Jessica Wright has been drinking the Defence Koolaid and in the Canberra Times writes breathlessly about the secret squirrel wonder of the newly opened Joint Defence Headquarters squatting on the Kings Highway near Bungendore.
The whole this is a useless monument to the swinging voters of Eden Monaro, but hey I’m sure it’s fun to be taken on the tour.
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What’s Your opinion?
The great white elephant of Bungendore opens
Oldest to Newst
…State of Origin.
It had to be put far enough away from Canberra that a strike by an ICBM during WW3 would not kill any important people.
http://www.carloslabs.com/node/16
Looks like it’s just far away enough for that goal, then. Well, maybe a bit of Queanbeyan will be cooked, but… ahem.
screaming banshee said :
the other way around.
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ChrisinTurner said :
Sorry, is that a strike to HQJOC would result in no important people in Canberra being killed, or the other war around.
Hopefully the enemy don’t have two missiles to fling in our direction then?
Mr Waffle said :
Its really not that hard, just open google earth and search for HQJOC, you’ll see an empty piece of land a different shade to the rest of the area becuase the pre-development image has been pasted over most recent satellite imagery.
http://wikimapia.org/2512124/Headquarters-Joint-Operations-Command-HQJOC
Even better, go to the governments website and they show you where it is.
http://www.defence.gov.au/id/hqjoc/images/locationplan.pdf
http://www.defence.gov.au/id/hqjoc/images/hqjocsite.pdf
Or perhaps if you’re a terrorist with a truck full of explosives you can just follow the roadsigns.
View Larger Map
http://maps.google.com.au/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=hqjoc,+bungendore&sll=-25.335448,135.745076&sspn=36.917522,56.25&ie=UTF8&ll=-35.320483,149.388614&spn=0,359.972534&t=h&z=15&layer=c&cbll=-35.320468,149.388748&panoid=pnqbV9fQpgopbIC9FHBf2w&cbp=12,241.0180046695022,,0,11.46875
Mr Waffle said :
Really? More secure than the DSD building?
In all seriousness, I’ve read that the Defence Force wanted to locate it away from Canberra so that politicians couldn’t drop in and meddle – apparently RAAF Base Williamtown near Newcastle was the preferred site. This is a bit ironic given that the purpose of the facility is to allow officers based in an air conditioned bunker on the Australian east coast to attempt to command operations in distant, and much less attractive, parts of the world…
@ChrisinTurner
I’m not doubting you but do you have a link to something that backs that up?. Would be a interesting read
It had to be put far enough away from Canberra that a strike by an ICBM during WW3 would not kill any important people. Rather like the inland positioning of Canberra beyond 1920’s naval bombardment range.
The voters of Eden MOnaro hate it too. Most of them dont’ know it exists, but those it affects are biting the furniture over it. It’s competely wrecked one of my favourite views, at night it’s lit up like a christmas tree and in the day it’s ugly as hell. The traffic issues haven’t had a big impact yet, but they will and meanwhile they’re upgrading pointless bits of teh road to accommodate them (WTF was that ridiculous long debacle at Weetalaba all about?!).
Most of the defence housing for those who’ve moved here to work at HQ JOC is at…. Gunghalin. There’s a few at Qbn. Bung doesn’t tick enough boxes for it to be do-able for defence housing. Although I imagine plenty of people will get very tired of the commute at start looking at housing closer to hQ JOC.
All up it’s an expensive joke.
“The centre is the most secure building in the Defence fleet, its location absent from maps and satellite sites such as Google Earth.”
That’s a challenge if I’ve ever heard one.
The first thing Kevin Rudd should have done upon winning office should have been to bulldoze this obscene monument to porkbarrelling and political cynicism. It wasn’t needed in the first place (especially not in its present location) and will squander hundreds of millions of dollars a year for nothing. The government might as well build a huge funnel from the Mint to the nearest drain.
NickD I suspect that the effect will be minimised by the number of them who are so transient that they don’t update their electoral enrolment every time they relocate. The more permanent are more likely to be administrative and less influenced by the culture of conservative politics. You’re right, it will be interesting to watch the electorate, but I don’t think it have a huge impact.
I don’t think the facility is useless as such, but it certainly has a dubious location.
I wonder what impact the addition of up to 750 members of the military and Department of Defence will have on Eden Monaro’s political demographics. Members of the military tend to vote conservative, and a high proportion of them will presumably live in Queanbeyan or Bungendore so they’re close to work. I’m sure that this never crossed John Howard’s mind when he chose to locate this command centre away from Russell though…