2026-05-29
Last night, the NSW Labor Government once again refused to oppose an AUKUS East Coast Nuclear Base at Port Kembla or Newcastle. The NSW Labor Government teamed up with the NSW Liberal-National Coalition to oppose a motion brought by the Greens NSW calling on the New South Wales Labor Government to make a formal public declaration that it does not support an East Coast Nuclear Base being located at either Port Kembla or Newcastle and will not allocate capital from the New South Wales State budget towards infrastructure designed to facilitate an East Coast Nuclear Base.
The motion details the contents of documents compelled for public release, including a cost-benefit analysis that was completed in September 2023, six months after the New South Wales Labor Government was elected, and which cited Australian Bureau of Statistics data released in June 2023. That cost-benefit analysis found that "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 New South Wales residents may perceive the ECNB similarly to a nuclear power station as a source of environmental disaster risk. The damage expected to arise from a nuclear accident has an explicit spatial dimension, and residents in proximity will perceive the ECNB as a risk to their community's health and the local environment".
The documents also calculate the expected impact on house prices in the proximity of the nuclear base, based on the negative price impacts on houses in close proximity to nuclear power plants in other jurisdictions. However, the documents make clear that the negative impact may be greater in relation to a nuclear military base, stating "nuclear submarines may be far riskier because they use a highly enriched uranium that is more like the uranium used in nuclear warheads than uranium used in nuclear reactors and they store enough uranium to operate the nuclear submarine for over 30 years." The documents cite United Kingdom housing data post Fukushima, which showed a drop in home values within a 15-kilometre radius of a nuclear facility. When the analysis was applied to Newcastle, it found that 129,000 homes would suffer losses at a central estimate at $1.048 billion, and 105,000 households in Port Kembla would incur house price value losses of $850 million.
Quotes attributable to Abigail Boyd, Greens NSW MLC:
“The documents make it very clear that to host an East Coast Nuclear Base at either Port Kembla or Newcastle will require significant financial contribution and participation by the NSW Government. If the NSW Labor Government were to rule out providing that support, then the plan would be dead in the water. But every time they’re given the opportunity to rule it out, or even express opposition, they fail to do so.
“The NSW Labor Government is accusing us of fearmongering, but I'm simply quoting the contents of their own reports. If the result of those facts being heard by the public is a sense of fear and concern, maybe the Government should reconsider their support for locating a nuclear submarine base at Port Kembla or Newcastle.
“The NSW Labor Government made no attempt to rebut any of the points raised in the motion, including that which made clear that the most damning content contained in the documents released were written while Labor was in Government.
“It should be very simple, but the NSW Labor Government continues to refuse to rule out support for a NSW town becoming a nuclear military target with an East Coast Nuclear Base on its shores.”