Australia and its Nuclear Submarine Basing Dilemma: The Westport Project Raises Serious Security Concerns
In 2020 as the pandemic was falling on the world, I was in Western Australia viewing a shipyard in Henderson and the subbase at HMS Sterling. At that point, it was expected that the new submarine built in collaboration with France would be the new resident of the sub base a few years down the road.
It was obvious when visiting that the team was very professional and well, submariners are submarines. But looking out beyond the base is located a state park for Australian and visitors to enjoy their time in the area.
The visage of the base does not remind one in any way of the major nuclear submarine base in Georgia, for example.
And when in September 2021, there was the surprise announcement that Australia was terminating its contract with France and now going to pursue a nuclear submarine relationship with the United States, and secondarily with the United Kingdom, I thought immediately of the challenge to actually build a nuclear submarine base in Western Australia.
And this clearly a concern for Vice Admiral Mead who headed the Australian team working the acquisition effort. This is what he said at one our Sir Richard Williams Foundation seminars: Australia needs to build the appropriate infrastructure both in terms of basing and in terms of the shipyard itself. There will be some unique aspects to the yard including shaping high security protection for the yard as well. “We need to design the yard, build the yard and start building the nuclear-powered submarine by the end of the decade.”
The challenge of building an appropriate shipyard for the operation of nuclear submarines is a key part of the deal. But a new report from the Institute for Integrated Economic Research-Australia raises key questions precisely about the challenges being faced to do so.
Air Vice-Marshal John Blackburn AO RAAF (Retd) and Commodore Vince Di Pietro AM CSC RAN (Retd), MA coauthored this insightful report which raises serious questions about whether Western Australia’s ambitious Westport project could inadvertently compromise the crown jewel of Australia’s defense strategy: the AUKUS submarine program.
The timing is almost poetic in its irony. Just as Australia prepares to welcome nuclear submarines from its closest allies under the AUKUS agreement, Western Australia is planning to relocate its main container port to a location that would dramatically increase foreign commercial shipping traffic in the same waters where these submarines will operate.
The $7.2 billion Westport project would move container operations from Fremantle to Kwinana, placing them roughly 20 kilometers from HMAS Stirling on Garden Island which is soon to be home to rotational U.S. and UK nuclear submarines. More critically, both submarine and commercial traffic would be funneled through the same narrow shipping channel in Cockburn Sound, creating what the authors describe as a dangerous “bottleneck.”
What makes this report particularly compelling is its focus on emerging security challenges that traditional port security wasn’t designed to address. The authors cite recent conflicts where Ukraine and Israel successfully deployed drones and weapons from shipping containers, demonstrating how commercial vessels can become platforms for sophisticated attacks.
This isn’t about preventing a conventional naval assault. It’s about recognizing that in an era of asymmetric warfare, a foreign-flagged container ship waiting in Cockburn Sound could potentially pose as much threat to a nuclear submarine as an enemy warship. With Australia having only 15 commercial vessels over 2,000 tons flying its own flag, virtually all shipping traffic would involve foreign vessels with varying degrees of oversight.
Perhaps the most concerning aspect of this controversy isn’t the security risk itself, but the apparent failure of institutional communication. The fact that a state MP felt compelled to brief Washington officials suggests a breakdown in coordination between federal defense planning and state infrastructure development.
WA Premier Roger Cook’s dismissal of these concerns as simply “wrong” reflects either a troubling lack of awareness about modern security threats or an unwillingness to acknowledge the complexity of the challenge. This kind of categorical dismissal of legitimate security concerns raised by experienced military professionals should worry anyone interested in Australia’s national security.
The authors note that similar vulnerabilities likely exist at other Australian ports near defense installations ranging from Darwin to Newcastle to Sydney. This suggests the Westport issue may be symptomatic of a broader failure to integrate national security considerations into infrastructure planning.
The report’s emphasis on “opportunistic ignorance” rings particularly true. It’s easier to proceed with economically beneficial projects while hoping security concerns will resolve themselves than to conduct the hard work of comprehensive threat assessment and mitigation.
The authors pose over a dozen specific questions that the Australian Defence Minister should be asking about risk assessments, threat evaluations, and contingency planning. The fact that these questions apparently haven’t been satisfactorily answered or perhaps even asked is deeply troubling.
Key among these concerns is the potential for channel blockage. The authors cite the MV Rena incident in New Zealand, where container removal took six to seven weeks after grounding. In Cockburn Sound, such a blockage wouldn’t just trap submarines. It could halt fuel deliveries to Perth, creating a cascading crisis affecting both military operations and civilian infrastructure.
This isn’t merely an academic exercise in risk management. Australia has committed billions of dollars and decades of planning to AUKUS, positioning it as the cornerstone of its future defense strategy. The program’s success depends not just on acquiring submarines, but on operating them safely and effectively.
If the security environment around HMAS Stirling becomes compromised, it could undermine allied confidence in Australia’s ability to host nuclear assets. The diplomatic and strategic costs of such a failure would far exceed any economic benefits from Westport’s enhanced container capacity.
The authors’ call for comprehensive risk assessment seems both reasonable and overdue. This doesn’t necessarily mean canceling Westport, but it does mean taking security concerns seriously and developing robust mitigation strategies.
Potential solutions might include enhanced screening protocols for foreign vessels, development of alternative shipping channels, upgraded maritime surveillance capabilities, or restrictions on which nations’ vessels can operate near critical infrastructure. The key is acknowledging the problem exists before committing to irreversible infrastructure investments.
The Westport controversy illuminates a fundamental challenge facing democracies worldwide: how to balance economic development with national security in an era of increasingly sophisticated threats. The traditional assumption that commercial and military activities can coexist without careful coordination is becoming dangerously obsolete.
As Australia charts its course through an increasingly complex strategic environment, the quality of its decision-making on issues like Westport may prove as important as the submarines themselves. The nation’s security depends not just on having the right military capabilities, but on having the institutional wisdom to protect them.
The authors of this report have performed a valuable public service by raising these concerns before irreversible decisions are made.