Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles has kept tight-lipped on whether last week’s about-turn on the sale of Sydney’s Victoria Barracks was a captain’s call from Anthony Albanese.
The 180-year-old garrison was supposed to be sold to private developers under a cost-saving plan targeting unneeded Defence assets.
But critics argued the site – estimated to cost taxpayers $200m over the next decade – holds deep cultural significance as the “spiritual home” of the Australian Army, with the likes of former prime minister Tony Abbott and NSW Premier Chris Minns among those calling on the Albanese government to reconsider.
The Prime Minister and Mr Marles announced at the weekend that the barracks would remain in public hands but instead be transferred to the Department of Finance.
Mr Marles says spending hundreds of millions of dollars to maintain unused Defence estates is ‘untenable’. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman
Fronting media on Wednesday, Mr Marles – who also serves as defence minister – would not be drawn on how the decision was reached but stood by the original plan.
“What I know is that my job each and every day is to provide for the defence of the country, and the idea that we are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on sites around the country that we’re not using is just not tenable,” he told News24, adding the money would be better spent making the military “much more capable”.
“The Defence Estate Audit was damning in its assessment of the way in which the Defence Estate has been managed over decades, and it made clear that a failure to make difficult decisions had left the army with the burden that it has today.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced the backflip at the weekend. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman
Pressed on whether Mr Albanese made the call, Mr Marles said “we work through with the Prime Minister and others what the future of the site would be”.
Asked again, he said the “fundamental point here is that we are implementing the Defence Estate Audit, and (Victoria Barracks) will no longer be made maintained as a Defence estate and that hundreds of millions of dollars to do maintain it as a Defence estate will not be spent”.