Where are the AUKUS nuclear waste costings (let alone the dump sites)?

Defense needs to provide ‘cradle to grave’ costs for proposed capability before an acquisition is approved. This does not appear to have been the case with AUKUS nuclear waste storage and disposal. Transparency Warrior Rex Patrick in search of answers.

A simple request

Imagine for a moment that you are the defense minister and request this proposal from the Australian Submarine Agency, knowing that all defense capabilities must have cradle-to-grave costs. Latest cost estimates for a solution for the processing and storage of high-level radioactive waste from AUKUS.

You would expect it could take a day or two for the message to be passed to Defense and for a response to the ministerial wing of Parliament House.

Secret AUKUS nuclear waste site documents in cabinet lockdown

In July 2025, MWM requested access to the following information under Freedom of Information laws: Latest cost estimates for a solution for the processing and storage of high-level radioactive waste from AUKUS. The agency did not respond to the FOI request and its failure to respond was referred to the Information Commissioner.

The Information Commissioner is trying to encourage the ASA to engage in some transparency. But… The agency cannot find the latest costing.

We are messy

In response to an agreement with MWM, the Agency recently recommended:

Preliminary searches have been conducted at a branch of a division of the ASA to identify the documents that fall within the scope of your request. This branch reported that approximately 3,000 documents were potentially in scope. Manual review is required to determine whether they contain information regarding the scope of your claim. The documents in this set vary significantly in length and format and may consist of multiple pages requiring individual review.

Additionally, any cost information regarding the scope of your claim is likely to be dispersed across multiple documents and time periods, may appear at different levels of detail, and may not be directly comparable. As a result, determining which documents contain relevant cost information will require extensive research, due diligence, contextual analysis, and judgment.

Pretty incredible!

Or is it incredible?

ASA is interested in a $368 billion project. And the Order is in trouble.

In November 2024, the Government asked Boston Consulting Group to take a look at the organizational structure of the Australian Submarine Agency (ASA). The contract for 2.7 has been signed. million. Exchanged in April 2025 for $7.4 million. It was changed again three months later for $12.1 million.

In parallel, the defense secretary asked former Defense Secretary Dennis Richardson to carry out an urgent top-to-bottom review of the ASA due to serious concerns about how AUKUS is being managed.

None of these seem to help.

Increase your budget just to keep up

Government’s National Defense Strategy and Integrated Investment Program It was announced on the same day that the ASA told MWM it had no idea where to find AUKUS high-level radioactive waste costs.

The Integrated Investment Proposal sets out the Government’s estimates of AUKUS and Collins Class submarine costs over the next decade, among other programmes.

The AUKUS budget of $53 to $63 billion published in 2024 increased to $71 to $96 billion (52% change for the upper band). Collins Submarine upgrade cost increased from $4 to $5 billion to $8 to $11 billion (120% change for the upper band).

Any notion that the Government is increasing the Defense budget to expand the capabilities of the Defense Force is misleading. The increase will only come down to the difficulty of dealing with cost explosions.

Or is it unreasonable?

The figures for disposal of AUKUS nuclear waste in the very long term will be large. If the minister wanted Latest cost estimates for a solution for the processing and storage of high-level radioactive waste from AUKUS He would understand almost immediately.

Prediction must be available.

The ASA’s approach to responding to MWM’s request reminds me of a teenager trying to hide a bad school report from his parents. The child does not realize that his parents will find out eventually.

MWM is not about to give up.

Of course, the chance of us being wrong is very small and there is no guesswork. Perhaps the Minister has told the ASA that he will not make such a request and that they should not produce one.

I guess we’ll find out.

Trillion dollar AUKUS subscription plus nuclear waste forever?

Rex Patrick is a former Senator for South Australia and formerly a submariner in the armed forces. Known as an anti-corruption and transparency warrior, Rex is also known as “Transparency Warrior“