Radio Interview, ABC Hobart

SUBJECTS: Defence Estate Community Consultation Sessions; Defence Estate Audit

LEON COMPTON [HOST]: Peter Khalil is the Assistant Minister for Defence. Assistant Minister, good morning to you.

PETER KHALIL [ASSISTANT MINISTER]: Good morning, Leon. How are you?

COMPTON: Will Tasmania be left with nowhere for soldiers, reservists, to fire a rifle by the time this land sale is done?

KHALIL: No and I just overheard you talking to Chris there. While I’m a bit envious that he’s going out sailing, I was hoping that he could come to some of the consultations next week, because I think it’s important and absolutely critical that we inform and articulate what this plan is all about. We’re looking at all the options around live firing and field training requirements, including the use of existing ranges as well as suitable sites in Tassie. I made that very clear to the Department – my priority is to make sure that that can continue in Tasmania if the options are there.

COMPTON: Okay, so just to pull you up for a moment, when the initial list came out in February of this year, the sites where the military do live firing in Tasmania all appeared under the list of being on the block for sale.

KHALIL: Yeah.

COMPTON: So, has that now – are some of those off the block, and if yes, which ones?

KHALIL: Sorry, Leon, there are a number of sites in Tassie that have been announced as part of the divestment. And maybe it’s helpful for listeners to start at the top here. Why are we doing this? What is the purpose of this? And that is obviously around the audit that we undertook for the entire Defence estate, which is the largest landholding in Australia. And, Leon, across the country it’s 3.8 million hectares, there are over 70 major bases, hundreds of facilities and sites, but many of them were underused or underutilised. Many of them were beautiful and they had sprawling golf courses and tennis courts, but they’re not operational – they don’t have the capabilities and the operational capabilities for our current future force and for our men and women in uniform. And much of the money that was being spent – over $2 billion on maintenance and sustainment of sites – hundreds of millions of dollars a year of taxpayer dollars being wasted on sites that were not used and sites that were not operationally fit for purpose. So, there was tough decisions that had to be made. And I made those tough decisions, the government has made those tough decisions. Some $4 billion has been brought back into the Defence budget for the men and women in uniform.

Now, for Tasmania, a number of sites were on that list, but we are building a new tri-service cadet facility for all of the cadets. We are building a new multi-user depot for reservists. We’ve invested over $20 million in Anglesea, and there’s some $400 million in defence industry that is going into Tassie. So, Tasmania plays a really important part in the future of both the Defence ADF, given the number of people per capita is the highest in our armed forces, but also in defence industry and advanced manufacturing. That is really important to note.

COMPTON: Okay, Peter Khalil, lots of questions from our audience have come in. In the weeks that we’ve been talking about this story on Mornings, so there was no intention of selling off all of the land where live firing and manoeuvring exercises can happen in Tasmania? So, some of the sites that were initially flagged will come off the list for sale. Can you confirm that?

KHALIL: No, that’s not right. We’ve published the list of sites that will be divested. It’s all been made public. There are 15 sites in Tasmania. They’re all publicly available for people to look at. What I’m saying, though, and to answer Chris’s question is that we are looking at all options for maintaining live firing for reservists and field manoeuvring in Tasmania, and that is – the Department is undertaking that. As I said, we’re also building new facilities for reservists, up-to-date infrastructure for a modern reserve force, up-to-date infrastructure for the cadets as well. And where the cadets can’t travel those long distances because of the tri-service facility up in north of Launceston, in other parts of the country whether it’s St Helens or wherever where you have small numbers of cadets, we’ll be ensuring that we get them really good sites that we release out that are up to date to allow them to do their cadet training and their cadet manoeuvring and so on. So, I think it’s important to note this. There’s been a lot of, I think, misinformation about us bulldozing heritage sites or removing this or that. That’s not true. Everything that is heritage listed is going be protected by commonwealth law…  

COMPTON: That might be the national story; it’s not what we’re feeling here. So, we’ve got really specific questions from our listeners, so people like former military officer, Andrew Wilkie has also been asking the question. After this is done, there still will be sites to manoeuvre, say I don’t know, platoon level, 20 to 50 soldiers, in Tasmania on Defence land?

