David Johnston (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

Given the number of countries and the engagement those countries have had with us in the search for this aircraft, it underlines the importance of building deep and lasting links with our regional partners. We have invested heavily in this recovery program and will continue to do so in supporting the development of military capabilities across South-East Asia and the Pacific nations through our Defence Cooperation Program. We are an active supporter of the region's evolving security architecture. We believe that its continuing development strengthens the region's capacity to effectively deal with unforeseen crises, such as this.

The operations to locate this aircraft have also shown the benefit of greater inter-operability between our nations. Who would have believed that the United States, Japan and China would all be inter-operating some 2000 kilometres off the coast of Western Australia seeking to find this mysteriously missing aircraft? I want to finish by saying that this has been an entree to what can be achieved in search and rescue and humanitarian and disaster relief with cooperation between countries. (Time expired)