An Australian consortium submitted a proposal to host the SKA in December 2005 and in September 2006 the Australian site was short-listed, along with Southern Africa, to host this global facility.

The SKA will be composed of between 60 and 120 ‘array stations’. Each array station will be composed of a large number of closely grouped antennas. To achieve the scientific goals of the SKA, the array stations need to be distributed across thousands of kilometres.

The SKA's critical central array, the core site, must be located in a radio-quiet location, away from the radio noise associated with high density populations.

Australia's proposed core site in the Murchison Shire in the mid-west of Western Australia would accommodate the largest array, comprising several hundred antennas.

This site has exceptional radio quietness and observing conditions.

Radio quietness is of paramount importance for good radioastronomy and in the case of the SKA, a large radio-quiet zone is an essential condition in selecting the site. The Mid West Radio Quiet Zone in Western Australia is protected by a 'Radiocommunications Assignment and Licencing Instruction' (RALI) issued by the Australian Communications and Media Authority  (ACMA).

The other array stations will be sited at increasing distances from the core, out to a distance of more than 3,000 kilometres. The overall pattern will be a huge asymmetric spiral.

Most of the other array stations will also be in Western Australia, with a relatively small number sited in the other Australian States and Territories, and possibly in New Zealand.

• Australia has high quality observing conditions for radio astronomy, in particular, extreme radio quietness and excellent atmospheric conditions;
• Australia's land mass can accommodate the concentration of radio antennae in the core "radio-quiet zone" as well as the peripheral antennae spread out over an area up to 3000km from the core site;
• Australian governments and key stakeholder communities are committed to working together effectively on the project;
• Australia’s radio astronomy community is world class, producing 4.2 per cent of the world’s astronomy papers, with these papers cited 1.4 times the world average for astronomy papers;
• The CSIRO Australia Telescope National Facility (ATNF) ranks second in the world among the institutions providing world-class radio astronomy facilities (in terms of the number of refereed papers it generates);
• Australia has the capacity to provide reliable and cost effective infrastructure and maintenance to the SKA throughout its lifetime.