Among the flurry of promises in the lead-up to the federal election, a key bipartisan pledge has emerged, regaining control of the Port of Darwin.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese confirmed that discussions were already underway.
“We’ve been informally engaging with potential buyers for some time,” the prime minister told ABC.
“If the need arises for direct Commonwealth involvement, we’re ready to act,” he added.
Albanese jumped on the issue after he caught wind that Opposition Leader Peter Dutton would pledge to bring the northern port back under Australian ownership.
In 2015, the Northern Territory’s then-Country Liberal Party government leased the Port of Darwin to China’s Landbridge for 99 years.
The $506 million deal sparked national security concerns—even from former U.S. President Barack Obama—and led the Turnbull government to tighten asset sale rules via the Foreign Investment Review Board.
Dutton promised that a Coalition government would take immediate steps to regain control of what he described as a “strategic national asset.”
Albanese Denies Port Lease Tied to Funding Gaps
While visiting Darwin later today, Albanese was asked whether a rejection of funding requests for the port during his time as infrastructure minister contributed to the lease to Landbridge.He flatly denied any connection.
“No, that’s simply not the case,” he said. “When I held the portfolio, Labor delivered record infrastructure investment for the Northern Territory , including upgrades at the port.”
Albanese highlighted several major projects completed under his watch, including extending the railway line to the port and transforming Tiger Brennan Drive from “a goat track” into a major thoroughfare connecting Darwin to Palmerston.
“We not only promised it, we funded and delivered it,” he said.
The prime minister also defended his broader legacy on ports policy. “I addressed the national ports conference here,” he noted.
“Ask those in the industry, I was the first federal minister focused on infrastructure who regularly attended and worked on boosting port productivity.”
He argued that the decision to lease the port stemmed not from any perceived funding gap in 2013, but from the Coalition’s asset recycling scheme introduced in the 2014 federal budget by then-Treasurer Joe Hockey.
“The key moment wasn’t in 2013, it was April 2016, when the NT CLP government received $19.5 million to hand over the port,” Albanese said.
Port Debate Rekindled by Security, Politics
Despite two separate federal reviews, one initiated by Dutton as defence minister and another by Albanese in 2023, which concluded there was no national security basis to cancel the lease, the political climate around the port has shifted once again.Both major parties now argue the facility is too important to remain under foreign control.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong reinforced that stance over the weekend, telling ABC’s Insiders that recent circumstances had led to a reassessment.
“Elected representatives have made a judgment that this piece of critical infrastructure should be in Australian hands,” she said.
On April 8, Defence Minister Richard Marles was pressed on whether security agencies had pushed for the lease to end, or if international partners such as the United States had applied pressure.
Marles didn’t confirm either scenario but maintained Labor’s long-held concerns about the 2015 deal.
“We’ve consistently said for nearly a decade that the Port of Darwin should not have been sold to a company with ties to a foreign government,” Marles told the ABC’s Afternoon Briefing.
He reiterated Labor’s position that the sale, approved by the CLP-led NT government, was misguided from the start.
As both parties sharpen their focus on national security in this election cycle, the fate of the Darwin port has re-emerged as a litmus test for foreign investment policy and sovereign control over strategic infrastructure.
