{"id":830616,"date":"2026-07-29T05:46:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T05:46:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/830616\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T05:46:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T05:46:13","slug":"the-poisonous-heart-australias-most-secretive-base-draws-new-scrutiny-the-diplomat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/830616\/","title":{"rendered":"The \u2018Poisonous Heart\u2019: Australia\u2019s Most Secretive Base Draws New Scrutiny \u2013 The Diplomat"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIn 1962, they took my grandfather, the Americans,\u201d said Arrerente Elder Aunty Felicity while standing outside of Pine Gap, the largest U.S. spy base in Australia.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She handed a printed letter to the Australian Federal Police Inspector Ken Napier at the gates of Pine Gap.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The contrast was stark.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Three generations of the Hayes family, the traditional owners of Kuyunba, stood next to the land occupied for 60 years by the largest Australia-U.S. joint defense facility in Australia.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Aunty Felicity gives a letter to AFP commissioner Ken Napier during a protest outside Pine Gap, July 20, 2026. Photo by Anisha Pillariset<\/p>\n

Established in 1966, without the consent of traditional owners, the Pine Gap signals intelligence facility sits roughly 15 kilometers from Alice Springs. The access road leading to the base is lined with ominous signs warning, \u201cNO THROUGH ROAD, GO BACK.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Percolated by the hum of drones overhead, the perimeter has all the markings of a spy base: high impenetrable gates marked by the strategic placement of surveillance apparatus. Access to sacred sites has been restricted for decades, hemmed in by Pine Gap\u2019s edges.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And on July 20, Aunty Felicity was joined by hundreds of activists to challenge the continued existence of the U.S. spy facility. Anti-militarist activists, academics and Traditional Owners traveled across the country, some from as far as 2,000km away, to reach the desert in the heart of Australia. It was the largest protest against Pine Gap since 1987, where some 300 people were arrested<\/a>.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

AFP inspector Ken Napier greeted the Hayes family as they walked up to the gate to deliver the letter.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cWelcome,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Wyonna Hayes, the daughter of Aunty Felicity looked angry as she responded, \u201cYou\u2019re welcome to my country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aunty Felicity delivered a speech, asking for the land, the Kuyunba, to be returned to the traditional owners.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Many of Pine Gap\u2019s custodians, including Aunty Felicity herself, live just a few kilometers away at Irrkerlantye, also known as White Gate, in conditions that stand in glaring contrast to the base\u2019s heavily resourced compound.<\/p>\n

The White Gate community lacks basic services that much of Australia takes for granted: water is trucked in, power comes from a small set of solar panels, and there is no sewerage.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want people to support us to close down Pine Gap,\u201d Aunty Felicity said, standing beside her sister Wyona, and daughter Jaquita.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want them to know it\u2019s a sacred site.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

But she is also concerned about people she has never met. Among her requests is compensation for families in Gaza who have lost relatives in a war she said the base has helped enable.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want to be feeling guilty all the time,\u201d she said, \u201cwhen bad things are happening overseas to the little ones.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not the ones controlling that facility,\u201d she continued, \u201cbut we feel guilty that it\u2019s coming from our land.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Protesters are met by a police presence outside Pine Gap, July 20, 2026. Photo by Eleni Kupe.<\/p>\n

The police had set up two checkpoints before the march had even reached the base: one several kilometers out on the highway to check identification, and a second closer to the gate to stop the march on foot.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The protesters were undeterred. Chanting and banging on drums they cried, \u201cClose Pine Gap,\u201d \u201cShut it down,\u201d and \u201cAlways was, always will be Aboriginal land.\u201d<\/p>\n

Later that morning, a lone protester, Aahana Nag, locked herself to the steering wheel of a car blocking the base\u2019s only access road, closing it for just over an hour before her arrest.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe United States has displaced the custodians of these lands and has built an intelligence facility that provides critical intelligence for their illegal military operations,\u201d Nag said afterwards.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis base is material proof of the federal government\u2019s investment in U.S. wars that do not serve us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The action was the climax of a three-day convergence devoted to the history of U.S. militarism in the Northern Territory, organized by activist groups Mparntwe for Falastin and the Anti-Militarism Action Network. With over 600 in attendance, it focused on the history of Pine Gap and the resistance to it.<\/p>\n

Convergence organizer Jorgen Doyle attributed the action\u2019s success to a growing unease in Australia over the U.S. alliance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Jorgen Doyle, the convergence organizer, speaks during the event. Photo by Sarah Dalgeish.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a really compelling geopolitical moment,\u201d he said, \u201cto contest Pine Gap and everything that it represents.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cNorthern Australia is the top overseas location for US Air Force and Navy construction spending,\u201d he added, referring to a report in Reuters published in 2024<\/a>. According to the report, more than $300 million was set aside over several years under U.S. congressional defense authorizations to fund the construction.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s Not One Base. It\u2019s Three in One.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Dr. Richard Tanter, Pine Gap is as secretive as it is misunderstood.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Widely considered Australia\u2019s leading expert on Pine Gap, Tanter is a senior research associate at the Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability, where he has tracked the base\u2019s expansion for over a decade, building on research alongside the late Des Ball and fellow researcher Bill Robinson.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He told the convergence that the government\u2019s habit of describing Pine Gap as a single facility is misleading.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe government likes to say one base. It\u2019s not. It\u2019s three in one,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The site combines a ground station receiving data from geostationary satellites, a separate operation intercepting the satellite communications of other countries (including Indonesia, China, and India), and a relay station that sends data automatically to Buckley Space Force Base in the U.S. state of Colorado.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Pine Gap facility as it appeared in 2008. Satellite image via Skyring.<\/p>\n

