Australia will lead a major maritime interdiction training exercise in the Coral Sea off Queensland’s central coast this weekend involving about 800 military and law enforcement personnel from around the globe, Defence Minister Robert Hill announced today.

Exercise Pacific Protector is the first in a series of maritime, air and land interdiction training exercises agreed by members of the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) meeting in Paris last week.

Senator Hill said the exercise would involve personnel from Australia, the United States, Japan and France. Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom have been invited to send observers.

"The aim of the exercise is to practice intercepting, boarding and searching vessels suspected of illegal trafficking in weapons of mass destruction, their delivery systems and related materials," Senator Hill said.

"Australia is experienced in conducting successful joint interdiction operations, such as the apprehension of a suspected illegal fishing vessel three weeks ago after a long pursuit across the Southern Ocean and the South Atlantic Ocean.

"Exercise Pacific Protector will further improve our capabilities to conduct actual maritime interdiction operations in partnership."

Senator Hill will visit the exercise, which starts at first light on Saturday with aerial searches for a simulated Japanese-flagged commercial merchant vessel suspected of carrying WMD-related items. The vessel will be trailed by combined military and law enforcement assets from the four participating nations. The Japan Coast Guard, working with French, US and Australian counterparts, will request and execute a boarding and search of the vessel on the high seas. The scenario will end after the seizure of its WMD-related cargo.

Australian assets involved in the exercise include the frigate HMAS Melbourne, the Australian Customs vessel Botany Bay and Coastwatch surveillance aircraft. The international assets involved in the exercise are the United States destroyer USS Curtis Wilbur with a US Coast Guard Law Enforcement Detachment Boarding Team, the Japanese Coast Guard patrol vessel Shikishima, a French Guardian Maritime Patrol aircraft and target vessel MV Private Franklin J Phillips (to be MV Tokyo Summer for the exercise).