Address and Q&A, Northern Territory

SUBJECTS: Talisman Sabre Exercise, AUKUS Review, Port of Darwin

JOURNALIST: Just for the tape can you introduce yourself, please? 

MINISTER FOR DEFENCE INDUSTRY, PAT CONROY: Pat Conroy, Australia's Minister for Defence Industry. 

Well, it's a pleasure to be here today with the United States Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, and the respective Chiefs of our Armies. 19 nations, three weeks, 40,000 participants, that's what Talisman Sabre's all about, and you saw one of the pinnacles of the exercise behind us right now.

Because, ladies and gentlemen, today's the day that the Australian Army enters the missile age; today's the day that the Australian Army enters the missile age, the successful test firing of the Precision Strike Missile, only the 16th test firing of this missile around the world and only the second one by a manned platform. 

This takes the range of the Australian Army from 40 kilometres to 500 kilometres, on the way to a 1,000-kilometre range. This truly modernises the Australian Army, and it's symbolic of the progress that we've made since the release of the Defence Strategic Review a couple of years ago, and the release of the National Defence Strategy. 

The modernisation of the Australian Army, the transformation of it into an Army focused on littoral manoeuvre long‑range strike is at the heart of the DSR, is at the heart of the Australian Government's agenda, and it is being successfully achieved through exercises like this, successfully achieved well ahead of schedule. 

The test firing of the PrSM has been delivered two years ahead of schedule after delivering the PrSM one year ahead of schedule. 

Now this could not have happened without the cooperation of the United States Government and in particular the United States Army, and I want to thank you on behalf of a grateful nation for your help in this exercise. 

This is all about extending deterrence in the Indo‑Pacific, all about signalling to any potential adversary that pain can be inflicted, all about deterring war through strength, and the PrSM is the greatest example of that to date for the Australian Army. 

So today is a red letter day for the Australian Army, it's again about bringing delivery forward, accelerating capability to deter war and promote peace. 

I'll hand over to Dan to make some comments, and then we'll answer some questions. 

DAN DRISCOLL: I'm Dan Driscoll, Secretary of the United States Army. We're honoured to be here today with our Australian friends and brothers and sisters to watch this momentous day. 

When President Trump talks about peace through strength, the best way to be strong is when our friends and our allies are strong. The production of the PrSM missile, and the partnership with the Australians and the training that went into this event is a model for us as Americans on how we can project and partner with our allies to project strength around the world. 

We are incredibly excited to be partnering with the Australians for the development and production of this missile. That is the type of manufacturing program around the world that can strengthen both our American defence industrial base and also that of our allies, and so it is great to be here among friends. 

Thank you for coming out. We're looking forward to answering questions. 

JOURNALIST: Yeah, maybe a question for Dan, if you can. You know, just talk to us a little bit about this missile that we saw. I mean how does this PrSM missile help the US prepare to fight in the Indo‑Pacific, prepare to fight China if needed, how will it be used in a conflict? I mean why is it so important in your perspective? 

DAN DRISCOLL: I think if you look at the way conflict is unfolding now, what is not being rewarded is large, massive presences with static locations and big footprints and signatures. What is being rewarded is the ability to be agile, hide your signature and move quickly.

And if you look at what's behind us, if you think about where that could exist in the world and still reach out and touch a potential adversary, it's pretty incredible. 

And so I think if we are re‑looking our strategy of how the United States Army continues to develop and expand and reinforce our strength around the world and how we position ourselves, it's tools like PrSM that allow us to partner with our allies and reach out and touch potential threats from places they will almost certainly not know that we exist, and so this is that type of weapon that we are continuing to invest in and try to scale. 

JOURNALIST: I mean the pacing threat in the Indo‑Pacific is China, you know, you're the Secretary of the Army, is there a Chinese capability, a new Chinese capability, a new enhanced capability that they have that keeps you up at night, that you're worried about, and you know, if so, you know, what is the US doing to respond to that? 

DAN DRISCOLL: Chief, do you want to take this one, and I'll follow up? 

RANDY GEORGE: I would just say that I think where we're focused on, you know, what keeps us up at night is making sure we are transforming at the pace that we need to do it. And we were just in Hawaii, we had 16 launchers that are coming in there that we're going to change it to [indistinct], and I think you saw on the movie screen earlier, you know, this is about adapting your network, you know, what you're doing across really all the war fighting functions, and that's what we're doing. 

So I mean what we constantly talk about is what we need to do to speed, get after the speed of transformation. My hat's off really to our Australian partners, I think they've demonstrated that, what they're doing, and I think we're all learning those same lessons, we've got to move with the pace of technology. 

DAN DRISCOLL: And I just echo what has been so remarkable about being with our Australian allies is when we were doing our bilateral and trilateral meetings this morning, the way that they were talking about their Army transformation is remarkably similar to how we've been talking about ours, the way that we ‑ General George and the rest of the team have been thinking about it is without the digital capabilities to do targeting and sensing and aggregating of that information in near real time, this type of asset is valuable but not that valuable. 

What we are doing as the United States Army, and our Australian allies are doing as well, is starting to think about that digital layer that connects our people and our sensors and our things, and allows information to be exchanged at near real time, and what you can do once you do this is start to layer in things like generative AI to help with the kind of decision making that's required in 21st Century warfare.

