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Australia's Antarctic spending surge is extravagant, un-strategic and poorly targeted

By Brendan O'Reilly - posted Wednesday, 30 March 2022


Australia's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) is one of the largest in the world with a total marine area of around 10 million square kilometres.  This is larger than the 7.69 million square kilometres of the Australian mainland.  This EEZ area is made up of 8.2 million square kilometres off Australia and its remote offshore territories, and 2 million square kilometres off the Australian Antarctic Territory.  The EEZ extends to a distance of not more than 200 nautical miles from the territorial sea baseline.

Within its EEZ, Australia has certain sovereign rights to the water column, seabed and subsoil.  These rights potentially are quite valuable, especially considering the size of the marine areas involved.  The issue is that, while Australia's claim to much of Antarctica is not widely recognised, we have a much stronger claim to our external territories.

Norfolk Island, Christmas Island, and the Cocos have an EEZ totalling about 1.2 million square kilometres.  They are also well populated and are unlikely to be claimed by another country (though you never know).

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Australia has two other external territories in the Southern Ocean that are barely inhabited or entirely uninhabited.

Macquarie Island has no permanent inhabitants, though it has an AAD base usually manned by 20 to 40 people.  What is noteworthy is that the island has a huge EEZ of about 472000 sq kms.

While most Australians have heard of Macquarie Island, most are unaware of our other sub-Antarctic territory, the Heard and McDonald Islands.  The islands [about 4,000 kilometres south west of mainland Australia, 1630 km north of Antarctica, and 450 km south east of (France's) Kerguelen islands] were discovered in the mid-1850s by American sailor, John Heard.  In the 1880s Heard Island became a base for sealers, who hunted elephant seal, fur seal and sometimes penguins.  One hundred thousand barrels of elephant seal oil were produced there before the seal colony became depleted.

The territory covers 368 sq kms and has a vast EEZ of 411000 sq kms.  Despite being Australian territory, it is entirely unoccupied.  [The United Kingdom formally claimed the islands in 1910 but transferred them to Australia in 1947.]  Australia opened a research station in 1947 but interest in the islands dried up once Mawson Station was established on Antarctica, and the base on Heard closed in 1955.

The islands contain both the tallest mountain and the only active volcanos and glaciers on Australian-owned territory (excluding Antarctica).  They are cold, wet, and extremely windy.  Heard Island is bleak, and mountainous, and hides in dense cloud for much of the year and is 80 per cent ice-covered.  It dominated by a large massif (Big Ben) and an active volcano (Mawson Peak).  Vegetation and wildlife (including teeming penguin, seal and flying bird colonies) only exist on its low-lying areas.  The most recent expedition to Heard was in 2016 by RV Investigator.  It took a team of 40 scientists for six weeks.

McDonald Island lies 43.5 kilometres due west of Heard Island, and is the major island in the McDonald Islands group.  It rises to 186 metres.  The McDonald Islands are so volcanically active they have doubled in area since 1980 but are currently virtually uninhabitable.

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Australia runs periodic sea patrols around Heard Island to police fishing activity (mainly in respect of Patagonian toothfish).  Heard Island itself is rarely visited and the main anchorage site for vessels visiting Heard Island is Atlas Roads on the north coast of the island.  It is relatively sheltered from the prevailing westerly and south-westerly winds but is not a safe all-weather anchorage site.  Personnel and cargo may be transported ashore via small boat or amphibious vehicle or by helicopter.

It is interesting to compare the Heard and McDonald Islands with their nearest neighbour the (much bigger at 7215 sq kms and less barren) Kerguelen Islands (450km away).  These islands are part of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands, and (notably) are permanently occupied by 50 to 100 French soldiers, scientists, engineers and researchers at any given time.  There are no indigenous or long term occupants.  In addition to research, about 3,500 sheep (used for meat) graze the main island, and small quantities of vegetables are grown in a greenhouse near the main French base.

The bottom line is that, comparing Australian and French sub-Antarctic territories, and also bearing in mind the resources Australia devotes to its tenuous Antarctic claim, our Heard and McDonald Islands' territory is shamefully neglected.  Surely it makes sense to devote a modest proportion of our annual AAD budget to a small permanent presence on Heard Island, as Australia did between 1947 and 1955.  While the territory is inhospitable, so is the Antarctic, and there is much that we are yet to know about it and its vast marine economic zone.

Leaving the territory and its vast EEZ unoccupied for years on end simply invites a squatter nation to move in.

 

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About the Author

Brendan O’Reilly is a retired commonwealth public servant with a background in economics and accounting. He is currently pursuing private business interests.

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