The federal government has spent years hiding the true cost of the AUKUS pact from the Australian public, pursuing plans behind closed doors while dodging questions about exactly where they plan to park submarines fuelled with highly enriched uranium.
Now, the veil of secrecy has finally cracked.
Thanks to pressure from Greens NSW MLC Abigail Boyd, the NSW Cabinet Office and Premier’s Department have been forced to table highly restricted documents from 2022–2023. These papers reveal exactly what state and federal bureaucrats have known all along but would not admit publicly:
- Port Kembla is the prime target for an east coast nuclear submarine base, and if it goes ahead, there will be massive consequences for our local community.
- People will be evicted from their homes to make way for the base.
- A base would make Port Kembla a target for foreign adversaries.
- There is a real risk of nuclear accidents.
- In the event of a nuclear accident, an evacuation zone would extend at least 1.4km from the site, including most Port Kembla homes.
- Those who remain within 15km of the base could be offered a one-off payout to convince them to accept the base, suggested at $8,125 per household.
- The community and public services would be swamped by thousands of military personnel.
- The government was planning to announce a site at the end of 2023, for a base to be fully operational from 2040.
While the government has gone quiet for the last couple of years, neither state nor federal politicians will rule out Port Kembla.
While a lot of content in these secret documents has been redacted, read on for some of our key takeaways.
Calculating the sacrifice of Port Kembla
The documents weigh up the destruction of our community against global war games. The NSW Government crunched the numbers on our lives, and the result is insulting.
The secret Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) spans a 50-year period (2024–2073), with base construction projected to run until 2050. The "best-case scenario" cooked up by the government, Scenario 1, which jams both the nuclear submarine base and a surface fleet into Port Kembla while diverting all container freight to Newcastle, boasts a net present value of just $424 million over 50 years.
Over half a century, that is absolute peanuts. It doesn't even cover a fraction of the hidden costs. The analysis explicitly admits that it does not consider:
- The billions needed for additional state-owned major road and rail infrastructure to support diverted freight.
- Compensation to the current port operator.
- The cost of relocation for residents evicted from their homes.
- The economic costs to local businesses and workers displaced by the military takeover.
Worse still, the documents show that from 2054 onwards, the base creates more economic costs than benefits. The profits and wages dry up, but the heavy toll on local households remains permanently high.
The documents say “The relocation of NSW residents represents a net cost, which may be borne by the resident or by NSW Government through financial compensation. Displaced NSW residents may also result in frictional unemployment, which will involve lost wages and may also involve additional re-training costs.” No detail is given regarding what areas, or how many households would be evicted to make way for the base.
Local residents will be forced to make way for thousands of military personnel. Investment NSW documents state “The establishment of a base will be catalytic for the selected region - There is an estimate of four thousand defence personnel that will serve on the base.”
Evacuation Zones and Nuclear Disasters
For years, WAWAN has been called alarmist for raising a red flag about nuclear safety. Yet, the government’s internal Draft Stakeholder Engagement Plan reveals a nuclear accident is a real and serious concern.
In the event of a nuclear incident involving the submarines' highly enriched uranium reactors, the plans mandate two zones requiring evacuation within 1.4km downwind of an accident. Depending on the direction of the wind and where the accident occurs, the evacuation zone could encompass most residential streets in Port Kembla.
The bureaucrats openly acknowledge that Wollongong residents have a massive "Willingness-to-Accept" (WTA) hurdle. Why? Because the report states plainly that "residents are likely to perceive the East Coast Naval Base as a source of risk due to there being nuclear reactors on board the submarines and the military base being a potential military target." Using post-Fukushima data from the UK, the government estimates that property values within 15km of the nuclear base will plummet by at least 2.5%. To try and buy social license, the plan suggests a one-off compensation payout of $8,125 per household, cold comfort for local residents faced with a massive military zone on their doorstep.
A Priority Military Target
Perhaps the most chilling admission in the entire cache of documents is the explicit acknowledgement of the existential threat this base poses to the Illawarra. The papers state in black and white:
"In the event of a military conflict the [East Coast Navy Base] could be a target for Australian military adversaries... residents in proximity will perceive the ECNB as a risk to their community's health and the local environment."
They know that putting a base here draws a massive nuclear bullseye over Wollongong. They know it turns our port and homes into a priority strike zone for foreign adversaries.
Not here, not anywhere
While local MP Paul Scully and the NSW Labor Government publicly claim that "no work is being undertaken" on this matter, these secret documents prove that blueprints have already been drawn up to sacrifice the Illawarra for the AUKUS war machine.
Until Port Kembla is ruled out, it remains on the table.
We refuse to let Port Kembla be militarized and placed under a permanent nuclear shadow. Abigail Boyd’s revelations have given us the smoking gun. The politicians know the massive consequences and the risks, and they know the danger they are exposing us to.
It is time to escalate our resistance to an AUKUS nuclear submarine base in Port Kembla and anywhere on the east coast. We don’t need it and we don’t want it. Let’s continue building a peace movement that makes an east coast nuclear submarine base impossible.
