Setting table for AUKUS-ready WA

Australia's strategic environment is progressively deteriorating as all three of our oceans are becoming increasingly militarised and strategically contested.

This presents economic and security threats to Australia and our regional and global allies.

To protect vital economic and military sea lines in the Indian Ocean, half of Australia’s naval fleet and shipbuilding and sustainment facilities are now based in Perth. This naval and industrial base presence is continuing to grow.

That growth now includes Australia’s accelerated acquisition, operation, and sustainment pathway for a new fleet of conventionally armed and nuclear-powered submarines.

As the defence minister who started Australia on the nuclear submarine pathway, I understand just how critical this capability is to our nation’s defence and to that of our allies.

That said, I am also acutely aware this is a steep and ambitious learning and preparation curve.

Under the AUKUS ‘optimum’ pathway to nuclear submarines, Australia – particularly Western Australia – must swiftly become nuclear ‘sovereign ready’. This means we must become able to safely own, operate, maintain and regulate these complex military nuclear capabilities.

AUKUS measures have already started in WA with the increased number of US and UK nuclear submarine port visits to HMAS Stirling. These visits will become longer from 2027, with transition to the AUKUS Submarine Rotational Force-West (SRF-W).

Under these extended rotations, an increasing number of US and UK nuclear submarines will operate from Perth (one from the UK and up to four from the US). This will mark a significant step-up in our shared regional defence posture, and further increase the strategic significance of WA’s naval and naval support facilities.

The extended submarine rotations will serve a dual purpose. Firstly, they provide our sailors with invaluable at-sea experience on these advanced vessels, fostering expertise in naval nuclear propulsion. Secondly, they support the establishment and expansion of a domestic nuclear support base in WA: a crucial component for future operations.

Both measures are required to ensure Australia is in a position, by the early 2030s, to acquire, then operate and maintain, three Virginia-class submarines at HMAS Stirling. This purchase will be followed by the construction of the new AUKUS-class submarines in South Australia, which will be based and supported at HMAS Stirling from the early 2040s.

The former Coalition government implemented the largest sovereign naval shipbuilding and sustainment program since WWII, a program that continues apace and which the Albanese government continues to review.

The key challenge in WA will be to simultaneously continue expanding our conventional naval industrial support base, particularly at the state government-owned Australian Marine Complex, while also becoming a sovereign-ready steward of nuclear-powered and conventionally armed submarines.

More than $8 billion is being spent by the Department of Defence over the next decade to expand facilities at HMAS Stirling to accommodate both visiting and rotational force submarines, and eventually our own nuclearpowered submarines.

AUKUS’s implementation is not only a federal government responsibility. The state also has significant responsibilities to support the continued growth of conventional naval programs and to facilitate WA becoming nuclear ready. This includes developing a nuclear-capable industry and workforce, building housing for several thousand UK and US families in Perth’s south, building infrastructure to support both Henderson and Garden Island, implementing nuclear safety, security and waste management and disposal measures, enhanced security, and incidence response procedures.

There is much to be done in WA and time is not our friend. It is essential the state government, in partnership with the federal government and industry, prepares and implements a whole-of-state plan to become nuclear sovereign ready and capitalise on the significant economic opportunities presented by AUKUS.

That work must start now.

• Linda Reynolds is a senator for WA