“the U.K. and the U.S.A. will be assisting Australia to manufacture nuclear powered submarines“
To be honest if Australia wants to have submarines they need to be nuclear powered. Just to get around the place requires range and endurance.
Why has it taken so long?
There is a well entrenched anti-nuclear lobby in Australia, possibly as a result of British nuclear testing that covered the continent with radiation under the reign of Prime Minister Robert Menzies. Understandably Menzies spent a lot of time in England while his country was being covered in radioactive fallout.
It doesn’t end there. Enter the French who, despite vehement protests, covered parts of Northern Australia in radioactive fallout while conducting nuclear bomb tests. The Queensland government banned mothers from breastfeeding and all the cows milk had to be dumped until the radiation levels dropped. This happened multiple times.
French travelers have complained to me that Australians don’t like French people and I tell them that it is nothing personal. Lots of Australians remember the French bombings. In contrast not many of us down winders (from British nuclear bomb tests) are left and even fewer know that they were irradiated at all since Menzies didn’t issue any warnings.
The French Barracuda class submarine is designed to be nuclear powered, so Australia could have simply chosen a French nuclear power plant. However, the memory of France ignoring Australia begging them to stop their nuclear tests precludes this. To buy nuclear power from the State that heartlessly covered us in radioactive fallout would be too much to bear.
Prime Minister Covid Morrison has two things on his side. Nuclear subs are really the only practical option and Aussies won’t mind a bit of pay back on the French for their nuclear vandalism.
So ultimately who should be furious here?
Karma’s a bitch!