No plans for new Darwin port: report
A commercial deep-sea port at Glyde Point has been mooted for more than two decades.
It’s history now that the then-US president Barack Obama was shocked in 2015 to read that the Northern Territory’s Country Liberal Party government had awarded a Chinese company — with alleged links to the People’s Liberation Army — a 99-year lease over the Port of Darwin, in a $506m deal.
After all, the US had only recently decided to station about 1200 Marines in Darwin — with plans to increase the quota to 2500 — and, being Marines, there would be regular use of the Port of Darwin to transport, supply and exercise those troops. Hence the amazement in Washington that they were not told of the deal.
As then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull had to admit, the federal cabinet was itself not aware of the deal until hours before Northern Territory’s then-chief minister Adam Giles announced it publicly in November 2015.
When Defence Department secretary Dennis Richardson told a Senate estimates hearing later that month that the deal had been closely scrutinised by security and intelligence agencies — and that the department did not “have any security concerns about the sale of the port to Chinese interests”, because the commercial port is separate from the Darwin naval base — US eyebrows might well have been raised further. And further, when the then-treasurer, current Prime Minister Scott Morrison, conceded that processes were not in place for the Darwin port deal to be properly scrutinised by the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB).
The deal is back in the headlines, after the federal government proposed last month new powers that would give it authority to regulate all agreements that state and territory governments, councils, and public universities make with foreign powers. Defence Minister Linda Reynolds reiterated earlier this month that the Australian government has “no current strategic concerns” over the lease of Darwin’s port.
From his perspective, Ports Australia chief executive Mike Gallacher sees no issue.
“When I’ve been there, I’ve been very pleased to see the level of investment that’s occurring in the Darwin port, the jobs that are being created, and the opportunities around the port community,” he says.
“We don’t see any issue with the ownership, because at the end of the day, the Port of Darwin only gets information relating to the Port of Darwin.”
Rumours of a new port development at Darwin often swirl: a commercial deep-sea port at Glyde Point, 40km northeast of the Port of Darwin, has been mooted by various Northern Territory governments for more than two decades.
The ABC reported in June 2019, citing “multiple officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity”, that “secret planning” had begun for a new port facility just outside Darwin, which could eventually help US Marines operate more readily in the Indo-Pacific.
In July this year, a Northern Territory government report on developing Gunn Point, just west of Glyde Point, contained a tantalising reference to a possible port.
However, the report’s author — the NT Planning Commission — stated on its website that “there are no current plans for Defence infrastructure within the Gunn Point Peninsula”.