Judith Adams (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Tonight I rise to speak on Exercise RIMPAC 2006. Last month I was given the opportunity of a lifetime as a participant in the Australian Defence Force Parliamentary Program Exercise RIMPAC 2006. It was an amazing experience and I consider it to have been a great honour and privilege to have participated in a major maritime exercise involving seven Pacific rim nations being held in waters off Hawaii.

RIMPAC 2006 brought together maritime forces from Australia, Canada, Chile, Japan, Peru, the Republic of Korea, the United States and the United Kingdom to practice a wide array of combined operations at sea from 26 June to 28 July 2006. Australia’s contribution to RIMPAC 2006 included the Royal Australian Navy ships HMAS Stuart and HMAS Manoora, the Collins class submarine HMAS Rankin and two AP-3C maritime patrol aircraft.

HMAS Manoora had a key role in the exercise as the multinational force sea combat commander, Australian Commodore Rick Shalders CSC, coordinated all sea assets from his joint operations room on board. This is the first time an Australian has held this important role from an Australian ship. The Australian contingent worked with 34 other ships, six submarines, over 160 aircraft and 19,000 personnel during the exercise.

The aim of RIMPAC 2006 was to enhance the interoperability and proficiency of maritime and air forces operating in combined force arrangements. In addition to exercising traditional maritime war fighting skill sets, RIMPAC 2006 will contribute towards the Regional Maritime Security Initiative and the Proliferation Security Initiative.

My fellow parliamentary colleagues taking part in the program were: Peter Lindsay MP, member for Herbert, Queensland; Don Randall MP, member for Canning, WA; Luke Hartsuyker MP, member for Cowper, New South Wales; Michael Danby MP, member for Melbourne Ports, Victoria; and Kim Wilkie MP, member for Swan, WA. We were accompanied by Lieutenant Jillian Brownlie RANR, manager of programs and events from Navy Headquarters in Canberra—Lieutenant Brownlie did an excellent job, and her organisational skills were absolutely wonderful trying to control six members of parliament.

On arrival in Hawaii, we were met by the Australian Consul General John Quinn and Wing Commander Steve Kennedy, consul defence liaison officer. These two gentlemen and their respective spouses, Alison and Susan, made us all very welcome during our stay in Honolulu and their hospitality was very much appreciated.

Our first official day included a visit to the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific—Punchbowl—where 40,000 American servicemen are buried. For anyone visiting Honolulu, this cemetery is most impressive and well worth visiting. One of its main features is a wall of murals depicting each theatre of war in the Pacific.

The Australian consulate organised briefing sessions for us from the US Pacific Command, PACOM, and the Asia-Pacific Centre for Securities Studies as well as briefing us on the role of the Australian consulate in Hawaii. These briefings were given on the day North Korea launched its missiles, so we were kept well up to date with all current activities.

On day 2, we joined HMAS Stuart and HMAS Manoora at Pearl Harbour to begin our four-day attachment to the Royal Australian Navy. We sailed at 7.30 am, and the trip out of Pearl Harbour was quite incredible with so much activity—navy ships, tugs, submarines, aircraft and helicopters all obviously preparing for the next three weeks of exercises. As we sailed out to our allocated exercise area south of Hawaii, we were all given personal safety briefings on fire extinguishers, fire protection, toxic hazards and life jackets. We were shown how to get into thermal protection suits and cope in an emergency evacuation of the ship with liferafts and we also inspected our leaving ship station.

Commodore Rick Shalders gave us a confidential briefing on the Australian ships’ role in Exercise RIMPAC. This included a very detailed program of the expectations of the four-week exercise. We would like to thank Commander Charles McHardie and his crew very much for the hospitality they showed to us. Our role on HMAS Manoora included working shifts with defence personnel at working level to gain an insight into the conditions of service and a greater understanding of their current responsibilities.

We were rostered on seven-hour shifts and then a five-hour roster, so it meant that there was very little sleep had by any of us. We rotated through the aviation deck and communications, worked in the galley and observed on the bridge. I was fortunate enough to be able to steer the ship for a considerable amount of time and spent time with the engineers down in the engine room.

As there were six of us, two of us went each day to the Stuart. I had had a sea ride on the Stuart before, so I enjoyed being back with people I had not seen for a long time. This ship is affectionately known as the ‘Tartan Terror’. When Admiral Bill Goodwin from the Abraham Lincoln went to inspect both our ships and the Canadian ship Regina, which was also involved in the exercise, he commented on the exceptional readiness of our ships for the upcoming exercise.

We had a Squirrel helicopter transfer over to the Stuart. Later that evening, because it was too rough for the Squirrel to come back and get us, we did a transfer in a rigid hull inflatable boat. Unfortunately, someone fell from the ladder going onto the Manoora and damaged her knee. I was rather fortunate and was hoisted up in the inflatable onto the ship, so I did not have to climb up the 50-foot ladder, which I was quite relieved about at that stage. I want to thank Commander Peter Leavy and his crew for their hospitality.

On our final day, we were taken by helicopter to the Abraham Lincoln. As most people would know, this is a very large US nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. It has capacity for 5½ thousand people on board. It was an absolutely fantastic visit. The bridge is 22 storeys high. We arrived on the flight deck, which is 14 storeys high. The ship cruises at 30 knots. It was absolutely fascinating to see it. It has 4½ acres of deck space and has 75 jets on board. Over the day, we were able to watch aircraft go and were involved in a number of activities on the ship. Because of my interest in medical areas on all ships, I was able to speak to the doctors and the medical staff. I was also very interested to see where the junior sailors slept and to look at their mess to compare it with what is available on our ships. I think this is a very important issue to look at as far as future recruitment is concerned. All in all, the grand finale was probably leaving the Abraham Lincoln on a COD flight—we were in a fixed-wing aircraft, which did 186 miles an hour in 100 yards after shooting off a catapult. That was quite an exceptional trip. We then had a 1½-hour flight back to Hawaii.

I would like to say how impressed I was with our junior sailors. They really worked hard. The ones on the Manoora had had a day’s leave in all this. They had come back from New Caledonia to prepare for RIMPAC and were sent back off to Timor. They had a day to prepare for their trip to RIMPAC. They were very good and did not complain about it. It was great working with them, especially because a lot of them were much younger than me. I would like to close with some comments from Peter Leavy, the commander of the Stuart:

All up it was a very good exercise and a good experience for most of my crew who had not worked with the Americans before. Due to their size and the capability of their ships, aircraft and submarines, working with them is another dimension on top of what we normally do, so the experience is fantastic.

For us to be involved in such an exercise was a wonderful experience, and I thank the Australian Defence Force Parliamentary Program and Senator Sandy Macdonald, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Defence, for allowing me to go. It was really good.