Radio Interview, ABC Mornings Western Australia

SUBJECTS: Divestment of Defence property

NADIA MITSOPOULOS, HOST: Now, top of the show, I told you how Defence will be selling off or ending the lease on 64 sites around Australia. Now, this is a big deal. Another three will be partly divested. The Irwin Barracks in Karrakatta and Leeuwin Barracks in East Fremantle are among those affected. Their people will be moving to Palmer Barracks in South Guildford. 

Now, Matt Keogh is the member for Burt and Minister for Veterans’ Affairs and Defence Personnel. Minister, good morning, and thank you for talking to me. 

MATT KEOGH, MINISTER FOR DEFENCE PERSONNEL: Hi, Nadia, great to be with you. 

MITSOPOULOS: Why is your government doing this? 

KEOGH: So, we commissioned a review coming out of the Defence Strategic Review that we did when we first came into government, reviewing all of the Defence estate across the country, and Defence is the largest landholder in Australia, making sure that what we had is actually fit for purpose and that it’s meeting our capability needs for what we need to do to defend our country and have an effective Australian Defence Force. And that review identified a number of sites – 68 sites in total – that Defence did not need to continue to hold on to. And so, it recommended that those sites be divested. One of those sites has – there’s been a change in use. Three of them we’ve actually already divested now, and we’re proceeding with divesting the remaining 64 of those that were recommended so that we can make sure that we’re continuing to best utilise all of our Defence capability for what we need in our national interest. 

MITSOPOULOS: So, what happens now at Irwin Barracks and Leeuwin Barracks? 

KEOGH: We’ve made this announcement today, there’ll be a period of transition. We’ve identified Palmer Barracks in South Guildford as where the personnel and public servants that currently operate from those barracks – so, Leeuwin and Irwin – will relocate to. So, there will be quite a bit of construction work that will need to happen with new state-of-the-art facilities to go into Palmer Barracks, which will provide a consolidated site near the airport, good transport links to be the ongoing base in the sort of Perth metro area, if you like, to support our predominantly reservist forces. And then once that’s ready to go, those Defence Force members, public servants, will move to that site and then the Irwin and Leeuwin will be able to be divested. 

MITSOPOULOS: So, how many personnel does this affect? 

KEOGH: So across WA we’re talking about 200 to 250 Defence Force personnel, about 100 public servants, but then there’s – we have about 1200, 1250 reservists, you know, some who do a lot of reserve work, some who don’t – who are not as regular, but about 1200 people that would be across those two sites that would now do their reserve service out of Palmer Barracks. 

MITSOPOULOS: Do you know how much money this will generate? 

KEOGH: So, overall, we expect to net about $1.8 billion by divesting these sites. We’ll actually make more than that, but there’ll be a re-investment into places like Palmer Barracks, where we’ll build fit-for-purpose facilities there going forward. One of the things about a lot of these sites, Nadia, is that they’re old. The maintenance costs are huge, and so we’re spending a lot of money maintaining buildings that are not actually fit for purpose. They’re not delivering the capability that we require them to be able to support our Defence Force. And so by divesting these sites and then consolidating around sites where we can have better fit-for-purpose facilities means that our Defence Force personnel are better supported in what they need to do, and we’re not spending money on maintaining old buildings that were not designed or built for what we now need to do to be able to support our Defence Force. 

MITSOPOULOS: My guest on ABC Radio Perth and WA is Matt Keogh. He is the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs and Defence Personnel, talking about the fact that the government is divesting 64 sites around Australia, the Defence Force, including Irwin and Leeuwin barracks here in Perth. I am getting concerns on the text line from current Defence staff who are worried there won’t be enough space or infrastructure at Palmer Barracks to accommodate everyone, especially given the delays in the building industry. You did say, though, there will be major redevelopments at Palmer Barracks? 

KEOGH: Yeah, there’ll be new facilities built at Palmer Barracks to support the workforce that will be moving there and operating from there. And it’s once that’s done that then those units, the brigades, would then move to operate from Palmer Barracks, and the divestment would proceed on Irwin and on Leeuwin. And then there’s also the two rifle ranges that have – they’re leased, and those leases won’t be renewed as part of the divestment.  And I should say across the board with a lot of these sites – not with Leeuwin and Irwin – but across the country, there’s a lot of sites that literally have no one at them. Like, they’re just sitting there vacant. And we should – there’s no point Defence spending money on maintaining those sites when we could be putting that money into Defence capability, which we clearly need to do. 

MITSOPOULOS: So, who do you sell to? What are the rules there? I mean, again, people are saying, great, does it go to housing? How do you manage that? I mean, is it open to anyone who wants it? 

KEOGH: So, that will be a process managed by the Department of Finance, and that will be developed in different ways in different places. You know, some of these sites are in the middle of CBDs, some of these sites are in outer urban areas, some of them are in rural and quite remote areas. So, the divestment process will need to match the nature of those sites. But I think it would be fair to say that across the board, when you look at all 64 sites, there will be some that will be developed into housing, some, no doubt, will be developed into commercial purposes. There’ll be a wide variety of uses. But in terms of freeing up land in metropolitan areas for better uses for the broader community and then enabling Defence to better use purpose-built facilities, it’s a great outcome not just for Defence but for the broader Australian community as well. 

MITSOPOULOS: Was East Fremantle, in particular, was it not suitable for potentially AUKUS, you know, workers involved in AUKUS, accommodation? Because you need a lot of accommodation for that project? 

KEOGH: Well, we’ve already started acquiring that accommodation and building that accommodation down around HMAS Stirling in the Rockingham, Kwinana, Baldivis area, which is actually where those people, whether they’re, you know, workers on the Henderson site or whether they’re Navy personnel associated with the Navy base there at HMAS Stirling, it’s appropriate to have that down there. But I don’t know if anyone’s been to Leeuwin; that is not a set of new buildings that people want to be living in. They are old facilities and, quite frankly, from my engagement from a veterans’ point of view, some people have some pretty terrible memories about the Leeuwin site, so, you know, there are better uses. Defence doesn’t need to be using that site, and so it will be moved on.

MITSOPOULOS: And what about, finally, Minister, heritage value? Are there some things on those sites you’ll have to preserve for their heritage value? 

KEOGH: So, some sites have some buildings of heritage value, and that will be dealt with through the heritage protections that are under the EPBC Act, and that will be a process that the Department of Finance will work through. In many cases, what it will mean for some particularly heritage significant buildings is that at the moment those buildings sit there behind the wire, you know, behind the fence, the public don’t get to see them. 

MITSOPOULOS: Yeah. 

KEOGH: There may be greater public access to some of these historic buildings now through this divestment process. There’s also a number of military museums that sit on some of these bases. Sometimes they might be open a day a month. There may be either access maintained to those museums or significant pieces in those museums might be able to be accessed through other facilities. We’ll be working with the Australian War Memorial, with places like the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, other military museums to make sure that valuable military heritage is protected and available to the community. 

MITSOPOULOS: I’ll leave it there. Thanks for your time. 

KEOGH: Great to be with you. Cheers. 

ENDS