Wollongong Against War and Nukes has joined with many others in this city to show our opposition towards plans to turn our home into a military town. This includes a rally of several thousand people down the main street of Port Kembla in 2023.

As well as more than 40 local organisations, including health and environment bodies, trade unions and church groups, who have signed the Port Kembla Declaration, demanding the federal government rule out a submarine base in our region.

Port Kembla residents have widely opposed having a base in the area and thousands in our community have come together to declare that this is “No Place for a Nuclear Base”.

We are concerned that the presence of nuclear submarines would make the Illawarra a high priority target for conventional or nuclear attack. We are concerned that US submarines carrying nuclear weapons could dock in Port Kembla. We are concerned about the risk of nuclear accidents. We are concerned about becoming a site for the storage of nuclear waste. We are concerned about the social, economic and environmental impact of a nuclear submarine base in Port Kembla. We are concerned that, even in a best-case scenario, a nuclear submarine base would have a highly detrimental impact on our community.

We love Port Kembla and the Illawarra region; we don’t want to lose the things we value about this place.

We have been told that the decision on the location of a nuclear submarine base has been deferred. This is no comfort — if anything it increases our fears that decisions are being made in secret, without community consultation and overriding local dissent.

I take a lot of inspiration from the deep desire for peace that people in our city have shown over many generations. This opposition to war includes the famous “Pig Iron Bob” Dalfram Dispute and, in more recent times, protests against the invasions of Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq.

We have repeatedly said “No to war!” For many decades, the local community has also said “No to nuclear war!”

Wollongong was first declared a nuclear-free city in 1980. In 2019,........

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