On August 18, a U.S. military flight from Christchurch to Antarctica was turned back after a warning was issued about potentially dangerous Russian space and missile activity over the Southern Ocean.
This drew attention to the concerns many of our military personnel have expressed in relation to the Southern Ocean and the Albanese government’s plans to diminish our defence capability in the south of our continent.
Their plan proposes selling eight Tasmanian Defence properties.
They include Youngtown, Burnie, Devonport, Stony Head, Bucklands, Swan Island and the training ships Tamar and Derwent.
If implemented, the proposal will reduce the Australian Defence Force (ADF) footprint in Tasmania from 20 to just 1 site, Anglesea Barracks.
On top of the eight full sell-offs, leases are set to lapse at several cadet training facilities, including St Helens and Devonport, and Training Ship Sheean – a site that is also of particular historical significance.
Retired Lieutenant Colonel Philip Pyke warned that the Southern Ocean was “a potential front line in any future conflict” and Tasmania was critically important in that respect.
“This hybrid grey zone warfare is occurring in the Southern Ocean and the Antarctic, and this will no doubt increase with the Antarctic Treaty up for renegotiation in 2030,” Pyke said.
“It isn’t enough to state that increasing southern pressures can be managed from fleet bases east and west on the Australian coast. We are actually the front line to the south, and Tasmania is constantly overlooked in this regard.
“There has been systematic degradation of our defence capability here over three decades, yet the emerging strategic threat to our southern approaches demands more investment, not less.”
Retired Colonel Ross Byrne agreed, telling the Senate’s Foreign Affairs, Defence, and Trade References Committee: “Defence and the government have abandoned Tasmania,”
His comments come in response to an inquiry into Labor’s planned mass sell-off of 67 historic Defence land assets and facilities throughout Australia to generate around $2 billion.
This is to help the Albanese government grapple with ongoing high debt caused by its own incompetence and big spending over 4 years.
Colonel Byrne was one of three retired senior officers testifying, all of whom said they believed the proposal was ill-conceived.
“Every time we sell off a depot – and we’ve done it here in Tasmania and in Western Victoria and New South Wales – we lose soldiers and they never come back,” he warned.
“Infrastructure should be viewed as an ‘enabler’ of capability, rather than an objective in itself.
“The measure of success should not be the number of facilities retained or divested, but what defence asset is better positioned to generate and sustain the force required for Australia’s future capabilities and security.
“What are we doing with the Southern Ocean? We’ve got a very small naval presence – same with the Air Force, and if we get rid of the army, we’ve got no military,” he said.
Retired Rear Admiral Steve Gilmore, who wrote the Tasmanian government’s input to the Defence Strategic Review, raised similar concerns.
“In that document, I talked about the significance of the Southern Ocean as it relates to the defence of Australia. Not to the detriment of the north and the west, which is vital, and the Pacific.
“I was advocating a 360-degree force posture for the country, noting that whilst we refer often to the Southern Ocean as our backyard – backyards have backdoors.
“And if I was wanting to do something nefarious with Australia, I’d position myself in the Southern Ocean,” he told the committee.
However, when it was published, the Strategic Review contained only one reference to the Southern Ocean – its name on a map!
All three former senior officers, and the Tasmanian RSL, who also gave evidence, were critical of the consultation process.
“The lack of consultation has been appalling,” Byrne said. “I have attended three consultation meetings in which the Assistant Minister for Defence, on two occasions, addressed those present.
“They were not consultation sessions; they were simply sessions where those attending were told what was happening.
“The Minister and his staff did not have any idea of what was to happen. Indeed, as recently as last week, a consultation in Hobart was finally told that … they did not have a plan for what was to happen in Tasmania … other than the disposals and vague generalisations of returning capability.
“It’s quite clear that those from Defence attending had little understanding of what defence capability really is,” he said.
The question begs, why is the Albanese government taking action that will severely diminish our nation’s defence capability when it clearly should be urgently increasing our military preparedness?
It doesn’t make sense – especially given that our Defence Minister, Richard Marles, has stated on numerous occasions that we are living during the most dangerous times since WW2?
The Chinese Communist Party has been surveilling our southern shores as well as neighbouring New Zealand – and yet our government believes we can ditch our southern defence bases in order to raise money for its Net Zero obsession.
It beggars belief!
Thanks to Rex Widerstrom writing for The Epoch Times. Images and cartoon are courtesy of iStock, Facebook and Johannes Leak
