Australia — Minister for Defence on Amphibious ships fleet; Joint Strike Fighter

Min­is­ter for Defence: Inter­view with Vir­ginia Tri­oli and Michael Row­land, ABC TV

TOPICS: Libya; Aval­on Inter­na­tion­al Air Show; Amphibi­ous ships fleet; Joint Strike Fight­er
MICHAEL ROWLAND: Now the Pen­ta­gon says it’s mov­ing naval and air forces into posi­tion near Libya, as West­ern coun­tries weigh pos­si­ble mil­i­tary inter­ven­tion.
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: To dis­cuss Australia’s response to the con­flict, Defence Min­is­ter Stephen Smith joins us now in the stu­dio. Mr Smith good morn­ing, good to see you again.
MICHAEL ROWLAND: Good morning.

STEPHEN SMITH: Pleasure.

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: First of all the no fly zone idea is being sug­gest­ed by the For­eign Min­is­ter Kevin Rudd and not tak­en up by oth­ers at the moment. What’s your view on the pos­si­bil­i­ty of some kind of mil­i­tary inter­ven­tion, or at least involve­ment by Australia?

STEPHEN SMITH: We need to take it step by step. The Unit­ed King­dom and sub­se­quent­ly the Unit­ed States have indi­cat­ed that’s a pos­si­bil­i­ty for them. We’ll obvi­ous­ly see what response or reac­tion there is in terms of mil­i­tary inter­ven­tion, if any. In the first instance we want to make sure that what occurs, occurs under the author­i­ty of inter­na­tion­al law, in par­tic­u­lar the Unit­ed Nations and we’re very pleased to see the Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil essen­tial­ly resolve that the Inter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court has a role to play in this mat­ter. That opens up the notion of what we describe as the Respon­si­bil­i­ty to Pro­tect, on which Gareth Evans has been very active inter­na­tion­al­ly over the last few years, which essen­tial­ly says that the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty has a respon­si­bil­i­ty to make sure that indi­vid­ual cit­i­zens of a nation aren’t oppressed by the state itself.

So we’re pleased with the actions of the Unit­ed Nations. The For­eign Min­is­ter is in Gene­va today, at the meet­ing of the Inter­na­tion­al Human Rights Coun­cil. But, as I say, step by step, issues or ques­tions of no fly zones, issues or ques­tions of mil­i­tary inter­ven­tion, we need to take them care­ful­ly and step by step. 

As you’d expect, giv­en Australia’s inter­est in the Mid­dle East, whilst we have a very keen eco­nom­ic and polit­i­cal and social inter­ests there, we’re not in that respect a lead nation, so par­tic­u­lar­ly in terms of Libya, the Unit­ed King­dom has a long­stand­ing his­tor­i­cal role and that’s why you’re see­ing them, in a sense, first out of the blocks on that issue.

MICHAEL ROWLAND: Many inter­na­tion­al law experts say it’s an open and shut case, this issue of Respon­si­bil­i­ty to Pro­tect and, there­fore, that war­rants direct mil­i­tary intervention.

STEPHEN SMITH: We’ve been very pleased with the way in which, slow­ly but sure­ly, over the last decade or so, notions of the need for inter­na­tion­al insti­tu­tions like the Unit­ed Nations and for nations them­selves to have upper most in their minds the rights of indi­vid­ual cit­i­zens and to not…

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: … it took Rwan­da and Koso­vo for every­one to get there of course.

STEPHEN SMITH: No, no, I — that’s why I’m say­ing it has been a big effort and we’re not there yet in terms of hav­ing entrenched it or estab­lished it as a prin­ci­ple of inter­na­tion­al law. But cer­tain­ly the actions of the Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil refer­ring Libya to the Inter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court; the Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil itself, talk­ing in terms of Respon­si­bil­i­ty to Pro­tect, is very good progress on that front. 

But, in the first instance, of course, we want Libya to, through Colonel Qaddafi, to respect the rights of the cit­i­zens of Libya. We effec­tive­ly want Colonel Qaddafi to go and this mat­ter can be resolved if he was sim­ply to walk away.

MICHAEL ROWLAND: I don’t know whether you’ve seen the lat­est inter­view he’s giv­en to the BBC and Amer­i­can ABC this morn­ing, but the man is unhinged. He looks — you look at that and he’s clear­ly delu­sion­al. Should­n’t that flow into West­ern deci­sion-mak­ing as to what to do?

STEPHEN SMITH: I think there’s been a long­stand­ing and wide­ly held view that Colonel Qaddafi is not nec­es­sar­i­ly the most ratio­nal inter­na­tion­al leader that we’ve seen, if I can use that under­stat­ed expres­sion. So whilst the sim­ple solu­tion is for Colonel Qaddafi to walk away, no-one’s expect­ing that will occur, which is why you see the Unit­ed King­dom speak­ing in the way in which it has; the Unit­ed States as well. But also Aus­tralia and oth­er mem­bers of the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty stand­ing shoul­der to shoul­der with the Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil, with the Inter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court and with Libya’s neigh­bours and the region on this matter.

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Just one more on Libya before we move on, and if — tak­ing it away just from Aus­tralia deci­sion-mak­ing and pol­i­cy, hear­ing that those peo­ple in Beng­hazi and else­where are so light­ly armed when it comes to a poten­tial direct strike on them from their leader, Muam­mar Qaddafi, and they need more arma­ments, tac­ti­cal­ly, log­i­cal­ly, how dif­fi­cult is it to get that to them?

