33 years ago Mosman went into battle for precious bushland.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that history repeats itself. In reviewing possible content for Mosman Parks & Bushland’s new website we came across this video of a news item from 1988.
The protest
In August 1988 the Commonwealth announced a proposal to sell off, for development, the area of bush land and trees between what is now the walkway down to Balmoral from the extension of Middle Head Road, and the hospital at HMAS Penguin. There was a big protest at Balmoral, speakers included Tom Uren and Barry O'keefe, Mosman Parks and Bushland member and the then Mayor of Mosman.
Speakers addressed a very big crowd, the net result was the conjunction between Council and Tom Uren with his strong Labor party connections meant that that didn’t happen. Barry O’Keefe said: “Tom still reminds me quite frequently about the time we first met and stood on the platform together. Of course Tom is one of these very tall men, 6’ plus, and I’m 5’ plus, not very many inches, and the long and the short of it on this platform must have been quite amusing for people to see but it was very effective. So we repulsed that [proposal].”
The news in print
The campaign to save Middle Head was widely reported. Here are several of the news items:
Navy’s harbour land may be sold
Sydney Morning Herald Saturday July 30, 1988
by HELEN O'NEIL
Download PDF of original press clipping >
CANBERRA: A report has recommended the selling of nearly S270 million worth of defence properties including HMAS Penguin at Balmoral and HMAS Nirimba at Quakers Hill.
It also recommended new land acquisitions at the Holsworthy Range and the building of a new headquarters for the Australian Defence Forces in a package of programs worth S360 million.
The Review of Australia's Defence facilities, by a ministerial consultant, Dr Robert Cooksey, recommends a 25-year development and reorganisation of properties owned by the armed forces, and of training and support facilities.
The Department of Defence has already proposed redevelopment of the Balmoral site, but the State Government has said it would block the move in a bid to increase parkland along the harbour foreshore.
The Cooksey report suggests HMAS Penguin should be sold or disposed of in the next 12 years with revenue from residential land sales a big factor in paying for the move.
But the Minister for Defence, Mr Beazley, has taken pains to distance himself from Dr Cooksey ' s recommendations, which would have a big impact on urban development in sensitive areas of Sydney and Melbourne. Mr Beazley described the report as an independent analysis.
"It is not a statement of Government policy," he said.
Recommendations include:
Moving training facilities and the Naval Staff College from HMAS Penguin at Balmoral and selling the Navy land there.
Moving apprentice training from HMAS Nirimba to HMAS Cerberus in Victoria.
Closing the RAAF Point Cook base in Victoria.
Closing RAAF Laverton, also in Victoria.
A build-up of ranges and associated facilities at HMAS Stirling in Western Australia with the basing of more naval facilities on the Indian Ocean.
Support for moving explosives dumps from the Sydney area if naval facilities are moved to Jervis Bay.
Priority for a new $I2 million Defence headquarters in Canberra with special communications links to the Cabinet office in the new Parliament House.
The report notes that revenue raised from the sale of HMAS Penguin would be reduced by the pressure to create new parkland along the harbour foreshores.
But despite moving costs of S30 million, revenue from a sale of the prime residential real estate site and future manpower savings make a move from HMAS Penguin worthwhile, according to Dr Cooksey.
The report says the Naval Staff College could be moved elsewhere in Sydney, or to Canberra. But despite the pressure on the Australian Defence Forces to give up foreshore areas in Sydney, the report recommends that the training base HMAS Watson should stay as long as the naval fleet is based on the harbour.
ABOVE: The Moir cartoon that accompanied this news article.
Inset:
Sell off plan Criticised
The Deputy Mayor of Mosman, Mrs Patricia Harvey, criticised yesterday the proposed sale of HMAS Penguin at Balmoral.
"We've been conducting a campaign for at least six months saying that the land should stay as it is," she said.
"It's absolutely horrendous that they should even consider selling it off.
"The land there is virgin bush-,land which is very important environmentally."
Should HMAS Nirimba be sold off, Blacktown would lose out socially and financially, the Mayor of Blacktown, Alderman Keith Dickens, said.
Mosman goes into battle
Sydney Morning Herald Thursday August 4, 1988
by ELIZABETH BROWN
Download PDF of original press clipping >
Mosman Council has gone on a "war footing" against the Federal Government following a recommendation for the sale of the entire site of HMAS Penguin at Balmoral.
The council reaffirmed on Tuesday night its total opposition to the sale of any of the navy base land and will contact all councils and conservation groups in NSW which have supported its stand.
The Mayor, Alderman Barry O'Keefe, introduced the matter as an urgent item following a report in Saturday's Sydney Morning Herald on recommendations by a Department of Defence ministerial consultant, Mr Robert Cooksey.
The sale or disposal of HMAS Penguin land was one of Mr Cooksey's recommendations.
Mosman Council has spent about $50,000 opposing a Federal Government proposal to sell part of the land for private development. It received messages of support from all over Australia for its fight against what it sees as alienation of public foreshore land.
Alderman O'Keefe said on Tuesday night that the council must take immediate steps to make sure "this bureaucratic nonsense does not become a reality".
"We must rekindle the flame of protest because the threat is obviously real," he said. The council had tried to investigate Mr Cooksey's qualifications, and whether he came from Sydney.
"I believe the author is not a Sydney person," Alderman O'Keefe said.
Attempts by the council to contact the Minister for Defence, Mr Beazley, had also been unsuccessful. The Mosman Town Clerk, Mr Viv May, said yesterday that the reaction of aldermen and council officers to the recommendation by Mr Cooksey was "here we go again".
"We've had bureaucrats saying the site would be ideal for anything from a piggery to a 50-storey building," he said. "The council is on a war footing on this. Anyone who has ever been to Sydney wouldn't want that Middle Head area to change."
Mr Cooksey said yesterday he had not recommended that the entire site, which includes a lot of bushland, should be used for housing. It should be divided between a national park, a recreation area and housing.
"A tasteful housing development would be a damned sight better than the ugly 1940s buildings that are there now,"'Mr Cooksey said.
Don't sell up the Harbour, pleads Mayor
Sydney Morning Herald Thursday August 11, 1988
by ELIZABETH BROWN
Download PDF of original press clipping >
Sydney Harbour was "too important to be treated as if it were a cash register", the Mayor of Mosman, Alderman Barry O'Keefe told Mosman Council on Tuesday night.
Alderman O'Keefe was talking about recommendations for the sale of Navy and Army land in the Middle Head area contained a Department of Defence report. Alderman O'Keefe described the recommendations as "dynamite" and said they gave cause "for the gravest concern".
The report not only recommended the disposal of the whole of HMAS Penguin but also examined all Department of Defence land at Middle Head including the Army's 10th Terminal Regiment, and the Army Maritime School at Chowder Bay.
While noting that the report was not endorsed government policy, Alderman O'Keefe warned that the recommended closures and disposals of the northern foreshores of Sydney Harbour would transform the area "from substantially tree-covered bushland and parkland into housing estates".
The council will seek urgent talks with the Federal and State Governments.