KHALIL: As I said, I’ve met with Andrew Wilkie, and I’ve met with most of the MPs in Tasmania and the Senators to undertake consultations to answer their questions. I’m also meeting with the public in Tasmania next week, as you pointed out, for the community consultations, meeting with RSLs and so on, I also met with the President of the RSL to answer these questions. So, again, so there’s no misinformation about this, my instruction to the Department is to ensure that we look at all the options, consider all the options to ensure that the continued strong reserve presence that we have in Tassie is able to conduct live firing exercises and field training requirements. That is what is being done at the moment.

COMPTON: Okay.

KHALIL: So just to be clear, I can’t announce that now, Leon, because we’re going through that process to make sure that we get the right result and the right outcome for the reservists. But the story that needs to be told is that we are investing in Tasmania with respect to Defence. Defence industry is investing in Tasmania. It’s creating so many jobs in Tasmania. I just met with the Premier yesterday to discuss some of this, with the Deputy Prime Minister…

COMPTON: With respect, I understand, and we’d love you to come back and actually talk more about that. But this is really about the land divestment for reasons that Tasmanians understand, and it seems like a lot of Tasmanians support. So, can I just run through those questions, Peter Khalil?

KHALIL: Sure.

COMPTON: My guest this morning is the Assistant Minister for Defence. If you sell the Devonport training site and the Burnie training site – they’re both on the list – where will the reserves meet?

KHALIL: As I said, we are building a new multi-user reserve depot that’s up to date. It’s going to be modern. It’s going to be new. It’s going to have the infrastructure that can meet the needs of a modern reserve force for their training, for the facilities that we need. We built some of these, actually, in other parts of Australia. They’re fantastic. We’ve built one up in Cairns as well. I just visited it. So, these sites will be, you know, state of the art, effectively, for reservists.

COMPTON: Will this be outside of Launceston, Assistant Minister?

KHALIL: The multi-user reserve depot will be in the northwest. I can’t tell you the location right now; we're working through that process. And so that is a new facility for reservists. It’s what we call a multi-user depot. So, it will allow the storage, it will have the facilities for their training, and it will be state of the art, brand new. And that’s important…

COMPTON: So, it will be somewhere near, sort of somewhere between – I suppose I’m thinking about travel times you know, Wednesday night, you’ve had a big day, how far will you need to travel as a reservist to get to do your training? So, are you thinking somewhere between Burnie and Devonport potentially as an option, an amalgamation?

KHALIL: It will be in the northwest. The Department is looking at all of the relevant sites – I mean the appropriate sites. I can’t tell you exactly. I’d love to. If this was TV maybe we could get a map out. But I don’t know exactly, to be honest, Leon. We’re working through potential sites in the northwest. I don’t want to pin down a particular site and have you say, “Oh, that’s where it’s supposed to be.” We don’t know exactly the best site yet. We’re going through that process.

COMPTON: Muttonbirding, we had Tasmania’s Aboriginal community talk about South Arm, the reserve facility – or, rather, the land facility there talking about the cultural value of muttonbirding and asking, “Well, we’d like to be part of this conversation and we’d like to talk about having access to that land again.”

KHALIL: Absolutely.

COMPTON: How does that conversation happen?

KHALIL: Absolutely. And one of the things with this reform when we made the announcement was that – and it was part of the reform – was that we would be talking to First Nations communities in ensuring that they have cultural access or accessibility to these sites, and that will continue. That's part of the community consultation process. The muttonbirding, I'm very aware of that. That is what is, you know, the request there and that will continue. I’m engaging with those First Nations leadership and communities as I going around the country to assure them that their access will be maintained if it’s been an ongoing thing or if they are requesting assess for cultural reasons. So, we’re working through that as well. So that will be down in Hobart, I think, we will do one of the consultations as well with those First Nations groups. I’ll be there next week, so, that is something that’s happening across Australia, not just Tassie.

