Security concerns drove the Australian government’s 2025 decision to bring Darwin Port, currently leased to Chinese company Landbridge, back into the control of Australian or trusted partners. So it should now be backed by the public and private sectors coming together to identify, debate and implement the best solution.
Australia has a habit when confronting difficult strategic choices of picking over the carcass of past decisions. Critics use hindsight to prosecute their case. Those who approved the original call often continue to defend it regardless of subsequent developments. Neither instinct helps the country make the right decision, or to do so as a united force, today.
The 2015 decision to lease Darwin Port to Landbridge now sits squarely in that cycle. Some voices argue the government should leave the lease alone as it is a legal contract or because ending it would upset China. Others propose simplistic options such as immediate termination without an alternative or complicated workarounds such as building another port. Both responses miss the real point.
The geopolitical environment has changed since 2015 and so has what we know. The lease was undertaken as a purely economic matter and the initial post-lease debate focused largely on espionage. That issue dominated headlines in 2015 and shaped the political reaction.
But spying, though concerning, didn’t represent the core strategic risk. The threat—as with other critical infrastructure such as 5G telecommunications—relates to control.
Darwin hosts Australia’s most important deep-water port in the north. Defence cooperation with the United States continues to expand across northern Australia. Allied logistics and maritime access increasingly rely on infrastructure across the Northern Territory. That trajectory will accelerate as deterrence and force posture evolve across the Indo-Pacific.
Against that backdrop, the central question looks simple: should the future development of our most strategically important northern port sit in the hands of a foreign commercial entity whose interests may not align with Australia’s?
No responsible government can answer ‘yes’. Perhaps that should have been the case in 2015 but it is now certainly so, particularly since China and Russia formed their ‘no limits’ partnership in 2022.
Ending the lease will test Australia’s relationship with Beijing. But sovereign governments must retain the ability to determine who controls critical infrastructure.
Comments this month by former Northern Territory treasurer Dave Tollner have illustrated why the debate still struggles to engage with the strategic reality. Tollner criticised what he described as the federal government’s politicisation of an ageing facility that was ‘literally sinking into the harbour’ when Landbridge leased it. He also argued Darwin was a ‘tiny little port’ and suggested the idea it could support large-scale military operations sounded ‘absolutely ludicrous’.
Those comments miss the point.
The issue never concerned the port’s condition in 2015, nor does the debate centre on whether Darwin currently handles large-scale military operations. The real issue concerns the future development of the port and the strategic role it will play in northern Australia.
Darwin’s geography matters. The port sits closer to Southeast Asia than any other major Australian harbour. Allied military cooperation continues to deepen across the north. Logistics networks and sustainment capabilities will expand alongside that cooperation.
Tollner’s advocacy of building another port rather than revisiting the lease collapses under scrutiny. Ports require enormous capital investment, decades of development and substantial commercial demand. Northern Australia does not offer the scale of trade that supports multiple competing deep-water facilities.
Sunk costs also matter. Governments cannot wish away the financial realities of infrastructure development. Starting again would impose extraordinary costs on taxpayers while delivering little strategic advantage.
The decision has already been made. Tollner would have been better served by simply saying that he still stood by the 2015 decision but recognised that the times and threats had changed in the 10 years since.
The federal government has determined that Darwin Port should return to Australian control because the lease no longer passes the test of today’s strategic environment and the potential for future conflict and disruption. The fact there is bipartisan support for the return of the lease is also important—the return should be seen as a national interest matter above politics, even if there can still be debate on the best policy approach.
Australia can now plan, invest and develop Darwin Port so it can sustain the economic development of northern Australia and support our defence and national security needs long into the future.