Richard Marles, the Australian Minister of Defence, said that the United States could use the planned defence facilities in Western Australia for the delivery of submarines as part the AUKUS nuclear sub deal. On Saturday, the government announced that it would invest A$12 billion in upgrading facilities at the Henderson Shipyard near Perth as part of a plan to turn it into a maintenance hub for the AUKUS sub fleet over a period of 20 years. AUKUS, the pact signed by Australia, Britain, and the U.S., in 2021, will provide Australia with nuclear-powered submarines to counter China's Indo-Pacific ambitions. The Trump administration will be conducting a formal evaluation of the AUKUS pact.

Marles responded that "this is a AUKUS facility, so I would expect it."

He told Australian Broadcasting Corporation that the facility was being built to support and maintain Australia's submarines in the future. I would expect in the future that this facility would be available to US. The centre-left Labor Government made an initial A$127 million investment last year to upgrade the facilities at the shipyard. It will also build new landing craft for Australia's army and new general-purpose fregates for the navy. This is supporting around 10,000 jobs locally.

AUKUS, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, will see Washington sell a number of Virginia-class nuclear submarines to Australia. Britain and Australia will then build a brand new AUKUS class submarine. In July, the Republican and Democratic leaders of a U.S. Congress committee for strategic competitiveness with China reaffirmed their support for AUKUS despite the fact that Elbridge Colby, an influential Pentagon official who has publicly criticized the pact, was reviewing the deal. Australia, which signed a treaty in the same month with Britain for a 50-year pact to enhance cooperation on AUKUS over the course of the agreement, is confident that the pact would proceed. (Reporting from Sam McKeith, Sydney; Editing and proofreading by Matthew Lewis.)

(source: Reuters)