AUSTRALIA: Warships not a sign of hostile intent
Updated
Australia has announced an eleven-billion dollar program to buy five new ships for the Australian Navy. Three Airwarfare Destroyers - with the capability to shoot down ballistic missiles - will cost eight billion dollars. The Navy will also get two of the world's largest amphibious ships able to land a thousand troops by sea and air, at a cost of three billion dollars. The Australian Government says other nations in the region should not see the programs as a sign of hostile intent, rather of Australia's defence commitment to the region.
Presenter: Graeme Dobell
Speakers: Australia's Prime Minister, John Howard; Australia's Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer
DOBELL: Australia is to increase is its war-fighting reach with the three new destroyers and its ability to send troops off shore with the two giant amphibious or transport ships. The eight billion dollar project for three air warfare destroyers is described as a quantum leap for the Australian Navy, enhancing further the Navy's ability to operate alongside the United States Navy. The destroyers will have at their heart the US Aegis Combat system, which has the capacity to shoot down ballistic missiles. The Prime Minister, John Howard...
HOWARD: This does represent a massive lift in the Royal Australian Navy's airwarfare capability. These vessels will be able to perform the full spectrum of joint maritime operations, including area air defence and escort duties, including importantly, for the amphibious ships. They will be equipped with the Aegis Combat system, which is the most capable air combat system in the world, and fully interoperable with forces of the United States. Should the government so describe at a later date, they can be equipped with the SM-3 missile to conduct ballistic missile defence.
DOBELL: The two amphibious ships will enter service in the two years from 2012. They're described as two of the largest and most advanced deployment systems in the world. Mr Howard
HOWARD: They will greatly enhance Australia's ability to send forces in strength, when required, particularly in our own region, but not of course restricted to our own region. And will, of course, include a capacity to send forces and men and women and materials in relation to disaster relief efforts. They will be able to land over 1000 personnel, along with their vehicles, the new M1 Abrams tanks, artillery and supplies, and using integrated helicopters and watercraft.
DOBELL: The giant transport ships will give Australia much greater capacity to move its military around Southeast Asia and the South Pacific, in the region the Defence Minister calls "the arc of instability". The Prime Minister stresses the regional reach of the amphibious ships.
HOWARD: Particularly enhance our capacity to provide a flexible response to incidents in our region. I stress it's not limited to enhancing capacity in our region. But that is in my view and the government's view a very likely requirement of any amphibious capacity over the next 10 to 20 years. And unless this country does have that capacity to act flexibly and effectively within our own region, the investment would not be justified.
DOBELL: The Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, says the eleven billion dollar ship program should not signal any hostile intent to Southeast Asia or the South Pacific. Mr Downer says Australia sets an example to the region by being open about its defence plans.
DOWNER: Our view is that defence policy should be transparent, and so we are happy to talk to countries in the region about what our defence plans, in particular our defence equipment plans actually are. The second thing is that with the amphibious ships, they could be extremely helpful if ever we were to have to do what we did in East Timor in 1999 or more recently in the Solomon Islands. One amphibious ship can move a battle group. To move all of the 5,000 troops and equipment, to East Timor, which we did in 1999, we could do in three voyages on one of these ships and we're building two of them. So it just improves very substantially our defence capability to be able to provide assistance to countries in the region which are in difficulty, such as we did in the case of the tsunami.
DOBELL: Is it going to be seen now as a more assertive Australia and Australia actually muscling up militarily? Is that going to be one of the problems - that it is going to be seen as Australia actually claiming a more robust military role for itself?
DOWNER: I think Australia needs to have a strong defence force. I don't think it is in Australia's interests to have a weak defence force. In my 11 years as Foreign Minister, many unpredictable things have happened. I would never have anticipated some of the occasions when we have used our defence force. I thought, in 1999 at the time of the East Timor deployment, our defence force seemed short of capability. I was quite surprised in the difficulty we had in getting 5,000 troops organised and deployed into East Timor. It was quite difficult to do. So I think we do need to do more with defence and in the life of the Howard Government, we've increased in real terms, defence expenditure by about 47 per cent. It's not that we have hostile intent towards anybody. It's that with defence, you need to have capabilities to deal with unexpected contingencies and we've had to do that and sometimes we've been a bit stretched. So in the future we want to make sure that's not the case.
