Tanks, troops could be headed back to Darwin

The ADF is preparing to announce the relocation north of key army divisions from South Australia. We reveal what’s planned.

The Australian Defence Force could be set for a significant backflip with the return to the Northern Territory of the 1st Armoured Regiment from South Australia.

Unconfirmed reports emerging from the monolithic government department suggest the army’s 7th Battalion (7RAR) could be returned to Robertson Barracks and the 1st Armoured Regiment (1ARMD) could also head back north - either to Townsville or Darwin.

If the moves go ahead, it could potentially mean thousands of additional ADF personnel and their families relocating to the Top End.

In a statement to the NT News, the ADF confirmed change was planned.

The 1st Armoured Regiment could be headed back to the Territory.

“The Defence Strategic Review recommended and government agreed that Army be transformed and optimised for littoral manoeuvre operations by sea, land, and air from Australia, with enhanced long-range fires,” an ADF spokesperson said.

“Army is working to determine how to best implement these changes. Further announcements will be made at the appropriate time.”

The army’s littoral focus aims to protect the continent from a seaborne invasion and to potential offshore threats to national security

The ADF was expected to announce the changes at a chief of army meeting in Perth this week but was postponed after a tumultuous few days during which three US marines were killed when an Osprey crashed on the Tiwi Islands and ADF and East Timorese soldiers were hospitalised after a Bushmaster crashed near Darwin.

Australian Strategic Police Institute’s John Coyne with chief minister Natasha Fyles: PEMA TAMANG Pakhrin

Wholesale changes to the structure and configuration of the ADF were flagged in the DSR. The review recommended the relocation north of significant portions of Australia’s defence infrastructure that had been shifted south in previous years.

7RAR, which provided key firepower during the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts, was relocated from Robertson Barracks to Horseshoe Barracks in Edinburgh, South Australia in 2010 and 1ARMD was relocated in October 2017 to RAAF Base Edinburgh to take advantage of the year-round training conditions available in that state.

One of the Defence Strategic Review’s six key recommendations was to improve the ADF’s capacity to operate from Australia’s northern bases.

The DSR forecast “significant changes to army force posture and structure” and said army combat brigades “may be re-roled and select capabilities postured in northern Australia”.

Robertson Barracks, Holtze, Darwin.

The reports build on rumours swirling in-and-outside the Defence Force for months of planned relocations of selective ADF units to northern Australia.

The DSR, commissioned last year by the incoming Labor government and released in April, reflected strategic concerns around Australia’s military focus.

In 2019 John Coyne from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute told the NT News the number of troops stationed in the NT had reached an 11-year-low and did not reflect the strategic priority.

He said the 2017 relocation of 1ARMD was followed by the deployment of other defence support capabilities, which further drained resources from the north.

The relocations left a gap between “the big ticket strategy requirements” and actual boots on the ground.

“The army would say ‘Well of course if you can’t train for six months of the year because of The Wet then tanks shouldn’t be up there’,” Mr Coyne said.

“But it does raise a whole range of other questions around were the tanks that were selected the right armoured vehicles for the defence of Australia and the defence of the north if they can’t operate there?”