HMAS Stirling

The rights of private investors take precedence over the sovereignty of most states." Nuclear attack submarines are built for long-range operations near China's coast, not for defending this continent.

When we consider that alongside US submarine rotations out of HMAS Stirling, Australia's contribution to American warfighting through Pine Gap, B-52 facilities at Tyndall and Marines permanently stationed at Darwin, it's easy to see Australia as a forward-staging base for American military aggression.

We have become a continent-scale aircraft carrier.

Through AUKUS, Australia acts as a mechanism for US force projection into the Pacific to rattle the sabre against China.

I think the Chinese would have a good reason to not target them.

But I don't think that logic applies to a submarine base at HMAS Stirling, nor a bomber base at at RAAF Tyndall.

Both of those are clearly intended to help the Americans fight a Taiwan campaign, and they would obviously be targets for China.

So would this even be a choice for Australia?

And we will be facilitating that act of war.

So you know what that means? As soon as those subs pull up in HMAS Stirling next year, if it happens, the Chinese have no choice.

Chinese military planners have to put a big bullseye around Perth.

That's now a target in a war.

Australia states that it, it has what's called full knowledge and concurrence of what's going on on Australian soil, and that these bases that the US military uses in Australia is done with Australian permission and that, that Australia ultimately has control of this.

I don't know that that's really the case when, when you do have something like strategic ambiguity around the use of nuclear platforms, where we're hearing even this week out of the US that it's highly likely that US nuclear-powered submarines after 2032 will potentially be carrying nuclear weapons coming through HMAS Stirling off Perth.

So-

Mm

Look, I think that's probably right.

Uh, New Zealand having been suspended from, uh, from ANZUS and is, is at a distance, I suppose sees its, its obligations under the Treaty of Rarotonga differently.

Um, there are certainly people in, in Australia who will say that it kind of hinges on this word stationing, and what do you mean by stationing? Because it's prohibited for Australia to have nuclear weapons stationed on Australian territory, but does a nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed US submarine transiting, porting through, being repaired at HMAS Stirling in Perth, does that breach the treaty? This is kind of where the, where the rubber meets the road, and I-

Mm

I think they certainly had an expectation that Australia would be spending more money and that things would have moved a lot faster.

You know, the one shred of positive news is we'll have from next year an American-flagged nuclear submarine operating out of HMAS Stirling in the west.

That's good.

That builds deterrence.

I'm advised that the budget has made provision for the protective service framework that you've referred to over the budget years, certainly not just a one-off set of funding.

As you mentioned in your question, Senator Lambie, the AFP was assigned $199.1 million to deliver 199 PSOs and a total of 245 ASL to provide force protection at HMAS Stirling.

This was in the 2025-26 budget.

That extra staffing is being delivered and is well on track, is what I'm advised.

Watt.

Thanks, Senator Lambie.

Well, as I say, the information that I've been provided with is that the AFP was assigned $199.1 million and a total of 245 ASL to provide force protection at HMAS Stirling.

That was provided in the 2025-26 budget.

Then for Surf West...

They need to set up in Western Australia also the forward operating base and all the infrastructure at HMAS Stirling.

And now we also need to get into, which they announced in September of last year, the Henderson Defence Project, which is a $12 billion investment into a sort of industry part of Henderson in Western Australia.

Now, that's not just for AUKUS.

It comes ahead of a major expansion already locked in under AUKUS.

From next year, US nuclear-powered submarines will begin rotating through HMAS Stirling near Perth, with as many as 2,300 American personnel deployed there.

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