Australian government defends barracks sale reversal, renewable push amid rising power costs
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Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles said the Defence Estate audit shows why Victoria Barracks should remain in public hands, while Housing Minister Clare O’Neil backed the budget’s housing measures and the government’s renewable-energy transition as electricity prices climb.
Deputy Prime Minister and defence minister Richard Marles declined to spell out how the decision was made to keep Sydney’s 180-year-old Victoria Barracks under public ownership, but said the site will be transferred to the Department of Finance. He told News24 that pouring “hundreds of millions of dollars on sites … we’re not using is just not tenable” and said the Defence Estate audit exposed long-running failures in management that should have been addressed far earlier.
At the national Remembrance Day ceremony at the Australian War Memorial, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Governor-General Sam Mostyn and other officials laid wreaths and marked the centenary of the memorial’s opening. The Prime Minister also observed the day in Singapore, laying a wreath at the Changi Chapel and Museum and praising the courage of Australian prisoners of war.
Housing Minister Clare O’Neil defended the May budget, saying data show more lending to first-home buyers and investors shifting toward new dwellings. She told Sunrise that the government’s “unapologetic focus” is on helping more Australians into home ownership after years of a housing market skewed by speculation and inequality.
Labor’s renewable-energy rollout drew criticism from Nationals deputy leader Bridget McKenzie, who warned that wholesale electricity prices could double as coal plants close faster than new renewable capacity is connected. O’Neil replied that the shift to renewables is essential to bring down household energy costs in the long run and that aging coal plants are “very expensive to run,” underscoring the need to move away from outdated fossil-fuel infrastructure.
In a separate development, Deputy Prime Minister Marles learned that his great-uncle, Lieutenant Andrew Anderson, was among the 11 World War I soldiers recently identified by the federal government. Marles described the discovery as a “remarkably personal revelation.”
Parliamentary members attending the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China in The Hague called for a review of Australia’s reliance on Chinese goods, with Senator Deborah O’Neill and MP Cassandra Fernando urging broader discussion of China’s role in the Indo-Pacific region.