Statement to Media, Berlin

It is an enormous pleasure to be here in Berlin today, and to be here with my good friend Boris Pistorius. The Australian-German defence relationship is really an inflection point. We acknowledge and welcome Germany's increased defence spending, its increased defence capability. And as we are working increasingly more closely with Europe, we very much acknowledge Germany's role in playing a part in the leadership of European NATO. 

As Boris said, we are two liberal democracies, which have a commitment to the rule of law at home, but across the world to a rules-based order. And our relationship is one which is very much going from strength-to-strength. Today, Australia and Germany are exercising and operating more than we have at any point in our history. Germany has participated in our most significant exercise, Talisman Sabre in 2023 and 2025 an increasing number. Germany has participated in our major maritime Exercise Kakadu, and at the end of next month, Germany will be sending a squadron of Eurofighters to participate in Exercise Pitch Black in the Northern Territory. And so across every domain, land, sea, and air, but also in cyber and space, our defence forces are working increasingly together. 

We are seeing a much greater degree of cooperation in terms of our defence industry, TKMS, Lurssen, Rheinmetall have all contributed to the capabilities of the Australian Defence Force. Just in the last week, HMAS Eyre, an offshore patrol vessel built by Lurssen was commissioned into the Royal Australian Navy. Rheinmetall’s facility in Brisbane is building combat reconnaissance vehicles for the Australian Army, but is building 100 combat reconnaissance vehicles for the German Army as well. We have recently just invested in a new purchase of 155 millimetre rounds from Rheinmetall’s Joint Venture Facility at Maryborough in Queensland. And we are really excited about the opportunities for our two defence industrial bases to work increasingly closely together going forward. 

As we meet today, we will be talking about the challenges that we find around the world clearly in Ukraine, and how we can cooperate more in respect of that, but also in the Middle East, what we're seeing with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, but also the pressures that we are experiencing in the Indo-Pacific. We will be talking more about how we can see greater cooperation between our two defence forces across every domain. But as Boris has said, we will do so with a particular focus on space. We see that this is an area of enormous opportunity for cooperation between our two defence forces, and what Australia can offer to Germany is in so many ways strategic depth. There are opportunities to operate in Australia in a way that there isn't, in terms of the space that is available on the Australian continent, but also the strategic geography in Australia offers particular opportunity to cooperate in relation to space, and we're really excited about the conversations. We are also looking at concluding a Status of Forces agreement between our two defence forces, and we hope to be in a position of reaching that agreement very shortly. 

This is the third occasion on which Boris and I met this year alone in Munich, in Canberra, and now today in Berlin, and I think that says a lot about the tempo of meetings between our two countries in a defence context, but it says a lot about how significantly we regard the Australian-German defence relationship. Today we'll be doing this as part of a 2+2 meeting with our foreign ministers as well, and this is a really significant step forward in terms of the broader bilateral relationship, and as we are stewarding this relationship on a significant period of growth, I feel very fortunate to be able to do that with my good friend Boris Pistorius, and both of us, I think, have a sense of optimism about where we can take this relationship in the future.