Port Kembla identified as preferred East Coast submarine base in NSW documents

A nuclear submarine base had previously been proposed on Australia’s East Coast in areas around Brisbane, Newcastle and Port Kembla.

“Residents are likely to perceive the east coast nuclear 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,” according to the NSW government analysis.

“The East Coast Base (ECNB) will harbour submarines that have nuclear reactors fuelled by highly enriched uranium on board. In the event of a military conflict the ECNB could be a target for Australian military adversaries.

“For these reasons NSW residents may perceive the ECNB similarly to a nuclear power station as a source of environmental disaster risk.”

The future East Coast submarine base is expected to allow the stationing of nuclear-powered conventionally armed submarines under the AUKUS trilateral agreement between Australia, the UK and the USA.

A decision is not expected on the base location ‘until later in the decade’.

VIEW ALL

“The last government announced the need for an east coast base and shortlisted three sites, which is Newcastle, Wollongong and Brisbane, and had a process for determining them. Even the last government, though, was talking about this really being operational in the mid-2030s, so there’s a long way to go here,” according to previous comments from Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles.

“We absolutely do see the need for an east coast base, and there is a kind of strategic operational need in terms of where you would have submarines operate from.

“One of the really big parts to this is having a submarine base closer to the larger population centres of the country, which will help grow the submariner workforce that we need. But it is a fair way down the track.

“The process for determining exactly where that base will be has got a long way to run. So we do see the need for it, but there’s a lot of water to go under the bridge.”

Robert Dougherty

Robert is a senior journalist who has previously worked for Seven West Media in Western Australia, as well as Fairfax Media and Australian Community Media in New South Wales. He has produced national headlines, photography and videography of emergency services, business, community, defence and government news across Australia. Robert graduated with a Bachelor of Arts, Majoring in Public Relations and Journalism at Curtin University, attended student exchange program with Fudan University and holds Tier 1 General Advice certification for Kaplan Professional. Reach out via email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or via LinkedIn.