Australia — Defence equipment to be put through its paces

The $35 mil­lion expan­sion of the Mon­egee­ta Prov­ing Ground Com­plex was offi­cial­ly opened by the Min­is­ter for Defence Materiel Jason Clare today.

“The lat­est equip­ment to be used by Aus­tralian troops in bat­tle will be put to the test here at these new facil­i­ties,” Mr Clare said.

Min­is­ter for Defence Materiel Jason Clare was joined by Mem­ber for McEwen Rob Mitchell to offi­cial­ly open the precinct today.

“This is all about mak­ing sure our troops have the right equip­ment to do their job,” Mr Clare said.

“The equip­ment our troops rely on in bat­tle can be their lifeline.

“It needs to be bat­tle-ready and safe.

“That’s why we need to test it thor­ough­ly before we put it in their hands.”

The Mon­egeet­ta Prov­ing Ground Complex:

• Tests equip­ment before it is man­u­fac­tured to make sure it does the job it is sup­posed to do in the con­di­tions faced by our troops; 

• Ensures that elec­tri­cal equip­ment like pow­er gen­er­a­tors and bat­ter­ies will work in any weather; 

• Tests vehi­cles to mea­sure han­dling and sta­bil­i­ty on any ter­rain; and 

• Uses ther­mal imagery test­ing to mea­sure how equip­ment per­forms at night and in oth­er low-light conditions. 

Equip­ment is sub­ject­ed here to the same kind of con­di­tions our troops face on oper­a­tions. That includes rugged ter­rain, extreme weath­er and night time operations.

The Com­plex con­sol­i­dates the two exist­ing test facil­i­ties, one at Mary­ibyrnong and the exist­ing facil­i­ties at Mon­egee­ta into one state-of-the-art precinct.

The $35 mil­lion expan­sion of the Mon­egee­ta com­plex includes new hot and cold weath­er test­ing cham­bers, a new enclosed weapons facil­i­ty and a big­ger heavy vibra­tion test­ing facility.

Mr Mitchell said the site was also an invest­ment in the local economy.

“This Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ment invest­ment trans­lates into more than 50 full time jobs here in the Mace­don Ranges,” Mr Mitchell said.

“That makes Defence one of the major employ­ers in the Shire and that’s great news for our community.”

Media con­tact: Kore­na Flana­gan – 02 6277 7620 

Press release
Min­is­te­r­i­al Sup­port and Pub­lic Affairs,
Depart­ment of Defence,
Can­ber­ra, Australia 

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