Tonight in Parliament I spoke about the Federal Labor Government’s decision to sell the Scottsdale Defence facility in North East Tasmania.
The Scottsdale site has supported Defence food science, nutrition research and cadet development for decades. It has also recently benefited from major taxpayer-funded upgrades and advanced food technology capability. What becomes of that investment? Wasted.
Tasmania’s own Defence Industry Strategy identifies Scottsdale as Defence’s main food science and technology facility in Tasmania, yet the Commonwealth now proposes to sell it and relocate what’s left of it to Launceston.
I also raised concerns about the future of local cadets, the gradual decline in staffing and activity at the site, and the broader loss of regional capability in the North East.
Regional communities deserve genuine consideration before important national assets are dismantled.
Mr FERGUSON (Bass) – Deputy Speaker, I rise tonight to speak about the Federal Labor government’s decision to effectively run down and now sell the Scottsdale defence facility. This decision has caused a lot of concern in my electorate of Bass, in particular across Dorset and across the state. It is a defence site with a very proud history. It’s has recently upgraded infrastructure and real capability for the defence of our nation.
This facility was established under the Menzies government in 1954. That facility has contributed to defence food science, nutrition research and human performance capability for seven decades. Importantly, it’s also supporting, right now, cadet training and youth development for proud young Tasmanians who live in the district.
Many people might be surprised to learn that a regional place like Scottsdale has quietly played a significant role in feeding defence personnel for those seven decades. For most of that time, it was producing ration packs and employing members of the community in my electorate and it has fed the army that, as the saying goes, “marches on its stomach”.
I’m very concerned that the Commonwealth wants to now sell this and send the staff who are still there to Launceston UTAS campus to do their work. This is especially difficult to agree with or understand. I’d like to point out to the House that the Tasmanian government’s own defence industry strategy, which has only been released recently, specifically identified food technology and food processing as a key defence capability area for Tasmania.
It specifically identifies Scottsdale as Defence’s main food science and tech facility in our state. It refers to food security, supply-chain resilience and advanced shelf-stable food capability, all of the things that are necessary and for the good for the defence of our nation.
People are entitled to ask this question. If this capability is strategically important enough to appear in the state’s own defence strategy, why is the federal Labor government abandoning it without warning and without consultation?
Members here will be, I believe, horrified to learn that taxpayers spent $18 million upgrading this centre in the last decade. It now has better infrastructure and more equipment, only for it now to be talked about to be shut down, and that facility has been modernised by
Liberal and Labor governments in Canberra because they have recognised the facility’s strategic value to our country. Good on them. It supported nationally significant work in food technology, nutrition science and defence capability as its role shifted from volume packaging
of freeze-dried ration packs through to research on human performance and nutrition for defence personnel across the services. The infrastructure itself no doubt remains highly valuable today. The labs are still there, the advanced microwave-assisted thermal sterilisation
capability is still there. But it’s only as valuable as the level of its utilisation.
I am concerned to discover, having attended a recent consultation – a consultation offered after the decision was announced in Launceston at the RSL, to discover that this facility, while still open and still operational, has been gradually run down rather than properly supported. Little wonder that the community is so frustrated about that.
A quick mention about the local cadet unit. That’s their base, that’s what those young boys and girls, the young men and women of that army cadet unit call home. That’s where they raise their flag. They parade on that property. They’re being told that they might just be sent off to a school hall. Those arrangements are not acceptable. I support those cadets and their commanding officers. They are not allowed to speak publicly but I know how they feel. They’re disappointed.
As to how we got here, successive governments have, under pressure at times, committed to retaining that facility. At a time when our country is concerned and talking about sovereign capability, Australia should be very careful about closing down an asset that supplies those needs, in particular in relation to food, because once it’s gone, it will be gone forever.
