The federal government will sell $3bn in historic defense properties across the country, following a major audit of government land holdings and amid efforts to open up land for new housing development and public spaces.
Historic defense sites – including Victoria Barracks in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane – will be sold after years of audits, with public servants being moved into modern office spaces and heritage sites – including the cabinet rooms used by John Curtin at the height of World War II in Melbourne – opened to the public.
The defense minister, Richard Marles, released an audit of 3 million hectares of defense land on Wednesday, agreeing to recommendations to sell more than 60 assets, including islands in Sydney Harbor and a major munitions site at Maribyrnong, west of Melbourne. A long-standing target for remediation, it will fit 6,000 new homes.
Golf courses, air bases, warehouses, training facilities and vacant land are all up for sale, as is RAAF Base Glenbrook in the Blue Mountains, which is used as the headquarters of the Royal Australian Air Force’s command.
After relocation costs and other expenses, net income is expected to be about $1.8bn. About $100m a year is expected to be saved from taking care of unused and rundown properties, including 14 vacant sites.
Labor wants to increase take-up of modern offices, including Defense Plaza in Melbourne’s CBD, which is currently running at 46% capacity. Defense Plaza in Sydney is currently running at 60% capacity.
Around $2.4bn is expected to be raised from the sale of 26 major metropolitan sites, saving around $3bn in maintenance and security costs over 10 years. These include sites in Randwick and Sandringham in Sydney, St Kilda in Melbourne and Fremantle in Western Australia.
Labor is expected to face a backlash over the sale of sites central to the country’s defense history, and the process, overseen by the finance department, is expected to take years.
The sale of Victoria Barracks is expected to raise $1.3bn, given their prime locations in the biggest capital cities. Opportunities to change are expected to be limited by significant inheritance rules.
Spectacle Island in Sydney Harbour, which was used to store munitions during World War I and World War II, will be sold, while HMAS Penguin in Balmoral, part of which will be retained for a defense diving facility and a medical school.
Williams airforce base in Laverton in Victoria and Warradale Barracks in South Australia will also be sold, while Labor has decided against recommendations to sell Sydney’s Pittwater Annex.
Marles said that every dollar raised from the sales will be reinvested back into defense capabilities, including ahead of major changes brought about by the Aukus nuclear submarines agreement.
“For the Australian Defense Force to protect our country and keep Australians safe, it must have a defense posture that meets operational and capability requirements,” he said.
“For many years this has not been the case, with many defense sites vacant, decaying, unused and costing millions of dollars to maintain.”
The audit found poor sites were “draining resources away from higher priority needs” for defence.
“The disposition of large bases across Australia has remained stagnant since the late 1990s despite recommendations from previous reviews and white papers,” wrote authors Jan Mason and Jim Miller.
“It’s clear that maintaining the status quo is not an option.”
More to come.