Thousands of people yesterday rallied against a proposed nuclear-powered submarine base at Port Kembla in eastern Australia as part of the A$368 billion (US$248.8 billion) AUKUS defence pact with the US and the UK.
The second-largest coal port in New South Wales state is the government’s preferred site for a new east-coast submarine base, the Australian Broadcasting Corp reported.
Protesters carrying trade union banners and flags marched down the main street to voice their opposition to a base in the town of about 5,000 people 102km south of Sydney.
“I’m getting the sense of the renewable energy that’s in this community to keep coming out on the streets,” Australian Senator David Shoebridge, a prominent critic of AUKUS, told the crowd.
Estimates of the crowd ranged from 2,000 to 5,000, according to participants.
Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles said last month that no decision had been made on a site for a new east coast submarine base.
The government would “develop a process to consider all feasible options for an east coast facility to support Australia’s future submarine capability,” a defense ministry spokesperson said, adding that a decision would be made “late in this decade.”
The government said it would take the time to weigh the decision, with the more immediate priority being infrastructure works at HMAS Stirling in Western Australia, which is to host rotational visits by US and UK submarines from 2027.
However, the rethink has failed to ease concerns of opponents of a new base in Port Kembla.
“I think they understand the alarm and I suspect that what is happening is that the defence department, which has a habit of getting its way on these things, hasn’t been able to convince the government as yet — as yet — to make a call on it,” South Coast Labour Council secretary Arthur Rorris said.
“We make no apologies for putting as much pressure as possible on the decisionmakers to rule out Port Kembla now, not later,” Rorris said.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has defended the submarine project after two former leaders criticized the deal over its cost, complexity and potential sovereignty issues.
The deal unveiled in March would see Australia purchase US Virginia-class submarines before joint British and Australian production of a new submarine class to be built in Australia.
Additional reporting by The Guardian
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
RSS