Australian PM commits funding to upgrade home port of Antarctic icebreaker

CANBERRA, Oct. 16 (Xinhua) — Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has committed new funding to upgrade the home port of the country’s Antarctic icebreaker.
Albanese on Wednesday announced 188 million Australian dollars (125.8 million U.S. dollars) in funding over four years for the Australian Antarctic Program (AAP) to build a new wharf in Hobart, capital of the island state of Tasmania, for the research/survey vessel (RSV) Nuyina.
The announcement secures the long-term future of the AAP in Tasmania and ends a dispute between the federal government and TasPorts, the state-owned company that operates Tasmania’s ports, over the redevelopment of Macquarie Wharf 6 that is used by the RSV Nuyina as its base.
“What this means is Tasmania will remain Australia’s gateway to Antarctica, as it should be,” Albanese said in a statement. “This is an investment in Hobart, an investment in Tasmania and an investment in the future of Australian science.”
TasPorts previously estimated that upgrading the wharf in the Port of Hobart would cost 515 million AUD (344.5 million USD) over 30 years.
Tanya Plibersek, the Minister for the Environment, in June accused TasPorts of price-gouging and said its estimated cost was 14-times more than what the government was already paying.
Under the new agreement, the state government of Tasmania will be responsible for the costs of any budget blowouts or project delays and for funding refueling infrastructure.
TasPorts in 2023 banned the RSV Nuyina from sailing under Hobart’s Tasman Bridge due to safety concerns over its size, meaning that the icebreaker has been unable to access refueling facilities in the city.
Instead the ship has had to travel an extra 364 nautical miles to the state’s northwest to refuel.
The Tasmanian government told a federal parliamentary inquiry in August that it was exploring ways to set up a fuel barge near Hobart by the end of 2024.
The 528 million AUD (353.2 million USD) RSV Nuyina entered service in 2021. It has the capacity to support voyages up to 90 days long with 117 passengers and can collect samples and data from the bottom of the ocean up to the surface as well as from ice and the atmosphere. ■