Sarah Dingle:
Well, the defence minister Richard Marles has announced the government will sell off $1.8 billion worth of defence properties around the country. A major audit of defense’s land holdings has found the properties served no useful strategic value. The sites include Victoria Barracks in Sydney, sites in Melbourne and Brisbane. They’re set to cost millions to maintain, and many are largely vacant. Some sites are expected to be used for new housing developments after they’re sold by the Department of Finance. Joining me now is adjunct fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs and former deputy secretary at the Defence Department, Peter Jennings. Welcome to you.
Peter Jennings:
Hello, Sarah.
Sarah Dingle:
What do you think of the sell-off of 67 defence sites? Is it time?
Peter Jennings:
In some cases, it definitely will be, but I think the report really exaggerates the amount of money which is likely to come from them. The reason for saying that is that it’s often the case, particularly for those CBD properties that you’re talking about, heritage sites that can’t be redeveloped, and in the case of others, you’re talking about industrial sites which have been contaminated, including by PFAS, which is the so called forever chemical that was used once upon a time for fighting fires. The costs of getting those places ready for sale is going to be enormous. And the truth is, Sarah, that the defence has looked at these sorts of issues for decades. Kim Beazley managed a large selling off of defence industrial property in the 80s. The Howard government did the same thing with the defence efficiency review in the 1990s, including many properties which are relisted in this current report, and it’s harder to do. It’s slower. It’s more costly. It never realises significant defence funding. And so, I think Richard Marles is going to be disappointed if he thinks there’s big dollars to be made for defence by selling these properties.
Sarah Dingle:
Sure. I mean, the $1.8 billion figure might be an extremely optimistic one, but I mean, looking at some of these sites, you will get a pretty penny for them. I mean, the Victoria Barracks side in Sydney is bounded by Oxford Street on one side and Allianz Stadium on the other. And like quite an extraordinary series of buildings in there, that would go for a fair amount and save the cost of upkeep, no doubt.
Peter Jennings:
I’m not so sure about that because I guarantee you, it will be heritage listed. It’s often the case that when the military established these properties, they were the first ones there across Sydney and across the rest of the country. And in practise, they turn out to be impossible to sell. When the Howard government did this in the ’90s, they ended up gifting a lot of property to the state, which they thought had potential value, and they became things like museums and so forth. But the upkeep of the properties is such that the state was reluctant to accept them. The government will find this is a problem for the current lot as well. So the truth of the matter is that there’s not a lot of money in this type of drawing down. That may be less true for things that are out in the suburbs, some facilities that are used by the Army Reserve, for example.
But a separate concern there is just to say that the fewer properties you have to support reserves and cadets, the fewer reserves and cadets that you have. I noticed in one case, for example, they’re talking about selling a property called Fort Denison in Victoria. The solution for the cadets that use the property is to say, “Well, you can go to Geelong, which is 38 kilometres away, or you can go to the main defence building in Melbourne, which is 100 kilometres away.” And in practise, what that means is we just won’t have a reserve force or cadet force there after a few years. So I would say the government should be careful about false economies here. The truth of the matter is that we need a bigger, stronger defence force, not a defence force that’s built around just selling spare property.
Sarah Dingle:
Sure. But even if some of these sell-offs are false economies, others will be very real economies. I mean, included in this list of 67 defence sites for sale are golf courses, not one, but plural. I mean, the Defence Department doesn’t need golf courses. Surely, some of these sales are justified and will raise valuable revenue for defence.
Peter Jennings:
Maybe, but the reality can often be different. For example, as a Canberran, I know one of those golf courses that you’re referring to is right near the Australian Defence Force Academy, right next door to it. So if there’s a requirement to expand the Defence Academy, which is something the government has looked at in the last few years, well, there’s that space that could be used for it. If you sold the golf course, it’s gone forever, and you don’t have the opportunity to expand the Defence Academy. The devil’s always in the details with these things. I wouldn’t doubt that there is some money that can be gained, but between heritage issues and industrial remediation issues, I reckon that 1.8 billion is going to look in the very small tens of millions by the time the government actually goes through the fine detail on these 68 properties.
Sarah Dingle:
Can you tell me what those within the defence and also the veteran community are saying about this sell-off?
Peter Jennings:
Well, I’ve not heard specific comment in relation to this report released today, but I do know from past experience that there will be groups that will be very resistant to selling them. A lot of them are pretty key to the heritage of some military units, and there’s always groups which will get in the way of that and say that that shouldn’t happen. That’s not a reason for the government not to do it, of course, though. I mean, defence is not a museum. It’s a living organisation which is focused on protecting the country now and into the future. It’s not a heritage theme park. So I mean, I have some sympathy for the government’s position here that they do need to look seriously at this from the point of view of what they can do to keep the current defence force strong. But I just know from experience that there’s going to be lots of groups out there who won’t want to see things sold, or they’ll want them to be preserved for public purposes rather than for commercial purposes, and this always complicates the business of selling defence estate.
Sarah Dingle:
I guess we’ll have to see what price these properties do in fact fetch on the open market. Peter Jennings, thank you for joining us.
Peter Jennings:
Thank you, Sarah.
Sarah Dingle:
That’s adjunct fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs and former deputy secretary at the Defence Department’s Peter Jennings there.
This transcript of Peter Jennings speaking on ABC News Radio from 4 February 2026 has been edited for clarity.
