Television Interview, News24 Afternoon Agenda

SUBJECT: Defence Estate Audit

TOM CONNELL [HOST]: Joining me live now is Assistant Defence Minister Peter Khalil. Thank you for your time. So, this was announced, we were told it's needed. It was a wise decision. Have you just bowed to pressure here?

PETER KHALIL [ASSISTANT MINISTER]: G'day, Tom. Look, I'm just going to say, if people were listening and taking notice. When we made the announcement in February, it was clearly stated and articulated that we've made a decision to divest 67 defence sites to make sure that the estate, the bases were fit for purpose for the modern ADF and that all of those sites, the final use of those sites, will be determined by, through a process of due diligence and community consultation, which we've conducted over a period of a year now, almost, and that the end use of those sites could either be based on that due diligence and that community consultation, a sale, it could be a public ownership model, trust model transfer to a state government. Now, we've done a number of those already, and the announcement that was made yesterday was to put. And it was a good decision, a good announcement after almost a year of consultations. I met with, and see, this is where it's really interesting in the politics of this, because Zali knows that I went to a town hall in her electorate and I answered questions of 300 of the members of the community. I met with all the heritage and the local history groups, the Heritage Council of Australia, the War Memorial. We met with all of the relevant stakeholders and I have said it again and again that the end use of these sites will be determined by that due diligence and that community consultation. And it could be a number of options. Now, the options that's been chosen for these four sites is the right decision because they are very, very high heritage sites. Fort Queenscliff, Victoria Barracks Sydney, Victoria Barracks Melbourne, and Point Cook. Most of those sites are fully heritage-listed, Commonwealth-listed. Not just the buildings, the entire site in some of those cases. And this makes absolute sense because we always said, and all you have to do is go back to the original announcement and the many times I've said this publicly on your program, in the media, at dozens of town halls around the country, that we will be determining this based on due diligence and consultation for the community benefit to see what's best. The main point, however, is that no government has made a tough decision on the defence at state for decades because it's all too hard. And it's all too hard, literally, because of the people choose to hear what they want to hear and then campaign. They pick one thing they cherry-pick one issue like, oh, it's going to be a private sale, and they campaign against that. That was never the case.

CONNELL: But it was slated in the private sale, wasn't it, in this original announcement.

KHALIL: No, you've got to go back to the original announcement and listen to what was said. And I've said it again and again publicly at multiple town halls that no final decision has been made on any of these sites.

CONNELL: I didn't say final decision. I said slated. Let me come at it from another way.

KHALIL: Sorry, sorry. Well, we'll let it here as well. You keep saying sell off. You keep saying sell off. 

CONNELL: What I just said was slated, not final word. That's what I'm just saying there. So, when you said final word. Okay, so that's the first point. Let me ask this question. The amount of money was slated means that's the default option without it being locked in. You can look up the word I'm saying, slated. You can say, that's wrong.

KHALIL: Go back, Tom, go back to the transcript, because truth matters and I'm kind of getting sick and tired of the manipulation.

CONNELL: Well, this is what I'm trying to ask you another way. 

KHALIL: I’ll give you another example, Tom. I know you want to ask questions. I'll give you another example. The campaign against the divestment of HMAS Penguin. It was announced that HMAS Penguin would be retained as an operational Navy diving training centre base. There was only a partial divestment of the forest up the top of the hill. All right, but that was made out to seem that we were divesting or selling off, as Zali said, all of Penguin. That was never the case. And in fact, it was actually announced in February early on that we would not be selling at all HMAS Penguin. That and the bit of the forest at the top would be determined based on consultation, which I went to her electorate and I went to electorates around the country and talk to the community and talk to the stakeholders and talk to the people that actually live with-

CONNELL: Okay, let me jump in. We've got a limited amount of time in the program. You've made a lot of points. That's fair enough. I understand you're fired up, and I'm not going to pretend the media is perfect or portraying things. So, let me ask it this way. The original announcement did speak about raising $3 billion in gross proceeds and a net return of $1.2 billion. Is that still the case?

KHALIL: Yes. And the estimates that were made relate to the amount of money required for transition for all of the due diligence process and the consultation process, but also the bills that we need to do to get this fit for purpose. Facilities and infrastructure for personnel that are being moved to and consolidated to bases that are fit for purpose. And then estimates around the rest of the divestment of those sites. And there's 67 sites across the country. And so we've already sold a number one or two of them. Some have been transferred over to finance, some have been transferred to working with state governments, like in South Australia and in Tasmania, like the Prime Minister has pointed out. Some have been announced for trust purposes and public ownership. And that's as it should be. I find it bizarre.

CONNELL: Let me just clarify the figure, totally clarify this. When we see this figure updated in MYEFO, the budget, the net amount raised is unchanged from the announcement on Victoria Barracks or any other announcement. It'll be 1.2 billion, 1.2 billion net benefit, no change.

KHALIL: All of those estimates are valid because they include the almost two, they include the hundreds of millions of dollars that would be spent on some of these historic sites to keep them going as operational bases. That's not going to continue. They're heritage sites. All of those figures include the fact that the estimates were made around the fact that some of these sites could go into a state trust or working with state governments and so on. So, there were very conservative estimates made across all of those. So, the financial position is unchanged, and it holds. Absolutely, because that was estimated in all the work that was done. This has been going on for four years. And what's really interesting is that there has been multiple consultations with all of these stakeholders. People choose to pick what they want to hear or listen to what they want to hear, and pick what they want to talk about and then campaign against it. I found it bizarre that there was a campaign around the divestment of HMAS Penguin when I literally. I think it was on your program as well, months ago, where I said, we are retaining Penguin because it is actually an operationally important capability, the Navy diving training set, and that needed to stay in as a defence base.

CONNELL: This is why I wanted to ask that figure, because, you know, you could have a whole lot of announcements and intentions as well. I was trying to clarify from relatively early on in this interview about that figure, because if the 1.2 billion stays, well, then I think you've got a strong argument to say this was the plan. Peter Khalil.

KHALIL: All of the planning and the financial estimates and so on were all based on the fact that many of these, some of these sites could move into different forms of ownership into the future. And they're the estimates that were done right across the board, and they were very conservative. 

CONNELL: I was trying to clarify the net figure, and I've done that. Peter Khalil, thank you.

KHALIL: Thank you.

ENDS