Joint Press Conference with Minister for Defence Marise Payne and Singapore Minister for Defence Dr Ng Eng Hen, Townsville, 14 October 2016

Minister Payne:

Good morning ladies and gentlemen, and thank you very much for joining us here. It’s been a great pleasure this morning to meet with some of the key stakeholders in the Townsville community with my Singaporean colleague, Dr Ng, particularly the Mayor Jenny Hill, representatives of the chamber of commerce and Townsville enterprise and port authority and have the chance to discuss some of the key issues in relation to the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with them and particularly the MoU in relation to military training.

I’m going to ask Dr Ng if he’d like to say a few words and then I might make a few other observations and we’ll go to questions.

Dr Ng:

(Inaudible) By any reckoning the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership I think is historical. It means very close ties, even closer ties between Defence establishments as you know we’ve been training at Shoalwater Bay for the last twenty five years. The scale of this agreement both in duration and size will mean more SAF troops training here and (inaudible) the people of Australia as well as the people here in Townsville will plan for this next twenty five years, but as we know the devil is always in the details and I want to make sure it’s a good start, and I want to emphasise the message to the SAF is that you have to have respect for the people here, have respect for their rights and respect of land and you have to give back to the community, you have to engage the community. We’ve met with some of the business leaders and town leaders and I think it’s a very good start. We understand this is a long road but nevertheless I think there is enormous good will and I hope that this will continue and again I want to just thank everyone for taking the time for us to be able to start this journey together.

Minister Payne:

Thank you very much Dr Ng and the doctor is right – this is an unprecedented agreement between our nations. It underpins the extraordinarily strong Defence relationship which we already have which extends of course over many decades. Dr Ng and I have been reflecting that next year is the 75^th anniversary of the fall of Singapore and so much of our history in the region has grown from that extraordinary point in Singaporean history. In Townsville itself we know that we’re in a garrison city. We know that Defence has a long and proud presence in this city, both in terms of current serving members and those who choose to leave the defence force and make their lives here. I think the opportunity to develop the Townsville Field Training Area as we also develop the Shoalwater Bay Training Area as part of the defence agreement as under the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership is a very, very important one. It’s not often in 2016 that you find yourself making a 25 year agreement. It’s a really strong foundation for the development of the training area, for the development of training activities for the Singapore Armed Forces. It’s an opportunity for us to reinforce, as I said, the importance of that defence relationship. It will see the change in numbers grow from 6,600 members of the Singapore Armed Forces who train each year in Australia at the moment to 14,000 personnel. It will see the time increase from six weeks per year to 18 weeks per year and that is going to be a considerable presence of young Singapore soldiers visiting beautiful parts of Australia like Townsville and Shoalwater bay.

I know that they will form a firm relationship and liking for the country, the country-side and the Australian people. We have the great reputation of being equally welcoming nations. Warm, informal, friendly and ready to embrace newcomers, ready to embrace new opportunities and this is a very good example of that. So thank you very much for your interest today and I look forward to answering some questions on the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership and perhaps we might start with some of our Singapore representatives and I can’t see where you all are because of the lights.

Reporter:

Minister, you’ve just met the Townsville leaders. What is the mood like (inaudible)?

Minister Ng:

Very warm and very good and some of them are here today. I think it reflects again the shared perspective, the reasons for this Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. This shared partnership I believe is what is good, what is right. What is good for Australia, what is good for Singapore, what is good for the region. I am very happy that the town leaders also share the commitment. You mentioned that it’s an agreement, but we’re very clear even though there is agreement we are here as guests and I remind my soldiers that you are here as well behaved guests.

Reporter:

Dr Ng, you said the devil is in the detail. Were you able to share any of the details how that spend, that’s more than a billion Australian dollars in investment about where that might go and how it will benefit this community?

