published this year.
“The first of the reactors that we will have to scrap will be in the mid-2050s, so we have time to prepare for this,” Marles said.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced the details of the deal on Tuesday along with his counterparts US President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
Under the up to $368 billion deal, part of the AUKUS security deal, Australia will command a fleet of eight nuclear-powered submarines over the next three decades.
China issued a warning that nuclear submarines were putting AUKUS on a “path of error and danger” that ignored the concerns of the international community.
Opposition defense spokesman Andrew Hastie responded to the Chinese comments, describing them as hypocritical.
“After all, China is undergoing the largest peacetime military expansion since World War II, so it’s a bit ironic that we’re being lectured about a modest increase in our military power in connection with this,” he told ABC Radio.
“We certainly don’t want to create any problems with China, we just want to make sure that we’ll be able to hold our own in the future.”
–PAA
