By ANNA USHER

Former prime minister Tony Abbott has vowed to stand with residents and block bulldozers at HMAS Penguin, calling for a human chain to stop the federal government selling off the local base and its ancient angophora forest.

Hundreds packed Mosman RSL on Tuesday night for the Save HMAS Penguin and Angophora Forest forum, a full house and the clearest sign yet that the fight to keep the Middle Head site in public hands is on.

Mr Abbott, who held the seat of Warringah for 25 years, said he would be on the front line himself.

“If this government goes ahead with this shameful act … I will be there in the best traditions of Jack Mundey,” he said.

Mundey led the 1970s Green Bans movement, the union blockades that saved swathes of historic Sydney from demolition.

His call to arms came after a frustrated resident demanded more than emails.

“We’ve heard a lot of talk tonight, but I haven’t heard anything about any action apart from writing a few emails,” the man said. “Let’s have some action. Are we going to have marches?”

Mr Abbott did not flinch.

“Everyone in this room should steel themselves to a bit of direct action,” he said.

“If needs be, we do have to form a human chain around there. If needs be, we do have to block bulldozers.”

“Use words until the decision is made. But if the wrong decision is made, make it impossible for them to go ahead.”

Mr Abbott said the community owed a debt of gratitude to those who had served.

“The people who have put on their uniform and put their lives at risk deserve a bit of direct action from the rest of us.”

He also floated a Sunday-morning walk along Balmoral, then a human chain around the base, as a pointed message to Canberra.

“I’m sorry, this land is defended. It is defended, and you’ve got to come through us to get to it,” he said.

Abbott mocked the idea of Defence Minister Richard Marles selling military bases to balance the books.

“What will these people think of next? Hiring out the Royal Australian Regiment as bouncers at a pub?” he said.

On suggestions the land could make way for housing, he was blunt.

“The idea that somehow this land ought to be sold off for low-cost housing? I mean, please, please. We aren’t that cheap. We really aren’t that cheap,” he said.

“The idea that the greatest city in the country should be defenceless is bizarre.”

What is being sold at HMAS Penguin

The government wants to sell part of the 16.64-hectare base at Middle Head, flagged for partial sale in the 2023 Defence Estate Audit.

Mosman Collective revealed in February that HMAS Penguin had been marked for partial divestment, part of a $3 billion national defence shake-up in which the government accepted all 20 recommendations of the audit.

Of the 68 sites flagged, 64 are to be sold in full, three in part, and one is to be kept.

Campaigners say roughly six hectares of ancient angophora forest, a bushland buffer between the base and suburban Mosman, is among the land on the block.

The government says critical Navy work will stay, including clearance diver training and the underwater medicine unit.

The Defence Minister has defended the broader sell-off, arguing it could open defence land to the public. “It’s hard to see how it could be less accessible to the people of Sydney,” he said in March.

‘Hypocrisy, desecration and betrayal’

Headland Preservation Group president Jill L’Estrange said the community had beaten the same plan twice, in 1988 and 1996.

“What kind of government looks at our grandchildren in the eye and says, ‘We sold your birthright to pay our bills’?” she told the forum.

“This is not policy. It’s hypocrisy. It’s desecration. And it’s betrayal.”

Ms L’Estrange said the sell-off would raise an estimated $1.8 billion, “a drop in the ocean” against a $59 billion defence budget.

She said the damage could never be undone.

“The trees cannot grow back in a generation. The heritage can’t be bought back if it’s sold. And the view from the headland cannot be restored once a developer’s tower stands in its place.”

Mosman councillor Colleen Godsell AM, who has volunteered with the local scouts for three decades, said children had sailed and rowed from the base for 99 years, since a scout troop built a boatshed on the foreshore in 1927.

“The presence of scouts at HMAS Penguin is not merely a pleasant arrangement,” Councillor Godsell said.

“It is a matter of equity and national importance. For families without access to watercraft, the base’s harbour foreshore represents an irreplaceable point of entry.

“No exclusive yacht club membership here. No private marina or inherited tinny. What there is instead is a structured, safe and purposeful environment where young people can approach the water on equal terms,” she said.

Albanese’s own words

This is the third attempt to offload defence land at Middle Head. The 1988 and 1996 bids were both halted by community opposition.

Campaigners have seized on a 2021 speech in which Anthony Albanese, then in opposition, called Sydney Harbour “a jewel for the entire country” and warned that if governments got it wrong, the land “disappears forever.”

Warringah MP Zali Steggall has turned those words back on him.

“Why was Middle Head a critical national asset worth defending in Opposition, but surplus real estate when Labor is in government?” she said.
Mosman Council remains, in Mayor Ann Marie Kimber’s words, “unequivocally opposed to the sale of HMAS Penguin land.”

What happens next

The Headland Preservation Group is gathering signatures for an open letter to the prime minister, the finance, defence and environment ministers, and Ms Steggall.

The government is yet to release the final boundary of the sale, and campaigners say they will fight every metre of it.

“They tried in 1988, we won. They tried in 1996, we won again. And we will win today,” Ms L’Estrange said.

WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU: Were you at the forum, or do you have a view on the sale of HMAS Penguin? Email [email protected]