LOCAL mayors and CEOs have been “gifted” $14,000 each to visit US shipyards this September in preparation for US nuclear submarines set to dock on WA soil in 2027.
This week the Perth South-West Metropolitan Alliance director Warwick Carter revealed the 12-day mission saying that local governments will play a “key role” in supporting the AUKUS deal by learning from counterparts in communities that currently host nuclear-powered submarines.
“AUKUS will undoubtedly alter the social and economic landscape of our region. The extent to which these changes are positive depends largely on our collective efforts to prepare,” Mr Carter said.
“The introduction of these vessels creates new emergency management and community engagement issues not presently faced in Australia and these meetings will help to rapidly upskill our community leaders.”
Members of the Stop AUKUS campaign group have made a point of appearing at all this week’s and next week’s public question time during council meetings after PSWMA announced that the mission would be paid for by “underspends” during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Whilst Cockburn council CEO Daniel Simms left the room after declaring an interest, resident and Stop AUKUS member Robyn Walsh dug into Cockburn’s director of community services Anton Lee, who revealed the City funded PSWMA and therefore the trip was to be funded by taxpayers’ money.
“It’s hard to believe that [council] thinks it’s okay… it’s quite bizarre,” Ms Walsh said.
Outraged
Ex-senator Jo Vallentine was outraged by the announcement and budget allocated for each delegate along with Cockburn’s vote of support for AUKUS.
“The Americans are very good at seduction, they make people feel important and unfortunately our politicians are not immune from it,” Ms Vallentine said.
“This issue is not going to go away. We are not going to go away. There will be question after question after question.”
At Fremantle council both the mayor and CEO refused to comment due to conflicts of interest however the director of city business Matthew Hammond acknowledged the reluctance from some community members but said the “alliance are undertaking their due diligence on what this means for our local communities, local economy and local environment”.
Stop AUKUS campaign coordinator Leonie Lundy told the Herald they want to hear directly from the council why it is necessary to spend the money on a “junket” trip as they feel they are only being fed the “streamlined PR spiel” from PSWMA.
“When we have people at the moment sleeping in cars, in doorways of shops, people who can’t afford to feed their family you would hope that the local councils, if they did have this extra little bit of money… would be looking at trying to relieve the disastrous situation we have in that area, rather than CEO’s and mayors flitting around on jets and being wooed and goo-gaaing over the powers of nuclear submarines. It’s absolutely disgraceful. Pathetic!”
by IMOGEN WALSH