STEPHEN SMITH: Well tac­ti­cal­ly dif­fi­cult, which is why, in the face of that, you see indi­vid­ual nation states and the Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil look­ing at issues of mil­i­tary inter­ven­tion, of no fly zones, of ref­er­ence of Libya to the Crim­i­nal Court. So no-one should under­es­ti­mate the dif­fi­cul­ty of this sit­u­a­tion and that’s, of course, one rea­son why we’ve been very assid­u­ous over the last peri­od, days and weeks, of doing every­thing we can to make sure that Aus­tralians who were in Libya depart. We’ve got a small num­ber who are still there — just over 20. But we are in reg­u­lar con­tact with them, help­ing some to leave and stay­ing in reg­u­lar con­tact with those who have cho­sen to stay, although our for­mal advice, of course, is not to trav­el to Libya and if you’re there, to depart.

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Clos­er to home, you’re attend­ing the Aval­on Air Show which we were dis­cussing this morn­ing. Of course, we had US Gen­er­al North on the pro­gram talk­ing about that too. He gave a speech to mark the nineti­eth anniver­sary of the RAAF. That part of the Defence Force must be feel­ing a lit­tle hap­pi­er at the moment than, say, the Navy does right now and per­haps the Air Force is enjoy­ing a lit­tle bit more of your friend­li­ness and sup­port than you are feel­ing, clear­ly, towards the Navy right now. STEPHEN SMITH: Well I’m ever friend­ly to all com­ers as you know. [Laughs]

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Rub­bish. They must see you com­ing at the Navy right now, and quake in their boots.

STEPHEN SMITH: Well I’m not sure about that. 

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: You’re furi­ous at them.

STEPHEN SMITH: The Navy has had its chal­lenges and I’ve expressed my views pub­licly and pri­vate­ly. I’ve seen ref­er­ences to my tone and demeanour. I’ve expressed my dis­ap­point­ment, but the key thing is to find a solu­tion. And there are a range of things that we’re doing on the heavy amphibi­ous lift, or the Navy front. One is to make sure that we now fill the capa­bil­i­ty gap which has emerged. Yes, we’re get­ting some what are called Land­ing Heli­copter Docks from Spain for the mid­dle of this decade, but it’s clear that what was pre­vi­ous­ly relied upon, the Manoo­ra, the Kan­im­bla, the Tobruk won’t meet the heavy amphibi­ous lift requirement. 

So I’ve had dis­cus­sions with my coun­ter­part from the Unit­ed King­dom about buy­ing or leas­ing a heavy amphibi­ous lift ship from them. We’ve got an arrange­ment with New Zealand for greater coop­er­a­tion on that front in the region. But we’re look­ing at all options to make sure that we cov­er that capa­bil­i­ty gap. 

And as you’d know I estab­lished an inde­pen­dent task­force head­ed by Paul Riz­zo. He’s doing some pre­lim­i­nary work now but he for­mal­ly starts up with his team next week. But I want to do two things — to solve the cur­rent prob­lem, but also to make sure we put in place steps to ensure that this nev­er hap­pens again.

On the Air Force front, it’s the nineti­eth anniver­sary. Aval­on is a very impor­tant time for Australia’s Air Force and the aero­space and avi­a­tion indus­try. And last night I did a cou­ple of things, I com­pli­ment­ed Air Force on the ter­rif­ic job they’ve been doing on heavy air lift, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the dis­as­ter relief and human­i­tar­i­an assis­tance, whether it’s Bris­bane floods, or cyclones in North Queens­land, or the after­math of Can­ter­bury. And I also announced that we were look­ing at pur­chas­ing a fur­ther C‑17 which is a very large heavy lift air­craft, because, giv­en the work we’ve been doing over the last cou­ple of months, we think that a slight change of our con­fig­u­ra­tion there will advan­tage us for the future.

MICHAEL ROWLAND: You’ve already pur­chased, of course, I think it’s 10 Joint Strike Fight­ers from Amer­i­ca. Is the Air Force going to see those, giv­en they have been so over time and over budget?

STEPHEN SMITH: The advan­tage we have in terms of the Joint Strike Fight­er which, togeth­er with the Hor­nets and the Super Hor­nets when we have the Joint Strike Fight­ers, will effec­tive­ly be the replace­ment of the F1-11. The advan­tage we have is that we’ve always opt­ed for what’s described as the con­ven­tion­al ver­sion, the 35‑A. So this is not the plane which is sub­ject to the most extreme of tech­no­log­i­cal chal­lenges and dif­fi­cul­ties which my col­league in the Unit­ed States, Defense Sec­re­tary Gates, drew atten­tion to recent­ly. And we also took the pre­cau­tion of putting into our own cal­cu­la­tions plen­ty of padding in terms of time. 

So we’re still con­fi­dent that we’re on track for that. It’s a chal­leng­ing project, and we’re very well served, in the mean­time, by the Hor­nets and the Super Hor­nets. But some of our neigh­bours and part­ners will have grave dif­fi­cul­ty because they’ve gone for a more com­pli­cat­ed vari­ance of the Strike Fight­er. But in what is a dif­fi­cult project, we believe we’re effec­tive­ly on track.

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Stephen Smith, good to see you.

STEPHEN SMITH: Thanks. Thanks very much. 

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

Face­book and/or on Twit­ter

Team GlobDef

Seit 2001 ist GlobalDefence.net im Internet unterwegs, um mit eigenen Analysen, interessanten Kooperationen und umfassenden Informationen für einen spannenden Überblick der Weltlage zu sorgen. GlobalDefence.net war dabei die erste deutschsprachige Internetseite, die mit dem Schwerpunkt Sicherheitspolitik außerhalb von Hochschulen oder Instituten aufgetreten ist.

Alle Beiträge ansehen von Team GlobDef →