Howard, Abbott, Greens Find Rare Common Ground Against Labor’s Defence Base Sale

SYDNEY—Two former Liberal prime ministers, the federal opposition leader, a Greens senator and a Teal independent MP have set aside their usual differences to urge Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to stop the sale of Sydney’s Victoria Barracks.

Victoria Barracks is a 13-hectare site located on prime real estate in Sydney’s affluent east. Its sale is part of the Labor government’s mass sell-off of 67 defence assets, which it says has become too costly to maintain.

On Oct. 25, former Liberal Prime Minister John Howard said those at the rally did not always agree, but they shared one view about the army site.

“We think it is a precious, irreplaceable, not for sale national asset,” he said.

Howard said Albanese would have the support of voters across politics if he stepped in.

“If you want to get something done, you get the prime minister onside,” Howard said at the rally in Moore Park opposite the barracks, adding that if Albanese were to “cancel any of this madness, then I will be the first to go on [Sydney talkback radio station] 2GB in the afternoon and congratulate [him].”

While the speakers agreed on the outcome, their reasons were sometimes far apart.

Howard told the crowd he was “all in favour of government spending less and taxing less,” and had close friends who were developers.

“But I don’t think anybody wants that contribution to be at the expense of our history and our soul as a country,” he said.

Greens Senator David Shoebridge came at the issue from the opposite direction, saying governments “of all stripes” had sold off banks, insurance companies and toll roads, always to benefit a wealthy few.

“No more privatisation. No more selling of the public estate. It stays in public hands,” he said.

“They want to flog off the HMAS Penguin [in north Sydney] too. One of the only places we can actually use to train naval divers, and navy divers—and you know what? They’ve now got a plan to flog off a chunk of that so that the navy divers can’t get from HMAS Penguin to the beach where they do the training,” Shoebridge said.

“Who comes up with these ideas?”

Opposition Leader Angus Taylor said the facility was nearly 200 years old and played a major role in training and recruiting soldiers for the World Wars, the Vietnam War and Korean War.

He said more than 120,000 people had signed a petition against the sale.

Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott urged people to phone their MP, “particularly your Labor member,” saying all prime ministers respected “people power,”

“Don’t just write letters, send emails. Ring up your local member, particularly your Labor member, and say Victoria Barracks is sacred,” Abbott said, who handed the microphone over to NSW Opposition Leader Kellie Sloane.

Sloane pledged that if she became premier, she would introduce a law “to make sure no government can ever sell off our military history in this city … it belongs to you, not to the prime minister.”

Independent MP for Wentworth Allegra Spender recalled a soldier telling her that army life meant being sent anywhere, but “when you drive past Victoria Barracks, that’s when you know that you’re home.”

“The heritage of our country is not owned by a single government, and cannot be sold off by a single government,” she said, adding that because serving members could not speak out, “We have to be their voices.”

Part of a 67-Site Sell-off

Defence Minister Richard Marles announced on Feb. 4 that the government had agreed to all 20 recommendations of an independent audit of Defence land and buildings, and would wholly or partly sell off 67 sites, including the barracks. All money from the sales is to stay with Defence.

He said many Defence sites were “vacant, decaying, underutilised and costing millions of dollars to maintain.”

The barracks were built between 1841 and 1848 and were occupied by British Army regiments from its completion until 1870, when they were handed over to NSW colonial military forces.

The site has long played a key role in Australia’s military history. It was the departure point for the first independent Australian military contingent to the Sudan War, and later for Australian forces bound for the Boer War and the First World War. It was the Defence Force’s command and administrative hub through both World Wars.

The Senate referred the sales to an inquiry, chaired by Collins, on March 11.

In an interim report tabled on Sept. 16, the committee recommended the government “immediately halt” the programme until proper public consultation was done and new legal checks were put in place. Its final report is due in February next year.

Minister Marles has so far stood firm. In a television interview on Sept. 27, he said every dollar Defence spent on the barracks’ heritage competed with spending on capability, and that most soldiers had never set foot there.

“There are a few former generals who liked hanging out there who were lamenting this,” he said, adding the site should be “returned to Sydneysiders and Australians.”