NIMBYs are usually disliked, even when they're only standing in the way of local economic progress. When they become an obstacle to national defence, they can expect to be loathed.
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That worst sort of NIMBY is beginning to appear in Newcastle and Wollongong, and may be lurking in Brisbane, as the federal government looks for a location for an east-coast submarine base. If they're not faced down, these people may imperil this country's security.
Scott Morrison said on March 7 that the government would establish the base in Brisbane, Newcastle or Wollongong, supplementing our current submarine facility at Perth.
We need an east-coast base mainly to keep some of our future nuclear submarines close to large population zones, helping the navy to recruit and keep sailors, and to improve our chances of having at least one such installation operating despite enemy attacks.
Although an election is due within two months, the announcement does not look like pork barreling, since the final choice is not due until the end of next year. Morrison probably had to make the plan public this month to get things moving and meet the schedule.
The complaint that we're beginning to hear from Newcastle and Wollongong is that the base will turn the cities into targets. That's been mentioned by Newcastle Lord Mayor Nuatali Nelmes and by various officials and campaigners in Wollongong.
Notice that the complaint isn't "Australia shouldn't have an east-coast submarine base" but, rather, "We don't want it here."
The assumption is that it's a burden, and the message is that someone else should carry it.
Now, the complainers might argue that they don't have the expertise to judge whether we must have an east-coast base - and they'd be right. Their response to the decision of people who do understand these things should be that, if the country needs to put the facility in their port, then they have a duty to accept it.
That's an old-fashion concept: duty.
The people of the candidate cities should think carefully before following local leaders to the NIMBY barricades. Australia urgently needs these submarines for security against the rising threat from China, and it must build the base for them.
If the candidate cities obstruct this gravely important project, the rest of the country will regard them with disgust.
The base must go in a well-equipped port, and there are not many to choose from. For recruitment, it must be near a major population zone, which means the Newcastle, Sydney and Wollongong area or the region spanning the Sunshine Coast to Brisbane and the Gold Coast. The Melbourne-Geelong area is out, however, because it is nowhere near other naval facilities and it is too far south, whereas our submarines operate to the north.
And, yes, the base will be a likely target for an enemy. If Australia became involved in a major war, cruise missiles could slam into the facility to disable it and thereby hinder operation of our submarines. (I hope the base will be so robustly and cleverly designed that it would roll with the punches and quickly resume operation.)
That description won't make people in Brisbane, Newcastle and Wollongong feel any easier. But they should understand this: plenty of Australian cities already have military targets.
Air bases at Darwin and Townsville are within the built-up areas of those cities and are intended to serve as part of our front-line defences. Canberra, as the seat of national government and home to the Department of Defence and intelligence services, accommodates many targets.
Adelaide hosts critical surveillance installations and the southern suburbs of Perth have a naval base, including the current submarine facility.
And most of the Royal Australian Navy is kept slap-bang in the middle of Sydney, just downstream from the opera house.
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We have almost no defences against cruise missiles, by the way, but they are costly weapons that an enemy would have to use prudently. Also, they need to be launched within reach of their targets. In general, the farther south the target, the less likely, or less intense, would be any attack on it.
Not much opposition to the sub base has arisen in Brisbane - yet. Local worthies are apparently waiting to see which way the voter wind blows. Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and Brisbane Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner have avoided committing themselves either way on this subject.
Premier Dominic Perrottet in NSW, on the other hand, simply says national defence comes first.
The other cause for complaint about the base is the inevitable nuclear one. Each of the new submarines will be driven by a nuclear reactor, backed by more than 60 years of incomparable Anglo-American safety standards in design and operation.
For decades, Australian local-government politicians have made galahs of themselves by declaring nuclear-free zones, despite having no authority to enforce any such thing. They might as well issue bans on global poverty or landings by Martians during business hours.
Wollongong's lord mayor, Gordon Bradbery, concedes the policy is only symbolic, but Nelmes in Newcastle takes it seriously in her opposition to the base - while presenting the rather concrete idea of the facility being built in her city as mere fantasy.
That attitude would disappoint anyone who hopes for greater Novocastrian prosperity, since Defence Minister Peter Dutton says the base will involve thousands of jobs.
Anthony Albanese may want to pay attention to these state and municipal shenanigans, since he's already being forced to fend off government attempts to paint Labor as soft on defence and China.
Bradberry is an independent and Schrinner is from the Liberal National Party, but fence-sitting Palaszczuk and the anti-base brigade in NSW are from Labor or at least the political left.
- Bradley Perrett was based in Beijing as a journalist from 2004 to 2020.
