• Former Leeuwin recruits Glenn Ridgewell, Steve Grady, Jeff Wake, Spike Jones and Rod Hazell with Legacy’s Kevin Bovill. Photo by Steve Grant
FORMER Navy recruits are furious with the Department of Defence, accusing it of brushing off their calls for Leeuwin Barracks’ history to be recognised in any redevelopment.
Defence officials fronted two community meetings last week to inform about 30 locals the barracks, which sit on prime riverside land, were likely to go on the market by February.
Five former recruits who attended the meetings told the Herald they were angry Defence appeared to have no plans to recognise the facility’s history.
Horrific assaults
For some, that involved years of horrific assaults and sexual abuse at the hands of senior personnel and older recruits, and they don’t want it forgotten.
Jeff Wake, who signed up in 1963, said the group appeared to have won a small concession between the two public meetings after outflanking Defence staff with a barrage of sharp questions.
A $100,000 memorial already on the site — which had been funded entirely by recruits — would be protected by a caveat, they were told.
Kevin Bovell from Legacy, who’s helping the former recruits, cautions that assurance is weak.
He’s been told Defence may move the memorial to another site it owns on Preston Point Road, a small area used by the SAS for river launches and Navy psychologists.
The five veterans also want the drill hall and playing fields handed to East Fremantle council as part of the development’s 10 per cent open space. The tiny municipality had been offered the entire site by Defence, but mayor Jim O’Neill says the $100 million-plus price tag was out of its reach.
Mr Wake says the hall could be used for community meetings and house WA’s first naval museum.
He also claimed Leeuwin’s sale is a “sacrifice” to save the Swanbourne barracks, flagged by Defence to be sold first.
Foreign affairs minister Julie Bishop asked assistant defence minister Darren Chester to abandon the sale because of fears SAS families would be exposed to unknown neighbours. WA premier Colin Barnett also asked the federal government to rethink the decision.
Swanbourne is in Ms Bishop’s and Mr Barnett’s blue-ribbon Liberal electorates of Curtin and Cottesloe.
Federal Labor MP Melissa Parke told parliament the sale and redevelopment of Leeuwin needed to be handled carefully because of the site’s dark past.
“It should enable a thoughtful riverside development with generous public open space, community facilities, well-planned transport links, the retention of local heritage, including Leeuwin’s military training significance and an acknowledgement of abuse suffered by [junior recruits] and the site’s indigenous heritage,” Ms Parke said.
But attendees at the community meetings came away with the feeling Defence simply wanted to sell the land and let the new owner deal with whatever came after.
by STEVE GRANT and STEPHEN POLLOCK
