By Eileen Darley

At a recent Australian Anti-AUKUS Coalition webinar, four of the grassroots groups around the country who are campaigning at the pointy end of the AUKUS circus gave snapshot reports on where facilities already are or possibly will be, and provided a way people can build the movement against AUKUS with others in a very concrete way. Below is one of those reports , given by Eileen Darley, co-ordinator of the Port Adelaide Community Opposes AUKUS (PACOA).

My name is Eileen Darley . I’m the co-ordinator of Port Adelaide Community Opposing AUKUS, or PACOA, which has been in existence since 2024, sometime after the announcement was made without any warning or consultation that our local naval shipyards would be the site of construction for the SSN AUKUS nuclear submarines. You will no doubt have heard about the Osborne facility. A facility, I want to point out, that is going ahead at a gobsmacking rate with the $30 billion they’re pouring into it for the construction site alone.

But first I want to take a moment to set the picture of just where the Osborne nuclear submarine facility is . Where we live, commonly just referred to as the Port or the Peninsula, is an area shaped by its Kaurna history as a site of abundant food source from its river and cultural importance, and by its militant maritime history (the place of the 1928 Waterside Workers strike, the Beef March, and other significant working-class histories). It has historically played a major role in South Australia’s manufacturing industry. There’s still a significant amount of light industry along the river, and it’s known for the beauty of our surviving river mangrove system, our coastline and beaches, and not least the village-like sense of community still hanging on in the face of gentrification and the brutal destruction of heritage by developers—a process being accelerated by the arrival of AUKUS in the area. While some of the suburbs of the Peninsula are reasonably well-heeled, the suburbs like Taperoo and Osborne, immediately adjacent to the naval shipyards, are decidedly not. (And I really invite you to envisage that this nuclear facility is literally across a main road or down the ways a bit from where 30,000 people live.) There are considerable pockets of public housing, a lower than average household income base, and a lot of poverty, making the obscene billions they’re spending on AUKUS grate even more. I’m sure that’s one of the reasons, as well as its being a safe Labor seat, that the local community has been treated with such disrespect and basically ambushed by the big announcement from Premier Malinauskas (we refer to him as Malin-AUKUS in these parts) and Defence Minister Marles. The federal government has rammed through their laws to make Osborne a “designated zone” and set their new regulator to override no less than 31 state laws, including, incredibly, the Work, Health and Safety Act. And then they’ve treated us to a few carrots in the form of spruiking a training and skills academy and the promise of big, shiny jobs for the kids of the Peninsula in the war industry. Most of these jobs are not going to materialise ; they disappear offshore, or the AUKUS visa they want so badly heralds more nuclear submarine workers from the UK and engineers from interstate, leaving our kids with security, canteen, and cleaning jobs—low paid, bad conditions.

The truth of the Osborne facility for our local community is the same as what the secret NSW government report from 2023 released the other day about Port Kembla revealed. That is, that every nuclear submarine facility carries with it the devastating risks of becoming a target in the event of war , being privy to nuclear accidents, and posing a threat to the amenity of the area (I think that means your house price is going to plummet because you’re living next to a nuclear reactor). At present, the chances of a conflict where Australia, at best, is going to be used as a launchpad for a US war with China and, at worst, as a proxy, are very real, leaving a great big target on our backs. And even in the construction phase of the subs (if we get them, rather than simply being a host site for the maintenance and servicing of US ones), we will have to be storing nuclear waste that requires safe storage for 300 years. Then there’s the potential of our area being a gateway for a national nuclear dump, with the most toxic substance known to humankind trucked through our streets and stored for 10,000 years on First Nations’ land, likely somewhere up north.

So PACOA has no alternative but to keep producing our leaflets, expanding our reach, running our public meetings and rallies and cultural nights and so on, as well as co-ordinating with our sister organisations across the other states and through the Australian Anti-AUKUS Coalition. So if you live in South Australia, please reach out to us. Email: pacoa.now@gmail.com
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