Good to know Des Ball is still active in this field.

He is an expert, I am an observer and find this very strange. The facility in Western Australia, there are two sites at Dongara, which are part of the Swedish-owned Swedish Space Corporation's PrioraNet satellite monitoring network. There are five similar stations in the USA and of the three network control stations two are in the USA. See:http://www.sscspace.com/products-ser...rioranet-sites

One site, Dongara West:
is owned, operated and maintained by SSC’s US-based subsidiary, Universal Space Network (“USN”). USN functions under a US Government Special Security Agreement (SSA) and primarily serves US-Government and commercial customers.
Whilst Dongara East is:
owned and maintained by SSC’s Australia-based subsidiary, SSC Space Australia. The station is operated from the SSC main station in northern Sweden at the Esrange Space Center. The Dongara East Satellite Station primarily serves government agencies and commercial customers.
I would assume in the event of damaging circumstances this network would be prone to "extended maintenance", if not outright cessation.

What is curious is whether the Australian government knew what was happening. Clearly the "informed public" did not.