Dr Ng:

We’ve committed to $2.25 billion Australian dollars for the life-cycle costs for the next 25 years. But I think as the Minister will elaborate, there will be a master plan stage which the Department of Defence, the Australian Department of Defence will drive. We’ll work together with them, as well as the ADF. So perhaps I’ll leave that.

Minister Payne:

Sure.

So we have some of our senior defence officials with us today and we will be making sure that we brief local media in both areas as this progresses. We have to start with an initial development of a business plan and a detailed business plan, concurrently with that we’ll be developing master plans for both of the locations. As you can imagine when you’re developing training areas the physical size of these, they have to be properly master planned. The Shoalwater Bay training area enables training across the three services, air, land and water, Townsville more land focussed and air, perhaps. But that master planning process will take probably 2017 and 2018 and we expect construction to begin in 2019. But as I said, we are at the very beginning of this. We will be working closely with the local government and one of the reasons that it was great to have an opportunity to introduce the minister to the mayor today is the commencement of that relationship as well. We’re working closely with local government, closely with state government, in putting those processes together. This is something which we intend to do properly. There’s no point in not planning it properly if it’s going to need to last 25 years.

Reporter:

Prime Minister Turnbull said that priority will be given to local content, if that’s the right term, how do you define that?

Minister Payne:

So the MoU determines or indicates that the priority will be given to Australian businesses in the locality of the training areas for both phases of the activity, to the development activity and the ongoing training activity. So businesses in the Townsville area, and that is as broad as businesses who have skills in strategic planning, skills in development and those sorts of things; to trades, to food preparation, food provision and so on; construction and all the things that are aligned with that.

Reporter:

So are they businesses that are based in this area?

Minister Payne

Yes.

Reporter:

Only businesses that are based in this area will get priority to these contracts?

Minister Payne:

That’s exactly right. Well not only businesses, I think that’s point of the priority, it is businesses based in the Townsville area, for the Townsville Field Training Area, businesses based in the Central Queensland, Shoalwater Bay area for that training area.

Dr Ng:

Let me just add one point, in terms of the master planning and the aspirations for the collaboration of the Australian Defence Force and the Singapore Armed Forces. What we hope to build is a state-of-the-art combined arms firing range. I think it’s timely because the platforms are new to build a range, a modern range. The second thing we have been trying to look at is the urban training live-fire training area. Many of the missions that we foresee will be in the urban space and this gives us a new start and if we can achieve that, that could be very good for both armed forces.

Reporter:

Minister, is there any scope to extend partnerships like this to other countries? Is this the way Australia’s diplomacy is heading in the future?

Minister Payne:

This is a very special Memorandum of Understanding; the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership has been a number of years in the making, one of my former Ministerial colleagues, Andrew Robb who is well-known in Singapore, is largely responsible for the development of this, and its implementation is now with the Minister for Trade, Steven Ciobo. What it indicates is a reinforcement of the initiatives we made in relation to international relation engagement in the Defence White Paper which was released in February this year. This is the first time for example, Defence is funding as a core focus of our Defence International Engagement. This is a reflection of that but I don’t think I would say that we would replicate this in this sort of form across the board of our international engagement. This is a very specific and special activity. But that’s not to say regionally we won’t be working closely with all of our colleagues and making sure we have a sort of defence presence which gives us familiarity, gives us the opportunity to get together, to understand each other better and to make sure that we are all contributing to the security and stability of our region.

Reporter:

Minister, can I ask a question about Federal Politics to get that out of the way?

Minister Payne:

Well let’s see if there are any more questions about the CSP first and we may have some questions from Singapore.

Reporter:

Twenty five years ago the two countries produced an agreement. What is it about Singapore that gives Australia the confidence to invest in a partnership?

Dr Ng:

I think it’s a both a history, a shared history and experiences. Shoalwater Bay has been (inaudible) for twenty five years already. And throughout that period we’ve gotten to know the people better and we have had a very positive experience, I hope we have been good guests. Feedback I get from the leaders is that we are welcome and I believe we can do this for Townsville as well. With the ADF, as Minister Payne said, we have been on missions together – Timor-Leste, Afghanistan. We are very comfortable with one another. This is a partnership that will last, that will strengthen our understanding.

