Brendan Nelson (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Herbert for his question and his very strong commitment to the very large defence contingent in Townsville. Late last month the first 18 of the 59 Abrams M1A1 tanks that Australia has purchased arrived in Australia. They arrived at a cost of $528 million and six months ahead of schedule. In recognising the importance of the Abrams tanks to Australia, I pay tribute to the late Captain Paul Lawton, who died from medical causes in the process of escorting the tanks to Australia from Baltimore. Captain Lawton gave 16 years of his life to the Australian Army as an engineer, and we thank him for that.

The Abrams tanks are a very important part of Australia’s and this government’s endeavours to harden and network the Australian Army. They will significantly increase the mobility, the firepower and the integration of the Australian Army’s protective weaponry with its infantry. These tanks are also essential to the protection of the lives of Australian soldiers. I point out to the House that in the last 24 hours in Iraq there was a significant engagement between the Iraqi army and the US army. There were 30 insurgents killed in that engagement. A rocket-propelled grenade hit an Abrams tank. The tank was extensively damaged but not a single American soldier was killed.

There have been criticisms of the acquisition of the tanks, a number of them quite misinformed. The first is about whether the tanks will be transported easily throughout Australia. They weigh 62 tonnes. Once they are on the heavy tank transporters, they will weigh, in total, 97 tonnes. The government is in the process of acquiring the heavy rolling stock which will transfer them from Adelaide to Darwin by rail. The next 41 tanks will arrive in Darwin in April. In addition to that, they will go along precisely the same roads and across the same bridges in the Northern Territory as do the Leopard tanks which are currently used by the Australian Army.

The Executive Director of the Australia Defence Association, Mr Neil James, in his August-September Defence Brief, said this of the tank acquisition:

The shrill claims about the supposed unsuitability of the 59 new Abrams tanks being bought to replace our 105 Leopard mark Is have relied on several fibs and enough straw men to build arguments around a haystack. Contrary to common but inaccurate claims, the tanks are not too heavy or otherwise tactically unsuitable to deploy in our region. Based on the Army’s wartime operational experiences in operating tanks in New Guinea, Bougainville, Borneo and Vietnam, the tanks are needed to save infantry lives in the complex terrain of our region’s sprawling urban areas and jungles.

The reality is that these tanks will enable the Australian Army to hit harder and it will be harder to hit. The reality is that over the 30 years that we have had our Leopard tanks they have not had to fire a shot in anger. Let us hope that over the next 30 years these Abrams tanks will also not have to fire a shot in anger—but the world we face and the way it is changing and the insecurity we face to our country and our region are such that I fear I may be wrong.

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