Port Kembla could become the home of the first major military base to be built in Australia in more than 20 years, but the prospect of nuclear activity in the region has split the community.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison confirmed yesterday that a submarine base would be built on Australia's east coast as part of the AUKUS partnership with the US and the UK.
Port Kembla, Newcastle and Brisbane have been floated as possible locations for the base, but the ABC understands Wollongong is the Defence Department's preferred site.
The base is predicted to generate a net benefit to the Illawarra economy of $3.2 billion annually, according to modelling by Regional Development Australia.
It is also expected to create 7,000 direct and indirect jobs.
Liberal Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells has been advocating for the Garden Island Naval Base in Sydney to be moved to Port Kembla since 2015.
She said the area had several advantages over the other locations.
"It really is, as far as I'm concerned, the obvious choice," Ms Fierravanti-Wells said.
"We have a good manufacturing base, a good, skilled workforce, in particular, in heavy manufacturing."
'Vote-buying gimmick'
The South Coast has a long history of community opposition to nuclear projects and the identification of Port Kembla as a possible destination for nuclear assets has reignited the debate.
One of the pioneers of the Australian anti-nuclear movement, Helen Caldicott, has spent decades raising awareness of the nuclear threat and won the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize for her work.
The Berry resident believed the base would pose an unmanageable risk to the area.
"Huge amounts of money being spent, nuclear activity at Port Kembla, which is always dangerous, and making it a target in the event of war, like Pine Gap," Dr Caldicott said.
"It is just a vote-buying gimmick, obviously, when the Prime Minister should be spending that sort of money on the people in Lismore, many of whom have lost their houses.
The Labor Party supports the AUKUS partnership, but its candidate in the Wollongong-based seat of Cunningham, Alison Byrnes, has criticised the government's secrecy around the plan.
"It has been really disrespectful for our community — they deserve to have all the details," she said.
"The Prime Minister is using national security for his own job security, which suits his political timeline and not national security priorities."
Nuclear-free zone
Wollongong council has been a nuclear-free zone since 1980 and in 2019 the council adopted the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
But Lord Mayor Gordon Bradbery said that was a largely symbolic gesture.
"It is only a moral stance, in as much as we don't have the power to enforce it, and at any time the state or federal government can overrule decisions made by council," he said.
But Cr Bradbury said the government would have its work cut out if it wanted to change the public perception of nuclear projects.
"I think we are going to find quite a sizeable proportion of our community are going to be against the prospect of a nuclear submarine base located at Port Kembla," he said.
"The opportunities that could come our way also need to be taken into consideration — the massive expenditure, the increase in population, as well as the need to establish a naval base with the housing."
