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

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Defence on 20 August 2012:

Given that video communications are integrated into robots, soldiers and unmanned aerial vehicles, network centric warfare is becoming the organising principle of war fighting, and frontline demands for bandwidth are rising at a rapid rate: for the period 1 January to 30 June 2012, what did the Australian Defence Force do and how much did it spend on: (a) establishing a network centric warfare capability; and (b) addressing the issue of increased bandwidth?

Bob Carr (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Minister for Defence has provided the following answer to the Honourable Senator's question:

(a) Network Centric Warfare Capability Policy and Plans

A similar question has previously been asked under Parliamentary Senate Question on Notice No. 1602 for the period 30 June to 31 December 2011 and a response was tabled on 8 May 2012. The response to this most recent question provides updated information for the requested period of 1 January to 31 July 2012.

Defence was engaged in the following network centric warfare activities from 1 January to 31 July 2012.

(b) Network Centric Capability and Increased Bandwidth

On the matter of increasing bandwidth, Defence was engaged in the following activities from 1 January to 31 July 2012.

($20 million). Major ICSI milestones have been the acquisition of major materiel and preparation for the demonstration of the deployable components.