COMPTON: Okay. Peter Khalil is our guest this morning. Let’s mention those dates next week again. So, April 07, really across the northwest – Burnie, the Training Ship Emu as well; Devonport Training Depot, the Training Ship Sheean, that’s April 07. If you get along to defence.gov.au you’ll be able to find where you can be and when to get involved in these discussion sessions. Launceston, the April 08 talking about George Town, Launceston, Scottsdale, St Helens, Stony Head training area and the Youngtown Training Depot; and then on April 09 in the south of the state, Bridgewater, Buckland, Derwent Barracks, Fort Direction, Hobart, the Training Ship Derwent. Lots to discuss there. Peter Khalil, a final one for you before – unless our listeners have more questions this morning – the Tasmanian Government, as soon as you mentioned the Derwent Barracks would be on the market started eyeing it off for housing. And I’m wondering if they were asking for you just to give it to them. How much do you want for it, Assistant Minister?

KHALIL: I don’t do the valuations, Leon. That’s all going to be done independently. But I think the important principle here is that we announced is that there has to be a fair market value for these sites because this is money that will be reinvested in our men and women in uniform. That’s the whole point here. And that will be a process where, as we finalise the community consultations and the First Nations consultations, the heritage plan and so on for all these sites, the finance that we – we hand it over to the Finance Department and they conduct the sales. And state governments may be interested in purchasing some of these properties. Other people might be interested in purchasing. Some of the land may go to housing, some of it go to other functions. But that is – there will be an open, transparent process and there are expressions of interest open with the Department of Finance now if people are interested in some of these properties. But it has to be a fair market value.

COMPTON: Okay, so fair market value is effectively how you’ll be thinking about that. Peter Khalil, listen, it’s still a long journey. Our audience around Tasmania is really interested in it. We’d love you to keep coming back and talking through it.

KHALIL: Love to, yeah.

COMPTON: I’ve got a final question for you: Donald Trump has been railing in international media overnight about the…

KHALIL: You thought you’d slip this one in, Leon?

COMPTON: I was going to ask it first; I thought we’d do it at the end. Peter Khalil, has Donald Trump, he similarly been pressing the French and the English to turn up and defend shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, has he similarly been asking for a commitment of Australian troops to work in the Strait?

KHALIL: I can tell listeners, I’m not aware of a direct request that’s been made by the US administration on that front to the Australian Government. But obviously it is a bit above my pay rate, but I’m not aware that that has occurred. I am aware, though, that we have been asked to provide support, which we did respond to by providing defensive support in sending out E-7 Wedgetail and some of our personnel to help protect civilians in the United Arab Emirates. So, we are doing that, and I think that’s an important job that the Defence Forces are doing, and we wish the best to the personnel who are there in harm’s way. They are protecting civilians, civilian infrastructure and civilian assets as well and Australians who live in Dubai and Abu Dhabi and so on.

COMPTON: Is there any request for a commitment of further Australian Defence Force resources to that part of the world at the moment? And is the Australian Government considering that?

KHALIL: If there was a request, it would probably be the President calling our Prime Minister. I’m not aware that that’s occurred. I’m sure the PM will let everyone know if that occurs. But at the present moment, what I can tell you listeners is that we have provided defensive support based on a request that has been made to us, and that’s what we are doing. And, frankly, the other point I would make to people is that this is a really hard situation globally for the global economy. We are doing everything we can to secure supply of fuel, and we’ve locked in another 55 cargo ships for the month of April. So, the supply is good. We have a very high strategic reserve. It’s higher than it’s ever been, but obviously, we are releasing some of our reserve as well because there’s been a spike in demand. So, people should just fill up what they need, and obviously we’re also working to make sure we get the fertiliser to farms as well as distribution to regional areas, because they’re relying on spot markets. So, we’re making some legislative changes there to support the regional areas.

COMPTON: Assistant Minister for Defence, good to talk to you. We hope you come back and just keep chatting to our audience who are interested in this story through the journey of working out what gets sold, under what terms and what gets kept and so on. Thank you.

KHALIL: Thanks, Leon. Cheers. 

Ends