It’s taken the pathetic sabre-rattling of rootin’ tootin’ shootin’ Vladimir Putin to highlight the blindingly obvious location of Australia’s long-overdue east coast submarine base - our own fantastic natural harbour at Eden.
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Australia was unable to send one of our subs to monitor Putin’s geriatric naval flotilla in the Coral Sea during the G20 meeting, because we have no east coast sub base.
At that time it’s reported Australia had only three of its Collins class subs operational.
Two were on work-up trials off WA, one was in transit from Albany to Hobart – and the other three were in dock for repairs.
While two of our frigates, HMAS Parramatta and HMAS Stuart, did closely monitor the four Russian warships, as also did the US Navy – we would have as well have sent a Aussie sub from an Australia east coast sub base – if we had one.
That would have allowed us to know if Admiral Putin’s flotilla was accompanied by a suspected Russian nuclear sub, or not.
And given us more information about the capability and procedures of the four Russian surface ships in Vladimir Putin’s silly show of force against Australia.
While the Russian ships were old, dating back to 1986, and one of them was reportedly a type of ocean tug in case one of the other three broke down far from home, they were still a menace and constitute an east coast wake-up call for Australia.
Eden already has the Navy wharf and the Navy ammunition facility, maybe some of the most significant east coast naval infrastructures outside of Sydney.
That is a sound foundation on which to build Australia’s east coast submarine base as the new centre of engineering, training and naval recruitment.
Jon Gaul
Tura Beach