SYDNEY: Australia will spend Aus$1.3 billion on next-generation armored land vehicles for its army, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said Monday as he announced the latest update to modernize the nation’s military.
Australian forces are part of the coalition fighting Islamic State group militants in Iraq and Syria, but Turnbull denied that the procurement of 1,100 blast-resistant Hawkei’s from Thales Australia suggested a greater global engagement.
“I am not signalling that,” Turnbull told reporters at a joint press conference with Defence Minister Marise Payne at a test facility for the Hawkei vehicles north of Melbourne.
“However, the reality is that IEDs (improvised explosive devices) for example are a feature of the modern battlefield and regardless of the context in which the Australian Defence Force is operating that type of threat is almost certainly going to be there. These vehicles are able to operate in every terrain.”
Australia last year beefed up its air power with the $12.4 billion purchase of 58 more F-35 Joint Strike Fighters to bring its total JSF force to 72 and this year said it would buy two long-distance C-17 Globemaster planes in an Aus$1 billion procurement to boost military and disaster relief operations worldwide.
Canberra has not yet decided on its biggest ever defence procurement program — an estimated Aus$50 billion project to replace current diesel and electric-powered Collins Class submarines.
Turnbull said the government would purchase the 1,100 locally-built Hawkei protected vehicles, as well as more than 1,000 trailers, manufactured at Thales Australia’s production line in Bendigo in the southern state of Victoria.
“It is an example of how the Australian Defence Force is investing in technology to meet the threats of the modern battleground,” he said.
Turnbull said the program will provide 170 jobs directly and a further 60 in the supply chain as the vehicles, which are designed to be more mobile and have greater blast resistance, are manufactured in the regional area.
The Hawkei is also the only protected mobility vehicle in the Australian Defence Force that can be transported by Australian military helicopters.
Turnbull said the vehicles will pioneer a next-generation communications management system to be developed in Australia by French giant Thales.
He said it was hoped the Hawkei would build on the success of the heavier, Thales Australia Bushmaster armored infantry transport vehicles which have been used in Afghanistan and exported to several countries.
