Government backtracks on selling historic Victoria Barracks in Sydney after public pressure
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After abandoning a plan to privatise Victoria Barracks, the government says the historic Sydney site will stay in public ownership, raising fresh questions about how it will be funded, maintained and used for the public good.
More than 100 people lined up for Thursday public tours of Sydney’s Victoria Barracks after the defence department reversed its plan to sell the historic site. The barracks, Australia’s oldest active military installation, had been marked for divestment as part of a wider push to strip more than $3 billion in real-estate assets from the defence portfolio.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the site will remain in public hands and be opened to broader community use, with ownership shifting from Defence to the Department of Finance. He said the heritage of the barracks would be maintained and enhanced.
Defence Minister Richard Marles said an audit of all defence facilities had been carried out to test their strategic relevance. He added that the government would spend about $200 million over the next decade to secure the barracks as an ongoing defence site.
Vince Williams, president of RSL NSW, welcomed the reversal, saying the barracks should remain an operational facility and that losing it would hurt cadets and reservists. He condemned the defence estate audit as a “desktop operation of dollars and cents” that lacked serious strategic analysis.
A defence spokesperson said the transition would be handled “carefully and sensitively” to support personnel, families and the wider defence community while preserving the site’s heritage.
State Liberal MP Anthony Roberts warned that moving the site to the Department of Finance could pave the way for long-term leases that would effectively commercialise the property. He described the barracks as an integral part of counter-terrorism operations.
Local officials expressed mixed views. A spokesperson for the Minns government welcomed the decision to keep the site public but declined to comment on future management. Sydney councillor Jess Miller said the federal government appeared to see the barracks more as a land asset than a community resource, noting that heritage-listed sites need major funding for upkeep.
Heritage consultant Fiona Leslie, who worked on an excavation at the barracks, emphasised its national significance, pointing to the layered history and archaeological potential of the continuously active defence site.