My thinking is we are looking at a Ship that can sit off the more remote Islands and provide Medical, Engineering, construction and IT support to the local communities and that would call for some Well Dock facilities and a Helo capability. And of course do HADR as req.
All of that could potentially be in the cards, but absent a release from gov't on the actual intent and more information about funding...
A well dock IMO would be a very nice feature to have, but I would not count on it being a feature of the Pacific support ship. AFAIK no commercially built ships have well docks, which means that the Pacific support ship would have to be ordered by Australia, as opposed to AUSGov purchasing a new or second hand vessel from the commercial market like was done with ABFC Ocean Shield or HMAS Sirius.
If anyone could find and post/link to more information regarding the intent of the Pacific support ship, that would be quite helpful.
From my POV, likely areas of intent to use are;
Medical operations/relief efforts: This would likely consist of a fixed sickbay facility, with secondary and possibly tertiary areas of the vessel which can be converted to medical use. This part actually is not that complicated to do, providing the vessel has adequate space in compartments/holds where ventilation and power are available along with access. The extra needed medical kit like hospital beds, etc. would also need to be stored aboard, but much of that can be folded or compacted to require less space until setup.
Comms/command post: During a HADR response, the ability to communicate and coordinate responders is crucial and quite often also rather difficult since 'normal' communications infrastructure is likely absent or non-functional. Any Pacific support ship would likely need a robust and redundant comm system and command centre. SATCOM for communicating with Australia and the wider world, then systems appropriate to communicate with other assets in the immediate vicinity at sea, on land, and in the air.
I am far less certain that Australia would want the ability to transport and then land heavy engineering/construction equipment, especially over a beach as opposed to at a port facility. The reason for my uncertain involves the actual logistics required for a disaster response, and what would be involved. From my POV it would likely be easier for Australia to task a RAE unit to provide an engineering detachment from Darwin, Townsville or Brisbane, which could be rapidly on-loaded to a waiting RAN amphib, than to arrange for a civilian construction team and vehicles to be hired and loaded aboard the Pacific support ship.
The other thing with that, would be the question of how often would the Pacific support ship be deployed away from Australia apart from during a disaster? If the vessel is only used during or in the aftermath of a disaster, then not only could the ship be idle for long periods of time (hopefully, anyway...) but then Australia would also lose the opportunity to provide non-disaster humanitarian assistance near neighbours in the ASEAN/Pacific region.
Again, until more is known about the intent, we are basically speculating and coming up with 'wish list' capabilities. What could be interesting to speculate on is what specific roles gov't would consider most likely or most appropriate for the Pacific support ship.
