It appears that Jervis Bay is not to be the site for the Navy’s east coast armaments depot. The decision is likely to be formalised soon. Oddly enough, the decision was not so much on of positioning a new armaments depot, but of removing the existing one from Homebush in western Sydney, because of the potential danger of having an armaments site in a heavily populated area and requiring armaments to be transported through a populated area.
Broadly it has come down to four possible new locations: Jervis Bay, Twofold Bay (near Eden), Point Wilson, near Geelong, and Gladstone in Queensland, though the last has been practically ruled out.
The Minister for Defence, Senator Robert Ray, said at the weekend that, now the Victorian Government was thinking of relocating the Coode Island chemical plant to Point Wilson, it was possible a joint relocation could take place, saving infrastructure costs. Defence chiefs wanted Jervis Bay, and probably still want Jervis Bay.
It now seems the combined economic and environmental reasons have mounted to a very strong case for Point Wilson and a good case for Jervis Bay to left alone. Environmental reasons alone should have been enough to preclude Jervis Bay.
Senator Ray has made a gruff show of downplaying the environmental argument, to is discredit. He has made statements that the armaments site would have been in “”a degraded pine forest”, that “”the people of western Sydney are more important than a few frogs” and that environmentalist were putting up “”bulldust propositions”. This sort of macho bravado is not very helpful or confidence-inspiring. Moreover, politically it amounted to nothing. The Opposition still accused Senator Ray of bowing to environmental demands. The Opposition defence spokesman, Peter Reith, said, “”This is further evidence that the greenies are basically running major defence issues now.”
What tripe. The difference between Point Wilson, Twofold Bay and Jervis Bay is not a “”major defence issue”. As a purely defence matter, the differences are marginal. Mr Reith may as well have argued that sport freaks are running major defence issues now because the Olympics Game site is near the relocating armaments depot.
So both the Government and Opposition defence frontbenchers are guilty of hyperbole and being dismissive of legitimate environmental arguments about Jervis Bay.
Jervis Bay is an environmental jewel. It has survived large-scale development on the NSW South Coast and remained unspoilt. The clarity of its water, the superb sea-grass bed and the unique white-sand beaches are worthy of preservation, especially when there are two other quite practical and acceptable options. The area is unique on the South Coast.
There is perhaps some irony in the fact that the Navy’s earlier presence at Jervis Bay has resulted in large areas not being surrendered to development. But whatever the accident of history that allowed Jervis Bay to survive into the 1990s in such an unspoilt shape, is no ground for denying the argument to preserve the area.
There has been some argument that the depot should be relocated north, perhaps to Gladstone. The trouble with this is that it is too far from the navy base at Garden Island, other defence facilities and the main naval exercise areas in the Tasman Sea.
Another political irony is that if Point Wilson goes ahead and Jervis Bay is saved, as is likely, Senator Ray will get no credit from the environment movement or from people concerned about environmental issues. They will conclude, quite rightly from his bombast, that he would have been happy to put an armaments depot there, it was just that Point Wilson was cheaper. They will think that the Government did not consider the environmental arguments seriously and that it will only be a question of time before some other proposal comes up to compromise the environmental integrity of Jervis Bay.
An environment like Jervis Bay can be wrecked with one act; yet it takes incessant vigilance to preserve it. This time the Government appears to be making the right decision for other reasons. It is about time Jervis Bay was taken off the big-development map. There is only one of it left.