It might be completely feasible from a technical and economical point of view, but you would never convince the anti-nuclear public.
Australia would also have to import nuclear engineers from the US or UK for probably the first 10 years as we don't have any experience with nuclear power generation.
So sadly, fat chance.

Collins Class brings memories of huge cost over-runs and delays when deployed in Oz long ago. Maybe it was just politics or media hype. It appears Oz ended up paying for the development when it purchased a complete product. This is a common strategy and the Oz caretakers should have been wiser. Hopefully the current caretakers are wiser.
Debate about nuclear power is a smokescreen.

Australia’s current fleet of six Collins-class submarines are at the end of their service life and will need replacement by the late 2020s.
Why does the World need submarines at all?
Just who, exactly, are the Aussies going to fight, the NSA?

Nuclear is stupider than anything. The author should go live in Fukushima.

Australia should not only have nuclear powered submarines, it should develop a full industry for full life-cycle management of the fuel. Australia has vast quantities of uranium which is mined from a desert region. Australia could process it, enrich it and use and sell it internationally. We could then reprocess spent uranium and resell it. At the end of it's usable life we could treat it and dispose of it in the very same desert where it originated from with even less likelyhood of it contaminating the already stable geology from where it came. Nuclear power is the only low carbon energy source for mass production of electricity. While renewables need to take on a bigger share, they simply cannot provide base load generation despite potential technologies which are starting to turned into reality like molten salts. These have their place but their generation capabilities are still so miniscule compared to demand. Australia stands to make a fortune from it's Uranium should the government ever make a serious commitment to it. Sadly there are a few ignorant people that spruik how bad nuclear is and create undue fear in the community, not the least of which is the coal lobby. The "Greens" party that claim to want to preserve the environment are just as hypocritical. They don't want coal but refuse to accept the only logical substitute. Consequently the environment continues to suffer with dozens of coal fired stations powering the nation. Unfortunately we have vast quantities of coal so looks like nothing is going to change anytime soon.
Chris mahaffy, Australia has it's own interests to preserve. Whether you think that matters is irrelevant. The Australian Military is not very big but it is very well trained and when the skills are coupled with advanced equipment within our region, it serves as an effective deterrent to any would-be aggressors. The Nation itself is largely inhospitable. The challenge for any invading force would in the first instance be getting here, in the second, maintaining supply lines. This is why Australia has put so much emphasis on submarines and long range bombers/strikers. Until recently we still used F1-11 aircraft because it suited our purposes perfectly. Due to end-of-life and inability to continue it's logistic and maintenance support it was retired. The interim stop-gap is the F18 Superhornet because it provides the closest function to the F1-11. As for the NSA - well, the USA Government already has troops stationed in Darwin. A move that has not been popular with many Australians but seems expedient for US government relations.

> Aside from a pair of research reactors, Australia hasn't shown much interest in nuclear power.
Which makes sense, with so much coal and so small a population.

@davem2
Fossil fuel use kills about 3,000,000 people annually. How many does nuclear kill?
Now, what was stupider?

Australian, agree with everything you have said (as a fellow Aussie).
Kinda reminds me of travelling via plane vs travelling on the roads. Plane crashes catch so much more media attention due to the large casualty figures, which makes people scared to fly. Whereas in reality it's the safest, most regulated form of transport, and it grabs media attention due to the large number of casualties purely because there are large number of people in a normal jet plane! By far many more people die on the roads than in the air. But the media get us scared to fly.
Same deal with nuclear power. When there are accidents, the fallout is quite large, therefore the media put huge emphasis on it and scare the public. Whereas the amount of waste from this modern day energy source is miniscule compared to the tons of carbon pumped into the atmosphere every day by coal fired power stations. Yet the media keep the public scared of nuclear and everyone's happy to continue burning stuff for their energy requirements, not much different to how our caveman ancestors lived millenia ago! Get with the program humans!

Agree with Chris Mahaffy that subs of any propulsion are a thing of the past. UCAVs patrolling our borders would be a far better use of resources, with lower maintenance, and the ability to be retasked for civilian applications like searching for missing boats and people at sea. Besides, In a war between the two a swarm of the unmanned can hover overhead with deep penetration radar and depth chargers to make short work of any manned sub.
I also agree with Australian in that the country has huge reserves of uranium that needs tapping for the world to use. Though would add I would only really be in favor of reactors that can't be used to create weapons grade material. Like the Thorium or pebble bed variety.

Or can go for Sterling engines subs like Sweden and Germany. USA couldn't find ours in the over 2 year long exercise where they hired the Swedish sub Gothland. The Swedish people thanks the US Navy for paying for some good training time. :D Only down side is the refueling of liquid oxygen but the sub is more silent than a cods fart.
:D