Actually, the new Russian embassy should be right next to the Australian parliament building. Now the Australian government has prevented the construction. Prime Minister Albanese cited concern for national security as the reason.
Australia’s government has halted the construction of a new Russian embassy near Parliament in Canberra for “national security” reasons.
“The government has received very clear security advice on the risks that a new Russian presence so close to Parliament would have posed,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said. He also stressed that the Australian government condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Construction halt in an urgent procedure
With the support of the opposition, the government brought the legal basis for the decision through both chambers of parliament in an expedited procedure – the whole procedure took less than two hours. “We are acting quickly to ensure that the leasehold does not become a formal diplomatic mission,” Albanese said.
It is not about preventing a diplomatic representation of Russia in Australia. There should only be no embassy building in the immediate vicinity of Parliament. The new laws recognize that Russia may be able to seek financial compensation.
From a legal point of view, the law prohibits the construction of any diplomatic missions on the property, regardless of the country. However, the Australian politicians made little secret of the fact that their actions are particularly aimed at Russia as an undesirable parliamentary neighbor at the location in question.
bypasses Parliament court order
The background is a court decision made a few weeks ago. With this, the planning authority of the Australian government was forbidden to withdraw Russia’s right to use the leased area in the embassy district of the capital Canberra. With reference to national security interests, this judgment has now been overturned.
The planning authority approved the leasing of the property in December 2008, and the building permits were granted in 2011. Russia contractually committed to completing the construction work within three years – but the half-finished new embassy building was never completed.
The planning authority finally terminated the lease agreement, arguing that the permanent construction site disturbed “the overall aesthetic impression” of the diplomatic quarter and did not do justice to its “importance and dignity”.
However, a court declared the dismissal null and void, which is why the law has now been passed. The current Russian embassy in the Griffith suburb will remain unaffected, as will the Australian mission in Moscow, Albanese said. According to the Australian Ministry of the Interior, no decision has yet been made on the future use of the site.