Reporter:

How can this and having troops on the ground ensure that we manage to strengthen the relationship between Australia and Singapore?

Dr Ng:

First of all, Soldiers please behave. Treat this as your own home, treat these people as your relatives and your friends. Respect them and if there is anything that is damaged repair it. That’s the first start, respect. And also, grow friendships with the people here with the ADF, both their leaders and the soldiers but from a training point of you, if we can build those facilities then we will build the capabilities on both sides.

Minister Payne:

Anything else you’d like to ask?

Reporter:

Minister, conservationists say that the increased activity at Townsville and Shoalwater Bay will harm the environment. How is the Government planning on minimising the impact to the environment?

Minister Payne:

We are always very mindful about our responsibilities in that regard and we will continue to be so and part of the master planning process of course is to be cognisant of that and to work with the local authorities to make sure that we are within the requirements of minimising the impact on the environment. I’ve seen some of those comments and I think the advantage of master planning, gives us a great opportunity to manage that.

Reporter:

Minister, I just wanted to get your thoughts on the future of Lavarack Barracks, will it expand greatly over the next five to ten years in Townsville?

Minister Payne:

Well, Lavarack Barracks already has an extremely strong presence here in Townsville. It’s slated for $600m worth of investment in the White Paper’s Integrated Investment Program. That’s a pretty strong investment and indication of the government’s commitment to its foundational importance. One of the things the White Paper did was to turn to the basics that we call enablers of the Defence Estate, that support the operation of our solders, our sailors and our Air Force in the work they do. They have not had the attention they have deserved over the previous years, so we have funded them specifically in the White Paper. That $600m investment in Lavarack and also a similar amount of money in RAAF Townsville in the White Paper Integrated Investment Program, I think, indicates for the community here and for the serving men and women who support the ADF here in this community, that we are very determined to make these solid, state-of-the-arts, well supported, well-prepared facilities. I think speaking to Brigadier Field on this visit, he reminded me that next year for the Brigade is both Exercise Hamill and Exercise Talisman Sabre focussed. That’s pretty high tempo in terms of their engagement and we will support them as much as we can. I’ve had the chance to visit Lavarack myself, the Minister will have the chance later this morning and you’ll meet as many of the enthusiastic soldiers there and I am incredibly proud of the work that they do.

Reporter:

It’s been said that Singaporean’s need to be good guests, would you encourage the Townsville Community to really get behind this and be good hosts and please welcome them?

Minister Payne:

One hundred per cent. This is an amazing opportunity. This is a great chance for the Townsville Community to engage in the future of the Memorandum of Understanding, this Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. Defence for us is the basis of it but there is so much more happening around it, whether it is in the education space, the service space, the legal space, there is so much opportunity and I think what we have signed over the past two days across the three portfolios; foreign affairs, defence and trade, what we have signed in the last three days is really a seminal change. We’ve had a Singapore-Australia Trade Agreement for a number of years now but this is the next step and our communities; whether it’s Townsville, whether it’s Rockhampton and Yeppoon, whether it’s James Cook University, or the ADF and the Singapore-Armed Forces, we’ve got such a fabulous opportunity. I know that you have the air show that will show what’s possible. Ladies and Gentleman I really do have to make a move but we have time for one more question.

Reporter:

Just quickly the allegations of war crimes, do you think they should automatically be referred to the AFP?

Minister Payne:

I think the matter to which you are referring to has already been referred to the Inspector-General of the ADF.

Reporter:

George Brandis misleading Parliament? Should he stand down?

Minister Payne:

There’s no suggestion that the Attorney-General has misled the Parliament, I have the utmost respect for my colleague, my leader of the Government in the Senate and in his role as the Attorney General. Thanks Everyone.

[END]