Senator Fatima Payman

Senator PAYMAN: Good afternoon. My questions are also related to WA. The WA government has announced that it will move port operations from Fremantle to Kwinana through the Westport project, right next to the proposed AUKUS submarine base. An article in the Australian in August said: Ships servicing the new facility, dubbed Westport, will navigate the same single channel Australian, US and UK nuclear submarines will use to enter and exit the naval base. Did the WA government consult the Department of Defence before making this decision? Ms Perkins : We engage with the WA government frequently and regularly on all of the planning issues about all of the development in the Cockburn Sound. Certainly, in the planning for the Westport development and the work we're doing at HMAS Stirling , we work and engage very, very closely on that planning. Mr Sowry : The department has been aware of the developments of Westport. The WA government's been quite open with the release of its west coast trade strategy down that portion of the coast. So we've been quite aware of the Westport development, and we engage routinely with Westport itself through interdepartmental committees across the Commonwealth and the state.