Communist Party of Australia

The extensions to the Hill Top Shooting Centre are intended to replace Sydney’s Malabar rifle range, said to be the largest in the Southern Hemisphere.

But this is not the first time that the Malabar range has been slated for closure. Around about the time that the existing Hill Top Shooting Centre was being constructed in 1986, the NSW and federal governments were both involved in extensive programs for the replacement of the original yellowblock sandstone, the exquisite flawless stone used in Sydney’s historic buildings.

However, the only available source of yellowblock in NSW at that time was the privately-owned quarries at Gosford, and the cost of this stone was astronomical. Stone of equal quality could, it was said, be shipped all the way from quarries in Western Australia and be landed at the Sydney wharfs more cheaply than to bring it from Gosford.

The state and federal governments therefore decided to conduct geological studies to locate areas of government-owned land under which lay areas of yellowblock, and which were suitable for quarrying. And the biggest site of all was the Malabar rifle range, under which lie billions of dollars worth of yellowblock stone.

However, the company which owned the Gosford quarries sprang into action with a PR campaign which bemoaned the potential loss of jobs in the Gosford area if other quarries were opened up on government-owned land – or, for that matter, if yellowblock was imported from other states.

And lo and behold, both the state and federal governments went to water, and cancelled the quarrying program! The Malabar range site will now, presumably, be sold off for major housing development, an approach entirely consistent with the state Labor government’s adoration for big development and big developers.

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