The Commonwealth and Western Australian governments named the site for the Henderson Defence Precinct on Monday, fixing the location for a shipbuilding and submarine sustainment yard south of Perth that the two governments say will carry about 10,000 direct jobs over the next two decades.
The precinct is to build the Navy's future general purpose frigates and the Army's landing craft, and to sustain the conventionally armed nuclear powered submarines Australia is acquiring under AUKUS.
Henderson sits inside the Commonwealth's continuous naval shipbuilding and sustainment enterprise, the framework Defence uses to run build and maintenance work as one pipeline rather than as separate programs. The future general purpose frigates and the Army landing craft are both scheduled to draw on it.
The Commonwealth has committed $12 billion, announced in September 2025. That figure is a down payment rather than the cost of the precinct. The government's own announcement at the time said early independent planning and advice put the investment required at Henderson in the order of $25 billion over the decade. An earlier $127 million had been committed to planning work.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the decision was "great for Western Australia and great for local jobs".
Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles called the site selection "a major step towards establishing a world-class sovereign shipbuilding hub". Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy said the milestone showed "collective commitment to delivering a major industrial hub in the West".
WA Premier Roger Cook said defence was "set to become Western Australia's second largest industry over the next decade". Deputy Premier Rita Saffioti said the investment would support "thousands of construction and manufacturing jobs over coming decades".
The 10,000 jobs figure is a projection by the two governments announcing the project, over a period longer than four federal terms. The contracted values will appear in Commonwealth contract notices as the work is let, and the delivered scope in Australian National Audit Office reporting.
The submarine element at Henderson is sustainment rather than construction. Australia's first Virginia class boat is not due until the early 2030s, and the yard that maintains it has to be running before it arrives.
What the site selection settles is where. What it does not settle is the total, the delivery schedule, or which of the works are funded from the $12 billion and which are not yet funded at all. Those numbers appear in contract notices and in audit reports, not in a joint media release.
