Weipa joins army mix

RAAF Scherger proposed for Singaporean training

DEFENCE Minister Marise Payne is considering a proposal to establish a $2 billion Singaporean army base on Cape York Peninsula.

Planned expansion of Singapore’s military bases at Shoalwater Bay and Townsville has hit a snag with the State Government ordering a study into its likely impact on the regions’ cattle industries.

Local farmers have been up in arms, calling for the project to be abandoned.

Leichhardt MP Warren Entsch wrote to Ms Payne suggesting there would be much more community support to expand the existing RAAF Scherger base east of Weipa.

“There are literally thousands of hectares of land available surrounding RAAF Scherger that could be available for a training facility,” Mr Entsch said in the letter. “This land is certainly not of the same agricultural value and has relatively limited grazing potential, compared to the land proposed in Townsville and Rockhampton.”

RAAF Scherger has been used as an immigration detention centre, but is now closed.

Mr Entsch said Weipa had the required infrastructure – a deep water port, all-weather airstrip, plus the Scherger airstrip, “which has the capacity to take any configuration military aircraft that would be required to participate”.

Cairns would be the logical major supplier to the proposed base, which would allow Singapore to increase its number of troops on rotation in Australia from 6000 to 14,000.

Advance Cairns chief executive Kevin Byrne said he wholeheartedly supported the scheme.

“This proposition just makes sense,” he said.

“Also, something like this would provide added impetus to the completion of the Peninsular Developmental Rd.”

Mr Entsch said the upgrades to the 571km road from Lakeland to Weipa were moving ahead despite inevitable weather-related delays.

“We’ve got enough money to go through to 2018, at which time there will be about 130km left to go,” he said.

“The money for the final bit will be well and truly committed before then.”

Mr Entsch said he had received a response from the minister saying “a whole range of criteria” needed to be met.

“But Weipa will now be in the mix,” he said.