Australia’s $368bn AUKUS nuclear submarine program is rapidly becoming the most far-reaching defence commitment in the nation’s history, bringing with it unprecedented security risks, an unresolved nuclear waste problem, and mounting pressure from Washington to take a harder line against China even at the expense of Australia’s largest trading relationship.
The Albanese government has already given itself the power to nominate any location in the country as a potential nuclear waste dump, a move that critics say tramples on community rights, overrides Indigenous land protections and concentrates decision-making in the hands of the Defence Minister. Under the Australian Naval Nuclear Power Safety Bill 2024, passed in October last year, the government can declare “designated zones” for nuclear activity without meaningful consultation.
Greens defence spokesperson Senator David Shoebridge has warned the legislation amounts to a “slow-motion disaster” that will leave a toxic legacy for millennia. “The second this law passed, Perth and Adelaide became home to two nuclear waste dumps. The local community was not informed, they were not consulted, and they are not being told what is happening now,” he said. While HMAS Stirling and Adelaide’s Osborne shipyard are already listed, the government can add “any other area in Australia” by regulation.
The legislation prohibits the US and UK from dumping high-level reactor waste in Australia, but allows both countries to send their low- and intermediate-level submarine waste here. Australia, for its part, must manage and store its own spent submarine fuel comprising highly enriched uranium that can be reprocessed into nuclear weapons and will remain radioactive for thousands of years. No country, including the US and UK, has built a permanent high-level waste facility. Finland is the only nation close to doing so, after spending four decades and over €1bn on an underground repository.
Former senator and ex-submariner Rex Patrick has accused the government of avoiding the full cost accounting. “The $368bn does not include waste storage and disposal,” he said, noting a Defence report on potential waste sites remains hidden from the public despite his Federal Court battle to release it.
The secrecy surrounding AUKUS is matched by growing US pressure for Australia to commit publicly to using its submarines in any conflict with China. Senior US figures, including Donald Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton and Hudson Institute naval expert Bryan Clark, have made it clear that Washington expects Australia to be “explicit” about China being the target. Clark said the US wants Australia to “put the Chinese on notice” and is concerned that Canberra’s reluctance means the submarines “are probably not going to be in the mix” unless Australia is directly attacked.
Alexander Gray, a former Trump National Security Council chief of staff, warned that Washington sees a worrying shift in tone. “The China narrative changes depending on who’s in power,” he said, adding that such political fluidity makes the US uneasy about Australia’s strategic reliability.
The American demands go beyond rhetoric. Bolton supports lifting Australian defence spending to 3.5 per cent of GDP, arguing “everybody is going to have to go up” regardless of Trump’s pressure. The Pentagon review of AUKUS, led by noted sceptic Elbridge Colby, is weighing Australia’s willingness to meet US expectations before confirming any submarine sales in the 2030s. A clause in the deal allows a future US president to block the transfer entirely.
Australia’s government insists its China policy is clear and consistent, pointing to the Defence Strategic Review and Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s repeated warnings about the pace and opacity of China’s military build-up. Wong argues that nuclear-powered submarines will make Australia a “more capable security partner” and “complicate the thinking of potential adversaries”.
Yet for all the official assurances, the underlying reality is that AUKUS risks binding Australia more tightly to US strategic priorities at the cost of its own. China remains Australia’s largest trading partner, buying more than a third of its exports, yet the submarine pact is explicitly framed by Washington as a counter-China measure. This leaves Canberra walking a dangerous tightrope: reassuring the US of its loyalty while avoiding an open break with Beijing that could shatter key export markets.
With no permanent waste solution in place, no settled costs for cradle-to-grave management of the nuclear fleet, and no clear assurance that the submarines would even be delivered under a future US administration, AUKUS represents an extraordinary leap of faith. It is a leap that hands Washington unprecedented influence over Australian defence policy, narrows Canberra’s diplomatic room for manoeuvre, and leaves communities across the continent vulnerable to becoming unwilling hosts for the most dangerous waste on Earth.
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