Page 40 - Australian Defence Magazine June 2022

40 DEFENCE BUSINESS NORTHERN AUSTRALIA DEFENCE SUMMIT
JUNE 2022 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
Asia. Darwin could serve as an educational centre for, say, amphibious operations, with a focus on how to use them in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations which would create a ton of goodwill in Asia, and not just among the military.”
DEFENCE AND THE LOCAL COMMUNITY
The Federal Member for Solomon Luke Gosling providing insight into the important relationship between Defence and the local community in Darwin during his address, which opened proceedings following lunch.
“Darwin sits at a fulcrum between the Pacific and In- dian Oceans, the Arafura Sea and Timor Sea with all the resources, and our partners over in Timor Leste and Indo- nesia,” Gosling told delegates. “We’re a garrison city and
“Rumours abound of the move of the regiment to Towns- ville, or when the Apaches arrive,” Gosling added. “It won’t be happening: the 1st Aviation Regiment is here.”
Despite what he described as the robust nature of de- fence industry in Australia, Gosling said there is a “mas- sive” role for government. “Government procurement is a sovereign security imperative,” he said. “We really need to think about what value is, because value is not about who comes in cheapest, but the value of what that company which is bidding for a piece of work will do for the local economy and the local community - and their genuineness of working with local companies.”
SUPPORTING AUSTRALIA’S STRATEGIC INTERESTS IN THE NORTH
The afternoon session also saw an interesting presentation from Lieutenant Colonel Steve Medlin, Commanding Of- ficer of North West Mobile Force (NORFORCE) about the role of Army’s Regional Force Surveillance Group (RFSG) in supporting Australia’s strategic interests in the North.
“The group is of the north, it operates exclusively in the north and is essentially the whole of government’s eyes and ears in the north,” LTCOL Medlin explained. “The RFSG is a long-range reconnaissance and surveillance formation. It lives by its motto “Always On”, by virtue of the fact that we live and operate in the regions that we protect; and we recruit and we are manned by country men and women from those regions where we live.”
LTCOL Medlin added the RFSG’s mission is to generate a remote area land and littoral surveillance and reconnais- sance capability in Australia’s north and north-west in sup- port of whole of government efforts to maintain national sovereignty and border security.
“We’re reliant on local knowledge to perform our surveil- lance and reconnaissance,” he said. “In addition, over the last two years the RFSG has contributed to keeping remote communities and the homes of the soldiers safe, through our contribution to COVID management, biosecurity sites and the like out on country.” ■
“I’D LIKE TO SEE DARWIN AS MORE THAN JUST A TRAINING AREA, BUT RATHER A LOCATION FROM WHICH YOU CAN INFLUENCE UP INTO ASIA”
sitting on the edge of Australia as we do, it’s an Asian city, it’s an outback city and it has always had Defence at its heart.”
He said the relationship be- tween the people of Darwin and Defence was not only a product of geography – being closer to many Asian cities than to the southern capital cities – but its experiences in the Second
World War and the intervention in Timor Leste.
“The government is aware of not only the challenges it faces, but also the need for infrastructure to support Joint combined operations in war,” Gosling added. “It’s a com-
petitive region and we need to be doing a lot more.
“Here in Darwin, we take seriously our role to defend our nation and to defend freedom, in our Indo-Pacific region
and beyond that as well.”
Gosling said that a sizeable portion of defence industry
in the Top End is engaged in the sustainment of ADF plat- forms based in the NT, including the support of Army’s Ti- ger Armed Reconnaissance Helicopters (ARH) with the 1st Aviation Regiment at Robertson Barracks in Darwin.
LEFT: Over 350 delegates attended the 9th annual ADM Northern Australia Defence Summit at the Darwin Convention Centre on 5 April
ROYA GHODSI