Just a link...

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-05/prime-minister-calls-for-greater-abc-voice-in-the-pacific/101305584

He said
"When the ABC voice was removed from the Pacific, guess what nation moved in? Simple as that, a major mistake of foreign policy."

Will anything happen? Probably not.

Do the antennas necessary to transmit into the region still exist or were they scrapped?

The ABC or China State Radio/Television - it's all the same: just socialist left-wing garbage that has to be paid for by the taxpayers of both countries. The only difference is the language spoken by the reporters at each organisation.

Probably the worst foreign policy error in the postwar period was to close sortwave Radio Australia. The Chinese jumped in clapping their hands for joy.

The Pacific became their playground as recent events have shown.

Think it will not be easy to get another international shortwave station running again here in Australia.

Simplex! Why would it be difficult?

I never listened to Radio Australia, although a number of ex pats I knew used to, and it was also reportedly very popular in Asia with those learning English.

As I understand it, RA was never in the league of Voice of America.

HRSA Radiowaves recently had an article on Radio Australia. A fair bit on construction of the facilities in Victoria especially the antennas and the complex switching arrangements that allowed any transmitter to be connected to any antenna. If that still does not exist, or its equivalent somewhere else like Darwin, it would take a while to set up something that can beam transmissions into the Pacific and Asia. And then there would be all the backroom staff and foreign language speakers to collect.

I seem to remember that the start of the end for RA was political pressure from Indonesia which didn't like reporting that went against their government line.

What I heard was they replaced most of the transmitters and the new ones turned out to be very unreliable.

The situation at Sheparton is such that it has been completely sabotaged by selling off essential equipment. There is now no way without a complete refit that it can be used.

As far as I know the only place with working transmitters is at the old Carnarvon site, which is being run by HCJB.

This is what you get with a bureaucracy controlled by bankers & near sighted morons that can only introduce things that don't work & kill anything that does. What I see is everything we had when I was a kid has been destroyed.

Apart from the issue of getting new transmitters I wonder whether the aerial arrays are still in existence. Staffing may be a problem as trained and qualified engineers, technicians who can work on high powered shortwave transmitters are a scare commodity in this age.

Even getting accomodation for the staff may a troublesome as there is a dire shortage of rental accomodation.

Unless some existing facility can be utilised think it will be while before Radio Australia hits the airwaves.

I have not looked at it, recently but there are three people in the radio club here including Rod Champness who worked there and are still in Shepparton.

These days, radio and TV stations can be anywhere and the only people that would need to regularly be at the transmitter site would be a couple of technicians and occasionally, the chief engineer. The studios could easily be in Sydney or Melbourne.

I would support the ressurection of the station provided it broadcast pro-Western material and not the biased socialist claptrap that most of the ABC's airwaves are polluted with. It is unfortunate that the Internet cannot be used for this purpose. Russia has some regulation on what its people get to consume but in China and Nth Korea and possibly also Iran, the Internet is heavily restricted at best and in Nth Korea you can cop the death penalty for even exploring ways to connect.

Home-baking a basic shortwave radio would be much easier to get away with, even though that is also illegal in these places.

I think that the Carnarvon site has also gone as it was a quick temporary fix to replace the site at Darwin that Cyclone Tracey blew away.

The PMG hurriedly built the Carnarvon site up next to the old NASA tracking station and one of my staff from Port Hedland transferred there as by then all the Hedland comms radio for phone traffic had gone and we only had 6PH a 2kW AWA pair of transmitters and the Hedland TV site for the ABC that the local PMG techs did first in maintenance and the routine readings. Anything difficult bods from Perth flew up and sorted it.
Once the Darwin site was back on the air the Carnarvon site was closed down and the control console now resides in the Museum where the OTC earth Station once stood..dishes are still there but not active.
The buildings now house a very good museum and you can spend hours looking at the highly varied displays and videos running on screens all around the building. Carnarvon folded late 1970's I think. Fascinating place.

At one point due to political upheaval, HCJB got out of Ecuador and started broadcasting from The Kimberly in 2003 it is now Reach Beyond after changing its name in 2014 https://www.reachbeyond.org.au/about/reach-beyond-in-australia/. I am unsure what site they have but it should not be hard to find out. However I believe its Kununurra.

A recent article about Radio Australia.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/backstory/2022-12-03/australia-calling-radio-australia-83-years-broadcasting/101712052