The Northern Territory has entered into high-level talks with the Albanese government over the Port of Darwin, which is held in a 99-year lease by the Chinese-owned Landbridge and operated by Darwin Port Operations Pty Ltd.
If news reports are to be believed, rather than seen as pre-election hype, Australia seems closer than ever to reclaiming a valuable deep water port.
Further discussions are expected to take place on Thursday in Canberra.
While being clear to insist that the port is not ‘for sale’ there has apparently been some chatter…
The Territory’s Chief Minister and Treasurer are keen for clarity, with public opinion overwhelmingly critical about such a valuable military asset being outside the absolute control of Australia.
Speaking earlier in the week, the Northern Territory Treasurer said it was time for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to ‘stump up the money’.
He probably means that the Australian taxpayer will ‘stump up the money’, but in this case, it might be worth the price tag.
According to Sky News Australia, the asking price, if it were for sale, would be about $1.3 billion. Despite being $800 million more than the original lease, it sounds like a bargain for national defence.
The Country Liberal Party, in a previous iteration, offloaded the port despite experts calling it a ‘seriously dumb idea’ and an ‘inexcusable stuff-up’.
Federal Labor MP Luke Gosling said this week:
‘It was the most ridiculous thing that you could imagine doing. Our northern port, our strategic northern port, the only deep water port really in the whole of Northern Australia, around to the West Coast and Far Queensland Coast, should be in Australian hands, and it was until the Country Liberal Party with the Coalition’s support, leased it last century.’
The Northern Territory’s finances were in bad shape at the time the Country Liberal Party came to power and the political leadership of the day saw the port as a potential commercial asset rather than a critical piece of defence infrastructure. How they made that mistake is anyone’s guess and reflects incredibly poorly on all the individuals involved.
The then-Treasurer, Dave Tollner, said: ‘We were very reluctant to go borrowing a lot of money to put into a port. To that end, we went seeking a partner to look after that port.’
The Prime Minister at the time was also a Liberal, Malcolm Turnbull, who, with Scott Morrison as Treasurer, oversaw the deal to the critical eye of then-US President Obama.
Turnbull was forced to defend the sale at an Apec Summit. As The Guardian put it, Turnbull ‘shrugged off’ concern.
‘The Northern Territory government consulted with the Department of Defence quite some time ago, and the defence department’s conclusion was that the sale under the conditions of the sale did not pose concerns for the Department of Defence. The Department of Defence I’m sure did their homework, as you’d expect them to do. They’re more aware than most of those issues, I assure you.’
Turnbull can do all the ‘assuring’ he likes, but the fallout from the deal was so rough it triggered a major review and overhaul of the rules.
‘I don’t think we should be critical of the Northern Territory government. They did the right thing.’
Even the broken clock of Chris Bowen, who was the Shadow Treasurer, managed to be right about something when he said: ‘It’s clear that the government should have been much more on top of this case. The President of the United States was forced to very bluntly complain about the government’s handling and frankly it’s an embarrassment for Malcolm Turnbull to laugh this off and suggest the President read the Northern Territory News.’
At the time, the Executive Director of the Australia Defence Association said: ‘It was the classic example of parochial short-term thinking winning out over what is in the national interest of all Australians across the country for the long-term foreseeable future.’
‘There’s a lot wrong with the Darwin harbour, but it’s the best of a bad lot across northern Australia, so over the next 99 years, if we want to build a big naval base somewhere … it’s probably going to be in Darwin.’
Despite a looming election, Albanese did not shy away from questions about the future of the port, saying: ‘I was on the record at the time as the Shadow Infrastructure Minister, opposing what is clearly a national asset, our most important port in northern Australia. We wouldn’t have sold it in the first place.’
The ABC pointed out that the port undergoes regular security checks and there has not been a problem.
If this discussion comes down to public opinion during the election cycle, it is almost certainly going to favour the return of the port to Australian hands, especially when we have both the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader talking up military involvement in Ukraine.
