“Defence and the government have abandoned Tasmania,” retired Colonel Ross Byrne has told the Senate’s Foreign Affairs, Defence, and Trade References Committee
His comments come in response to an inquiry into Labor’s planned mass sell-off of 67 historic Defence land assets and facilities to generate around $2 billion, while the government grapples with ongoing high debt.
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,” Byrne said.
“In the longer term, are we opening our back door?”
Tasmania’s Defence Sites Reduced from 20 to 1
They include Youngtown, Burnie, Devonport, Stony Head, Bucklands and Swan Island, which includes part of a golf course, and the training ships Tamar and Derwent.
If implemented—and some of the sites have already been sold—the proposal will reduce the Australian Defence Force (ADF) footprint from 20 to just 1 site, Anglesea Barracks in the state.
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 of particular historical significance that Tasmania’s Deputy Premier Guy Barnett has pushed back on losing.
Concerns About Southern Underbelly
Meanwhile, retired Lieutenant Colonel Philip Pyke echoed Byrne’s warning, saying Tasmania was “a potential front line in future conflict.”
He pointed to a recent incident on Aug. 18 when 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 is occurring now. 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.
“But of course, we are looking at the north. We are looking at the Indo-Pacific.
“But 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.”
In turn, 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—it’s name on a map.
All three former senior officers, and the Tasmanian Returned and Services League (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.
