Chris Ellison (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Justice and Customs) Share this | Hansard source

I addressed these questions in Darwin last week with Rear Admiral Goldrick, who is the commander in relation to our border protection command, and he made it very clear then that the situation in relation to the Armidales has not diminished our capacity to protect Australia’s northern borders. We have sufficient assets, by way of Customs assets and other naval assets, to carry out the very important work that we are doing with border protection in the north.

With the circumstances that we have with the border protection command, we have not only the assets of both Customs and Navy available to the border protection command but other assets of the ADF as well. We have not had to go beyond that, according to Rear Admiral Goldrick. We have assets which are available to us which include a Fremantle class patrol boat. I understand that that is the HMAS Gladstone, which is in service. My clear understanding is that it has not been decommissioned and then brought back into action. It is a Fremantle class boat, and I remind the Senate that we still have them available and they do a very good job indeed. We are in the process of gradually replacing them with the Armidales. The Armidales are 14 in total number, and we do not have all of those completed yet. So it is a process of transition. But we have as well a minehunter and we also have a heavy landing craft, I understand, which is in harness as well in relation to border protection. So we have that.

In addition to that, I was present in Darwin last week to see put in action, last Friday, the Triton, which is a 98-metre trimaran, one of the biggest in the world today, built in the United Kingdom for the United Kingdom navy and the US navy as a pilot vessel. It is a state-of-the-art vessel, with speed, flexibility and accommodation, which is now in service. It is armed with two 50 calibre machine guns. It has a capacity to carry up to 30 Customs officers.