Since its inception, the Pine Gap facility has grown steadily.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tanter and his colleagues counted 36 antennas when they last surveyed the base in 2015 and 2016. They now count 45, many enclosed in radomes; a protective dome over an antenna that also hides which way it\u2019s pointing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tanter says Pine Gap is intentionally designed like this to conceal scrutiny. \u201cThis is to make sure that people like you and me and other interested parties don\u2019t look at what they are actually focusing on,\u201d he explained.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThree of the satellites at Pine Gap controls all cover the Middle East,\u201d he continued. \u201cAll cover Gaza. All cover Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tanter cited documents leaked by Edward Snowden in 2013 that showed that the data collected through the arrangement is passed onto Israeli intelligence, \u201cwithout explicit filter.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Despite that, he said, there is no record of an Australian government ever telling Washington that intelligence sharing should stop while Gaza and Iran remain active conflict zones.<\/p>\n

According to Tanter, half the workforce at the base are Australian, yet they have no veto power over what it does.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cPine Gap puts Australia in great peril,\u201d he told the convergence. \u201cIt makes us a nuclear target. It makes us a conventional missile target. It entraps us in complicity in genocide in Gaza.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tanter described the base as \u201cthe poisoned heart of the Australia-US alliance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A U.S. Air Force B-52 Stratofortress opens its drag chute during its arrival at Royal Air Force Base Darwin, Australia, March 29, 2018. U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Alexander W. Riedel.<\/p>\n

Bombers Heading to Tindal<\/p>\n

However, Pine Gap is not the only flashpoint.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At the convergence, defense researcher Vince Scappatura outlined the build-up underway at Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) Base Tindal, near Katherine, where up to six U.S. B-52 bombers are expected to be forward-based by the end of the year under the \u201cEnhanced Air Cooperation Initiative.\u201d<\/p>\n

Katherine is the third largest town in the Northern Territory, with a meager population of 10,000.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Scapputara said that the aircraft themselves matter less than the infrastructure being built to support them, including a squadron operations facility, fuel reserves, munitions bunkers, and an extended apron.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThese bombers are credibly postured for possible real-world operations, not just training exercises,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cEach B-52 can carry up to 20 nuclear-armed cruise missiles\u201d he said. With \u201cup to six aircraft\u201d coming to Base Tindal, in Scapputara\u2019s estimation this would represent a combined explosive yield of roughly 1,200 Hiroshima bombs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He pointed to a possible precedent.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In October 2024, U.S. B-2 bombers used Australian airspace and were refueled by tankers pre-positioned at Cairns Airport to support a strike in Yemen.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It was the first time since World War II that Australian territory had directly supported a U.S. bomber operation. The incident was little known to the public and attracted little attention, much less furor.<\/p>\n

Under Washington\u2019s longstanding policy of neither confirming nor denying the presence of nuclear weapons on its aircraft, Australians may simply never know if the B-52s rotating through Base Tindal are carrying nuclear bombs on board.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt may very well be the case that the Australian government also wouldn\u2019t know,\u201d Scapputara said, \u201cbecause they\u2019d agree not to ask.\u201d<\/p>\n

Doyle, the convergence organizer, said this is part of a growing pattern, punctuated by the size of the last war rehearsal held in Darwin last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re stationed in Darwin, they practice in these fields\u2026 Last year there was a massive war rehearsal called Talisman Sabre, it\u2019s one of the largest war rehearsals anywhere in the world. It involved 35,000 troops,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cIt was about 20,000 US troops and 10,000 Australian troops and another 5,000 from 19 other allied nations.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

He\u2019s not blind to the semantics either, pointing to how carefully the U.S. military chooses its language: \u201cThey call it a rotation because it sounds less like an occupation if you call it a rotation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Protesters demand the closure of Pine Gap during a march to the base, July 20, 2026. Photo by Anisha Pillariset.<\/p>\n

Growing Dissent<\/p>\n

The action culminating in the march on Pine Gap was timely, representing growing discontent with the long-held Australia-U.S. alliance.<\/p>\n

Last year, one of Australia\u2019s leading think tanks, the Australia Institute, released a poll<\/a> following U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s 10 percent tariffs on Australian exports (a figure that has since jumped up to 12.5 percent). The poll found that 46 percent of Australians now support a more independent foreign policy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The same survey of 1,500 voters found 50 percent believe Trump\u2019s election was bad for Australia, and 47 percent of Australians believe the United States is an unreliable security ally, versus just 44 percent who see the U.S. as reliable.<\/p>\n

During the action, NSW Greens Senator David Shoebridge, a vocal critic of the U.S. alliance, stood beside the Hayes family, assuring his support.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Shoebridge said the Australian government is out of touch with the sentiment on the ground.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf ever there was a message to end the world, it would come through Pine Gap. We would be the handmaidens of that,\u201d he said. \u201cU.S. bases have never made us safe, but right now they are especially making us a target.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Australian government was contacted for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A spokesperson said the government does not comment on intelligence matters or the operation of joint or collaborative facilities, including Pine Gap, \u201cin accordance with longstanding practice by successive governments.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIn 1962, they took my grandfather, the Americans,\u201d said Arrerente Elder Aunty Felicity while standing outside of Pine…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":830617,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44,677,48862,4206,403661,403662,403663,403664,1055],"class_list":["post-830616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news","tag-oceania","tag-pine-gap","tag-security","tag-u-s-bases-in-australia","tag-u-s-military-bases","tag-u-s-signals-intelligence","tag-u-s-australia-alliance","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=830616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/830617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=830616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=830616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=830616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}