Turn AUKUS shipyard into joint naval base with the US, Morrison urges

Washington: Scott Morrison says a planned AUKUS shipbuilding facility in Western Australia should become a joint base with the US to help address the Trump administration’s “legitimate issues” with the submarine deal he designed and announced as prime minister in 2021.

The controversial idea, with advocates in both Canberra and Washington, would allow the upgraded facility at Henderson, south of Perth, to host and repair American submarines, not just Australian ones, and give the US direct access to the Indian Ocean, a strategic asset.

Former prime minister Scott Morrison appeared at a congressional hearing on the Chinese Communist Party in Washington.Credit: AP

As the Pentagon reviews the AUKUS agreement to see if it fits with President Donald Trump’s “America First” agenda, one of the key issues is whether the US can part with the three nuclear-powered submarines Australia is due to buy.

The slow rate of production is a problem, as is a severe maintenance backlog. Australia has paid $US1 billion (about $1. 6 billion) to the US maritime industrial base so far, with another $US1 billion due by year’s end.

Morrison - who now provides strategic advice for corporations, including defence industry clients - said the US appreciated and valued AUKUS, “but that doesn’t mean there aren’t issues”.

“The issues that [US defence undersecretary] Elbridge Colby has been raising, he’s been raising those for years, and they’re legitimate issues, and they go to the US’s capability to produce submarines,” he said.

“There are many ways you can get more subs out at sea, and it’s not just about how quickly you build them; it’s also how you maintain them. Australia, through Henderson, has a real opportunity to add to that.”

Asked if he meant maintaining US boats at the facility, he said yes. “That would significantly add to the capability of the US to do what it needs to do.”

Morrison made the remarks while speaking to reporters in Washington after appearing before a congressional committee on the Chinese Communist Party.

‘I know they value AUKUS’

Asked if he believed the Trump administration would go ahead with the deal, Morrison said: “I think they’ll complete their review. I know they value AUKUS ... There are many ways to address the issues that are being highlighted in this review, and it would be a mistake for us to think they’re not real issues.”

Australia must build the Henderson yard to service its own needs under AUKUS. Former home affairs secretary Mike Pezzullo has also advocated making it a joint base, arguing it could be “at least as significant” as the Pine Gap satellite surveillance station near Alice Springs.

“The US would have to pay for only labour and material costs for maintaining its own boats, taking advantage of Australia’s capital investment in Henderson for free,” he wrote in a piece for the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in May.

Pezzullo, who was removed by the Albanese government in 2023 over his attempts to influence the previous Coalition government, said Australia would have to blitz through planning and construction to have two dry docks ready by 2032. In return, it could lock in the three submarines by negotiating a treaty with Trump.

The US president wants to expand US shipbuilding, and one of his key appointees, retired Navy captain Jerry Hendrix, has also called for Henderson to service US boats.

“The problem [is] that shipyard is tailored to supporting Australia’s shipbuilding requirements as well as Australia’s maintenance requirements,” Hendrix said in an interview last year.

“We would need to put some additional money into that if they were going to have excess capacity to repair American boats, and for that matter, the boats of the Royal Navy in the United Kingdom.”

As this masthead revealed on Wednesday, Hendrix said his main concern about AUKUS was that Australia was “noticeably fickle”, and he doubted the country’s long-term bipartisan commitment.

Morrison played down other matters being examined by the Pentagon’s AUKUS review, including command structure and posturing of Australia’s submarines in the event of a US conflict with China.

The US was not asking Australia to depart from a policy of strategic ambiguity over what it would do in a war over Taiwan, Morrison said, but to engage in “deep operational planning” for the submarines.

The USS North Dakota, a Virginia-class boat of the type Australia would acquire under AUKUS.

“The ultimate decision about whether those operational plans are activated in the event of a conflict - that is, of course, the decision of any sovereign government at that time,” he said.

“But I can tell you, if you’re the one that has to make that decision to engage or not engage, you’ll be very grateful if those previously have enabled that operational planning to take place at a very detailed level.”

Morrison said there had been some “breathlessness” in how the Australian media had reported the Pentagon review, with separate issues being conflated.

“There’s a suggestion that somehow Australia has to make some commitment to some future conflict. I don’t think the United States is asking that at all, and that would be inconsistent with everything they’ve ever said.”

Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter.