Victoria Police bomb squad technicians were called from Melbourne after a security guard discovered a suspicious package underneath a display tank on the internal edge of the Wadsworth Barracks at Bandiana East about 1pm.

The discovery of the box, which had tape wrapped around it, led Wodonga police, Defence fire trucks and military police to respond to the scene.

An exclusion zone of 100m was set up around the package to await the bomb squad’s arrival at the barracks at the corner of the Murray Valley Highway and Whytes Road.

A Defence representative at the scene told The Border Mail the military had “erred on the side of caution” in its response to the scare.

“We have robust emergency management plans and we’ve invoked them,” he said.

Despite this, an inquiry from The Border Mail to the Defence media unit about 1.45pm failed to shed any light on the day’s events.

A Canberra-based spokeswoman emailed the following one-line reply to The Border Mail about 6pm after the media unit had made its inquiries: “Defence is not aware of a suspicious package being found near a Wadonga Army base (sic).”

By this time, a factory inside the barracks had also been evacuated as a precaution after a second suspicious package was found outside it.

That package was cleared before the bomb squad arrived about 6pm.

Sgt Shane Martin, of Wodonga police, said the Melbourne technicians had spent about 1? hours at the scene before determining the first box was also innocuous.

“It’s an innocent thing that probably shouldn’t have been left where it was,” he said.

“It was a procedural thing that was not dealt with the way it should have been.

“Those people responsible have been spoken to and they should correct their procedures about how they do things.”

Sgt Martin would not say whether those responsible for the package’s location had been Defence personnel or civilians.

Wodonga traffic police maintained a roadblock at the intersection of Whytes Road and the highway throughout the exercise.