The Announcement
On 24 August 2026, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Western Australian Premier Roger Cook jointly confirmed the site and boundary of the Henderson Defence Precinct, south of Perth — the most consequential defence infrastructure decision in Western Australia's history. The announcement locks in the footprint for continuous naval shipbuilding and the future sustainment of Australia's conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines, and moves the program into a formal concept design phase.
The precinct is backed by an initial $12 billion Commonwealth commitment announced in September 2025. Early independent planning suggests total infrastructure costs across the precinct could reach around $25 billion over the coming decades, and together with activity at HMAS Stirling the program is projected to support around 10,000 jobs over the next twenty years.
What Is Actually Being Built
The confirmed site layout designates dedicated zones for three distinct capabilities:
- Nuclear-powered submarine sustainment. Depot-level (out-of-water) and contingency maintenance facilities for Australian, US and UK submarines, centred on a contingency dry dock. Leidos Gibbs & Cox Australia has already been selected to undertake preliminary design work for a floating dry dock capability — the piece of infrastructure that makes sovereign SSN sustainment physically possible at Henderson.
- Continuous naval shipbuilding. Expanded shipbuilding facilities for larger and more complex vessels, including the Royal Australian Navy's future general purpose frigates and the Australian Army's landing craft, building on the Strategic Shipbuilding Agreement signed with Austal in August 2025.
- Surface fleet sustainment. A modern sustainment yard for Australia's surface combatant fleet, consolidating maintenance activity that is currently spread across the Australian Marine Complex.
Graving docks, laydown areas, and supporting utilities are expected to feature in the concept design. The precinct complements — rather than duplicates — the Osborne Naval Shipyard in South Australia, where SSN-AUKUS construction will be centred, and HMAS Stirling, where the future submarine fleet will be operationally based and receive in-water maintenance.
Who Is Already Involved
Defence has appointed Bechtel Infrastructure Australia to lead master planning of the precinct, building on the design services consultancy awarded in March 2026. AECOM Australia has been engaged to undertake site characterisation studies across the Cockburn Sound region — the geotechnical, environmental and contamination baseline work that must complete before major construction contracts can be let. Existing primes Austal, Civmec and BAE Systems already operate within the surrounding Australian Marine Complex and are expected to feature heavily in the delivery phase.
What Happens Next
The program now enters the concept design phase, with further engagement between the Commonwealth and WA Governments, local industry, traditional owners and community stakeholders. Both governments have signalled an intent to move at pace, and to minimise disruption to existing non-defence businesses operating in or adjacent to the precinct footprint — land use, lease and access decisions taken during this phase will directly affect marine services and resources businesses already on the site.
For industry, the practical sequence is: concept design and site characterisation now; early and enabling works contracts next; head contracts for major facilities to follow; and a multi-decade pipeline of sustainment and construction work beyond that.
What It Means for WA Contractors
Henderson is not a single tender — it is a generational pipeline of subcontracting, supply chain and delivery partner roles spanning construction, engineering, marine services, ICT, facilities and professional services. The barrier to entry is compliance: businesses touching classified Defence information or working inside the precinct's security zones will need DISP membership, personnel clearances and, for AUKUS-related work, export control compliance. Our companion guide, Winning Work at the Henderson Defence Precinct, sets out the full compliance playbook.
Serious Defence helps Western Australian businesses prepare for precinct work through DISPath readiness consulting, the DISPulse compliance platform, and DISPeer sovereign cloud. If Henderson is in your growth plan, the compliance groundwork needs to start well before the first tenders are released.