Article by Peter Jennings, courtesy of The Australian
04.02.2026
In releasing an audit of the Defence estate on Wednesday, Richard Marles said “the Albanese government is undertaking the most significant reform to the Defence estate ever”.
The audit claims that there is approximately $3bn of potential sales revenue to be gained from selling 68 properties.
Finance Minister Katy Gallagher says her department “has the expertise to manage the large-scale Defence estate divestment program. This approach will ensure sites identified by the audit are sold at market value, with careful consideration of remediation, heritage and community impacts. Importantly, proceeds will be reinvested in key Defence priorities.”
These are big claims for a report that was provided to the government in 2023. Why did Marles sit on the document for three years? He says the government took “the necessary and appropriate time to assess potential impacts”.
Marles should have taken more time. The truth is that Australia need a stronger, larger Defence Force, not a plan for selling down Defence assets.
We do need to modernise the Defence estate, but this is not the way to do it. Far fewer dollars than is claimed will be realised from selling these properties.
The heritage value of some properties is such that they are practically unsalable. In other cases, decades of industrial use have left sites contaminated, including with the so-called “forever chemicals” in the firefighting agent PFAS.
Defence will be significantly out of pocket remediating these properties to be sold.
I was closely involved in a first-term Howard government initiative known as the Defence Efficiency Review. Quite a few properties identified for sale in that 1997 exercise are relisted in the 2023 audit – including the air force’s Air Command Headquarters at Glenbrook in NSW, Fort Queenscliff and RAAF bases at Laverton and Point Cook in Victoria and Fort Direction in Tasmania.
The factors that made these properties difficult to move from Defence’s books three decades ago are still in place today.
The 2023 audit proposes selling off iconic facilities in the hearts of our capital cities, including Victoria Barracks in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne, Woodside Barracks in Adelaide, Leeuwin Barracks in Perth.
Property developers may salivate at the thought of getting their hands on these CBD locations but such sales will be opposed by vocal groups whose opposition will slow and complicate the process.
The bulk of the proposed sales come in the form of army reserve depots and rifle ranges and navy reserve “training ships”.
Some of these properties can and should be sold but the more important issue is missed: that is, we’re seeing a continued decline of the Defence reserve as well as cadet footprint in our cities and towns.
In closing Fort Queenscliff, for example, Defence suggests that the up to 50 cadets who use the facility can move 32km to Geelong, or 104km to Defence Plaza Melbourne. Or maybe they will give up being cadets.
Fewer reserve training depots means in time there will be fewer reservists and cadets. A strategy built around selling buildings rather than prioritising people is wrong-headed and self-destructive for Defence.
The audit continues a strategy in place for decades of consolidating the ADF into a smaller number of larger bases.
That once made sense, but now we must deal with a new factor: the range of Chinese missiles increasingly puts these large facilities at risk. The US is pursuing a strategy of military dispersal but we are pursuing a strategy of consolidation.
The government’s 2024 National Defence Strategy identified a need to “increase protection of bases and provide the ability to withstand disruption in crisis or conflict.”
How does that fit with a plan for fewer, larger bases?
The estimate of $3bn in potential estate sales should be seen in the context of $81.5bn budgeted for troubled military acquisition programs, highlighted by the Australian National Audit Office’s 2024-25 Major Projects Report. Released just before Christmas last year, the report says these projects are running a cumulative 33 years late and expressed concern about the failure of Defence and the Albanese government to provide detailed information.
The Albanese government’s failure to properly fund Defence is breaking the current capabilities of our military. Moreover, the “future force” represented by these equipment projects is floundering.
As the government prepares for a new federal budget in May, the public release of a report on selling down the Defence Estate must not substitute for funding decisions or let the government falsely claim that Defence can “self-fund” reform.
The reality is it will take years to realise money from property sales and there will be severe dislocation to the ADF as it reconstitutes the basing footprint.
The “Future Estate” audit misses three key issues that need urgent attention. It has nothing to say about establishing a new navy port on the east coast for nuclear-powered submarines beyond calling for a “long term co-ordinated solution”. This is vital to delivering the AUKUS boats.
Second, the audit touches on cyber and perimeter security but offers nothing on protection against drones and air defence. There are pages, however, on climate change resilience and the “pathway to net zero”.
Finally, the report’s bias is towards consolidation. It doesn’t imagine the possibility we might need to grow the ADF to respond to strategic change.
After years of “careful consideration”, the government should have done better. Defence continues to drift in its planning fantasy about the “future force.” Meanwhile, the strategic threat grows in plain sight and hard decisions are being avoided.
