Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Special Minister of State, I move:

That, in accordance with the provisions of the Public Works Committee Act 1969 it is expedient to carry out the following proposed work which was referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works and on which the committee has duly reported to parliament, namely: Landing Helicopter Dock Ship sustainment facilities at Garden Island and Randwick Barracks in Sydney, NSW.

The new Amphibious Deployment and Sustainment, ADAS program, provides a number of projects to enhance the Australian Defence Force amphibious capability, including the acquisition of two new Canberra Class Landing Helicopter Dock, LHD, amphibious assault ships for the Royal Australian Navy. The ADAS program aims to provide the Australian Defence Force with a multidimensional manoeuvre capability to support the Australian Defence Force's Future Joint Operating Concept. The two new Canberra Class LHDs will replace the heavy landing ship, HMAS Tobruk and the two amphibious landing ships, HMAS Manoora and HMAS Kanimbla.

Each new LHD will be capable of embarking, transporting and deploying a force of over 1,000 personnel by air and sea, along with all their weapons, ammunition, vehicles and stores. The LHDs will also be capable of conducting and supporting humanitarian missions and will be jointly crewed with personnel from Navy, Army and Air Force.

The LHD hulls are being built in Spain. The hulls are then transported to Australia as individual lifts on a float-on, float-off heavy-lift ship. Construction of the LHD superstructures and their consolidation with the hulls are then conducted by BAE Systems in their Williamstown shipyard in Victoria. The first LHD hull arrived at the Williamstown shipyard in October 2012. The first completed LHD, HMAS Canberra, is due for delivery in early 2014.

This project will provide permanent maintenance systems support and berthing infrastructure at Garden Island, plus training facilities at Randwick Barracks, Sydney, New South Wales. Garden Island, in Sydney, will be the operational base for the new LHDs and the project proposes to collocate and share new facilities with the new air warfare destroyers that are also operated from Sydney.

At Garden Island, there will be berthing infrastructure upgrades to the wharves and a new shared three-storey office building to accommodate personnel involved in maintaining and keeping the ships operational. At Randwick Barracks, there will be a new LHD training centre for crews, which will also be collocated and share facilities with an Air Warfare Destroyer training centre, as I said earlier.

The estimated cost of the proposal is $60.3 million plus GST, involving delivery management design and other types of costs, including an allowance for escalation. Capital investment in the project will have an economic benefit for the whole Sydney region, and local industry can also get access to subcontracting work in the construction industry over the next three years.

In its report, the public works committee recommended these works proceed and, subject to parliamentary approval, construction is expected to commence later this year and to be completed by late 2015.

On behalf of the government, I would like to thank the committee for its support and I commend the motion to the House.

Question agreed to.