Unions and business groups in Wollongong have rejected the prospect of Port Kembla becoming the east coast base for Australia’s nuclear submarines, warning it could displace offshore wind and container terminal jobs.
While the Albanese government insists that no decision has been made on the base, local people have responded angrily to the $368bn 30-year Aukus submarine plan because of reports that Port Kembla is the site most likely for the east coast base.
In March 2022, the former prime minister Scott Morrison announced it as one of three potential options for a new naval facility, along with Brisbane and Newcastle.
Mick Cross, the secretary of the southern New South Wales branch of the Maritime Union of Australia, said the alternative plans for the Port Kembla outer harbour were as a base to develop offshore windfarms and a smaller overflow terminal for containers, instead of Port Botany.
“The government has a choice, we don’t see how they could have one of the biggest investments in offshore wind in the world, $43bn, as well as an east coast base,” he told Guardian Australia, citing comments by the NSW Ports boss, Marika Calfas.
“We don’t want that jeopardised by a quick, ill-thought-out decision to put a nuclear submarine base here.
“I challenge anyone to tell me there are more jobs in a nuclear sub base than offshore wind.”
The South Coast Labour Council secretary, Arthur Rorris, told reporters on Tuesday the base amounted to a “a nuclear submarine parking lot, not a shipbuilding base”, which would put “a nuclear target on our backs”.
Greg Rodgers, the president of the Port Kembla chamber of commerce, stood beside Rorris agreeing that the majority of jobs from Aukus would go to South Australia and Perth, so it would be preferable for Port Kembla to take “the overflow from Port Botany”.
NSW Ports said in a statement that it had “not been provided with any information” about an east coast base, but said any defence proposal must not “adversely impact commercial port operations or constrain port growth”.
The Labor MP for Cunningham, Alison Byrnes, told Guardian Australia that the decision would be informed by the defence strategic review, out next month, and no decision had been taken yet.
Byrnes promised to hold a “community leaders’ briefing about the process”, citing the government’s “strong track record of consultation, collaboration and engagement”.
“Unlike the former Liberal government, we will not rush to make a flashy defence announcement.”
On Tuesday the deputy prime minister and defence minister, Richard Marles, said there had been a lot of “conjecture” about the east coast base, urging critics to “take a very deep breath”.
“It is the case that the former government announced the need for an east coast base, but we are taking our time here and all of that is a long way into the future.”
The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, said this comment put a “significant question mark” over the east coast base, which was needed to attract a workforce of submariners because “not everyone wants to live on the west coast”.
“I suspect what’s happening here is they’re delaying an announcement on that until after the NSW state election,” he said.
