By ANNA USHER

Former prime minister Tony Abbott will headline a community forum in Mosman next week aimed at stopping the sale of HMAS Penguin, declaring the harbourside defence site “should not be sold without a proper public debate.”

He is the biggest name yet to join a growing campaign against the federal government’s plan to sell off part of the 16.64 hectare Middle Head base.

The Save HMAS Penguin and Angophora Forest Community Forum will be held at the Mosman Club on Tuesday, 16 June, from 6pm to 7.30pm.

Mr Abbott, who held the federal seat of Warringah covering Mosman for 25 years, will be joined on the panel by Mosman councillor Colleen Godsell AM, Senator Jess Collins, Commander Marcus Batten (ret’d) and Major Owen Eather (ret’d).

“This is a site of enormous historical, strategic and community significance,” Mr Abbott said.

“Once this land is gone, it is gone forever.”

He urged the lower north shore community to attend the meeting next Tuesdsay.

“The stronger the turnout, the stronger the message that this site should not be sold without a proper public debate,” he said.

Mr Abbott said residents were “deeply concerned about the prospect of the site being sold and transformed into high-density housing, without proper consideration of the impacts on traffic, schools, public services and the character of our community.”

What is being sold at HMAS Penguin?

Mosman Collective first revealed in February that HMAS Penguin had been marked for partial divestment, part of a sweeping $3 billion national defence shake-up in which the government accepted all 20 recommendations of the 2023 Defence Estate Audit.

Of 68 sites flagged in that audit, 64 are to be sold in whole, 3 partially, and 1 is to be retained.

HMAS Penguin is one of the three.

The Navy base, commissioned in 1942, sits on land widely regarded as one of the most environmentally and historically significant parcels left on the lower north shore.

The government has said critical Navy capabilities will stay, including clearance diver training and the underwater medicine unit. It has not published the final boundary of what will be sold.

Campaigners say roughly 6 hectares of ancient Angophora forest, a bushland buffer between the base and suburban Mosman, is among the land slated for divestment.

Mosman Council remains, in Mayor Ann Marie Kimber’s words, “unequivocally opposed to the sale of HMAS Penguin land.”

It is the third time the federal government has moved to sell defence land at Middle Head. Attempts in 1988 and 1996 were both halted after community opposition.

The Headland Preservation Group, which has led local resistance, wants the land handed to the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust and kept in public hands.

Steggall turns the PM’s own words against him

Independent Warringah MP Zali Steggall has accused Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of abandoning decades of stated opposition to selling Sydney Harbour foreshore land.

“In Opposition, Anthony Albanese repeatedly argued that Sydney Harbour foreshore land should remain in public hands forever,” Ms Steggall said. “In Government, he is now overseeing the disposal of exactly the kind of nationally significant land he once fought to protect.”

She pointed to a 2021 speech in which Mr Albanese called Sydney Harbour “a jewel for the entire country” and warned that if governments got it wrong, the land “disappears forever.”

“So what has changed?” Ms Steggall said. “Why was Middle Head a critical national asset worth defending in Opposition, but surplus real estate when Labor is in government?”

Ms Steggall wants the Angophora forest handed to a conservation agency and the rest of HMAS Penguin kept in Defence hands.

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