By Andrew Davies
In a speech at the Lowy Institute, the Prime Minister today announced that a re-elected government will
… establish the Future Navy Taskforce that will provide advice to the Government on implementing these recommendations and other recommendations of the Australian Defence Force Posture Review and 2013 Defence White Paper that offer operational advantages, enhance capability sustainment requirements and relieve future pressure on the current location of Fleet Base East in Sydney.
The Taskforce will provide advice on the timing, proportions and implementation of moving some or all of Fleet Base East to Queensland and Perth and developing, upgrading or expanding Darwin and Broome.
At first glance, the argument that Australia’s navy would be better placed to respond to events in the waters to our north—where all of the strategic action is taking place—is reasonable. All other things being equal, forces close to an area of operations will be able to respond more quickly than those further away. Similarly, forward basing can make it easier to sustain operations, and units can familiarise themselves with prospective operating areas through exercising and training in like environments. These considerations underpinned the relocation of ADF units to the north of Australia in the 1980s and 1990s.
For small vessels such as patrol boats, being located close to likely operating areas is particularly important—they need to be nearby to respond quickly to rapidly evolving events such as border protection and search and rescue operations. Their limited range and endurance means they can’t operate effectively from distant ports. But for major naval vessels, the logic is less compelling. They can remain at sea for months if required, and the loss of less than a day steaming from southern ports makes essentially no difference to their ability to remain on station for extended periods. The navy has maintained a continuous frigate presence in the Persian Gulf and off the Horn of Africa for over a decade, so doing the same to the north of Australia would be relatively easy.
It’s also worth understanding why the navy is where it is today. Geography plays a role in determining the suitability of locations for military basing. For example, large ships require deep water access and port facilities that are available at all times. For berthing purposes the local tidal range is an important factor. The two current major fleet bases are—not coincidentally—located in ports with small tidal ranges; Fremantle (under 1m) and Sydney (about 2m). In comparison, the northwest coastline experiences some of the largest tidal ranges in the world; Derby has a mean spring range of over 10m and Broome about 8.5m.
The unavoidable conclusion of these considerations is that there’s no compelling strategic logic to move navy’s major vessels further north than Brisbane. One reason to look at Brisbane is the potential crowding that could result in the existing bases in Fremantle and, especially, Sydney Harbour when two large new amphibious ships and three air warfare destroyers are delivered. It could get pretty tight.
With that in mind, the 2012 Australian Defence Force Posture Review identified the need for a rethink of navy’s basing:
Navy faces the greatest challenges in accommodating changes required by Force 2030 and needs a fresh master plan for its future basing to meet significantly greater demands on the capacity of wharves, dockyards and support facilities at Navy’s bases.
But it went on to recommend the potential northern relocation of only select future force elements—the future submarines and amphibious ships:
Defence should commence planning now on long term options for establishing a supplementary east coast fleet base at Brisbane for the Future Submarine and large amphibious ships.
Seen this way Brisbane becomes an ‘overflow’ facility for the east coast fleet.
And there’s another good reason to not move the bulk of the fleet from its current location—it’s prohibitively expensive to do so. When the move of Fleet Base East from Sydney to Jervis Bay was contemplated in the mid-1980s, the estimated cost was over $2 billion (2011 prices). Moving to a northern harbour less suited to operating large vessels would cost up to three times that and, at a time when the defence budget is under pressure on all fronts, it’s not likely to be a high priority on Russell Hill. Here’s how the 2013 defence white paper describes the notion:
The Government has decided not to proceed at this time with long-term planning for establishing a supplementary east coast fleet base in Brisbane (which had been recommended by the Review). The significant preliminary cost estimate (in the order of $6 billion), challenges associated with land acquisition, environmental considerations, the need for extensive dredging and the wider dispersion to a third fleet base of Royal Australian Navy personnel and training, all suggest that establishing a fleet base in Brisbane would be challenging and require significant continued investment for it to remain sustainable.
It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the Taskforce announced today will come up with a similar answer to its predecessors over the past few decades—the strategic logic and business case for a significant move aren’t there.
Andrew Davies is a senior analyst for defence capability at ASPI and executive editor of The Strategist. Image courtesy of Department of Defence
This article draws in part on the ASPI publication Who goes where? Positioning the ADF for the Asia-Pacific century, by Andrew Davies and Mark Thomson.
This article first appeared on the ASPI "The Strategist" Blog and is reposted here under a Creative Commons license.
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The RAN must have a plan to move out of Garden Island
By Sam Bateman
I disagree with Andrew Davies’ conclusion that there’s no need for a rethink of navy’s basing. The RAN must have a long-term plan to move out of Garden Island. Continuing to have a major naval base within a stone’s throw of the central business district of a large city is frankly ridiculous.
Other navies closed their naval bases in or near large cities years ago. Examples include Mare Island in San Francisco, the Brooklyn Navy Yard in New York, and the Chatham and Sheerness Dockyards near London. The reasons why these bases closed are exactly the same as why other large industrial undertakings have been moved out of inner Sydney. It’s an anachronism that Fleet Base East and Garden Island Dockyard are still there. The Fleet Base should have moved years ago.
We need to be clear about what we are talking about. There are two separate facilities at Garden Island – Fleet Base East and Garden Island Dockyard.
Fleet Base East (HMAS Kuttabul) comprises Maritime Headquarters, the Navy’s administrative and logistic centre at Potts Point and the adjacent wharf facilities at Wooloomooloo. It’s a highly congested site with no room for further expansion. Any attempt at expansion would be strongly resisted by local residents.
Garden Island Dockyard is managed and operated as an independent commercial entity by Thales Australia. It comprises Captain Cook graving dock, a floating dock and a range of engineering and maintenance facilities. The area of Garden Island occupied by the dockyard is now smaller than it was previously with some land being given back for public use and as a heritage site.
My concern is primarily with the location of Fleet Base East. The dockyard poses additional considerations, including its increased use by commercial shipping.
When Andrew says it’s prohibitively expensive to consider a move of Fleet Base East out of Sydney, he is looking only at the direct costs. A full benefit-cost analysis of the indirect costs, as well as the opportunity costs of using the Wooloomooloo wharves and the Potts Point site for other purposes, may reveal a different picture.
The indirect costs include the congestion costs associated with the movement of naval personnel and stores through city traffic into an inner city location. It’s environmentally unsound and potentially hazardous to have large warships berthed so near to the densely populated areas of Kings Cross, Potts Point and Wooloomooloo.
Personnel issues also need to be considered. Senior naval officers might be able to afford accommodation close to Garden Island but junior officers and sailors are forced to live in outer suburbs with a long commute to work. Parking near Garden Island is notoriously difficult.
The RAN must have a plan to move out of Garden Island. Brisbane is the only realistic option. Last year’s Australian Defence Force Posture Review got it right. Jervis Bay ceased being an option when the area was declared a national park in 1992. Newcastle and Port Kembla have similar problems to those of Sydney. North Queensland locations are unsuitable for a variety of reasons not least because they lie in the cyclone belt. The lower reaches of the Brisbane River provide several possible sites. Defence should move quickly to secure suitable land.
Sam Bateman is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Image courtesy of Flickr user Horatio J. Kookaburra.
This article first appeared on the ASPI "The Strategist" Blog and is reposted here under a Creative Commons license.