So that is a lot of how we were thinking about our transformation and our partnership. 

JOURNALIST: Dan, I've got a question for you too. Thanks for being here, and perhaps General George as well. Regarding the Talisman Sabre exercise more broadly, people ‑ we've been talking about this, our leaders have been talking about this as a rehearsal for potential conflict and demonstrating the deterrence capability of the US Defence Forces and the Australian Armed Defence Forces. 

I wonder if you can tell us who specifically we are sending a message of deterrence to. 

DAN DRISCOLL: I think we, President Trump and Secretary of Defence Hegseth, and the rest of the Pentagon team, have been very clear that our pacing threat is China. We are actively designing our Army so that we are capable of responding to any threat from China. 

That being said, if you look at how warfare has unfolded throughout human history, most humans have gotten guesses wrong about where it will happen, and so we are very cognisant that we need a United States Army that is flexible and agile and innovative, so that anywhere the President or Secretary of Defence send us, and whenever we need to tag in to help our allies, we have the tools, resources and training to succeed. 

JOURNALIST: Can I ask General George to expand upon that, the same question, and if the principal threat is China, is there a timeframe by when you're most concerned about potential conflict in Taiwan?

RANDY GEORGE: Yeah, well, I guess again, and I'll go back to my earlier comment, what we are trying to do is to transform as rapidly as possible. I mean our ‑ a big part of doing these exercises with all the countries we have right here, we talk a lot about the technical interoperability but actually working together and doing those exercises. 

So one of the things that we were talking about this morning was, you know, looking out in the distance of what are we going to do to be ready for the next exercise? We're doing this all throughout the Pacific, making sure that we are ready. Obviously, deterrence is key for us and making sure we're doing that. 

So I mean I will tell you again we're focused on just getting better every day, month to month, and making sure that we're transforming at the speed, and you're seeing that back with what we're doing with the US Army across, you know, the Secretary was just talking about the network, what we're really doing across all of our war fighting functions. 

JOURNALIST: Secretary, just a final question from me before Roxanne if that's okay. I just want to talk about AUKUS. Have you spoken about AUKUS here with your counterparts? What's your message to them given the review we're seeing in the US with Elbridge Colby, some other developments here with the Australian Prime Minister going to China; have you spoken about AUKUS and [indistinct]? 

DAN DRISCOLL: We did speak about that this morning in our trilateral meeting, and I think our message is the administration under President Trump and Secretary Hegseth are doing what most of our American United States administrations do when they come into office, they review our current defence planning, they make sure that it's relevant for the current time, and so that review is ongoing, and we will follow up with them the moment we have further details. 

JOURNALIST: Just a bit more of a local question. In terms of this PrSM program, what role is Northern Australia going to play? Are they going to be building them, basing them here? 

MINISTER CONROY: Well, I might invite General Stuart to make a comment, but this is part of the long‑range fires brigade that is headquartered at RAAF Edinburgh in South Australia, but obviously the Northern Territory and Darwin are a critical part of our defence posture. That's why one part of the Defence Strategic Review that we immediately implemented was a 14 to $18 billion investment in hardening our northern bases, including bases up here in the NT. 

So, it's a critical part of us reorienting the ADF to the northern part of Australia, that's where we expect we need to project strength and deter from, so that's the commitment from the Albanese Government. But I'll invite General Stuart to amplify.

SIMON STUART: Thanks, Minister. We talk about force posture, and we base our capability, so this capability is based in Adelaide, in South Australia, because that's a really efficient way to force generate, but if you just look at where we are and what we've been doing over the last two weeks for exercise Talisman Sabre and what your ADF is doing every day, it's working across Northern Australia with allies and partners from our region and beyond, and then we work with them in their countries as well. 

So Northern Australia is a critical part of our country for homeland defence, but it's also a critical part of our region economically as well as militarily. 

SPEAKER: Last question. 

JOURNALIST: [Indistinct]. That wasn't a question. Just confirming, why have you based here? 

SIMON STUART: I'm not sure that where they're based is terribly important, it's where they're going to be deployed, and you can see right behind us today, they're here at Mount Bundy, and I think Australians who live in Northern Australia, right across Northern Australia, will get used to seeing the Australian Army and the ADF on a very regular basis, more so than you have. 

SPEAKER: Last question. 

JOURNALIST: It's just on the Port of Darwin, is the Australian Government still committed to its election promise to buy back the Port of Darwin? 

MINISTER CONROY: I might [indistinct] the uniforms ‑ I just want to make sure that we don't have defence personnel in shot. 

We've been very clear from day one that it was a significant mistake from the last government to allow the long‑term lease, effectively a sale of the Port of Darwin, and we took to the last election a commitment that we would return it to Australian hands. There's multiple ways of doing that. That's our commitment. We are getting on with delivering that, and we're obviously exploring what is the right model to return it to Australian hands now due to its strategic significance. 

JOURNALIST: Can I just follow on up on that ‑‑ 

SPEAKER: That's it, thanks everyone. Oh, I'll give you ‑‑ 

MINISTER CONROY: Is this a follow‑up? 

JOURNALIST: No ‑‑ 

JOURNALIST: Well, [indistinct] when? 

MINISTER CONROY: Well, we're working through the options right now, that is our commitment, that we'll return it to Australian hands. We're working on what is the exact option right now. Thank you very much.

ENDS