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

Tonight I would like to speak about my experience as a participant in the Australian Defence Force Parliamentary Program attached to the Army regional force surveillance unit NORFORCE. NORFORCE, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Michael Rozzoli, specialises in small group, long-range patrols using a variety of insertion and extraction techniques, including water, air, vehicle, foot patrols and, more recently, horses. The regiment has six squadrons and each is responsible for its own area of operations. The four surveillance squadrons within NORFORCE are based in the Kimberley, Darwin, Arnhem Land and Alice Springs.

This year the Australian Defence Force Parliamentary Program provided senators and members of parliament with 15 options to participate in routine operations and activities of the Australian Defence Force. My decision to apply for the NORFORCE option was twofold: I was keen to learn about this unique army unit with its large number of Aboriginal soldiers and I have a great interest in the Northern Territory emergency response Operation Outreach. As a member of the Senate Select Committee on Regional and Remote Indigenous Communities, it was a wonderful opportunity for me to see firsthand how community members and Army personnel interacted during community visits.

My parliamentary colleagues the member for Forrest, Nola Marino, and the member for Werriwa, Chris Hayes, and I were attached to NORFORCE’s Centre Squadron in Alice Springs for five days in May this year. Centre Squadron, under the command of Major James Cook, draws its soldiers from numerous settlements throughout the area of responsibility and 70 per cent of them are Aboriginal. The squadron has approximately 104 reservists and six full-time staff.

NORFORCE plays a major role in the protection of Australia’s northern regions and operates across the whole spectrum of military tasks. This is everything from community liaison, education such as numeracy and literacy training and employment to border protection and warlike operations in support of the rest of the Australian Defence Force. However, the most important operations the unit is involved with are Operation Outreach and Operation Resolute.

Operation Outreach is the Australian Defence Force’s support to the Northern Territory Emergency Response Task Force. There were approximately 80 NORFORCE soldiers involved with supporting Operation Outreach during the busiest period. In small survey teams they have completed community engagement and area surveys and supported child health check teams in 73 communities across the Northern Territory. Operation Outreach began on 27 June 2007. The military involvement will cease in October and post operation administration will cease in December 2008.

Major General Chalmers, the operational manager for the NT emergency response group, said when describing NORFORCE’s support to the health check teams:

When we very quickly had to take teams of doctors and some nurses out to very remote areas, there was probably no other contractor or agency that we could have called upon in the timeframes to get these teams out and supported in communities.

So with NORFORCE, their operational tempo—they have a patrol program associated with their normal defence role—of patrolling increased dramatically whilst they sent out patrols which were essentially logistic support teams or camp support teams for our child health check staff.

So far 70 communities have had more than 9,000 child health checks undertaken. This is a great result, as the estimated total number of health checks is 11,200.

Operation Resolute is the umbrella under which the Australian Defence Force’s domestic maritime security activities are conducted. The Australian Defence Force contributes Royal Australian Navy surface patrols, Royal Australian Air Force maritime aerial surveillance and land based regional force surveillance unit patrols. NORFORCE joins these patrols on both land and water.

I will give some statistics about the undertakings of NORFORCE soldiers. They patrol 11,000 kilometres of coastline and rivers. They cover two time zones. Their territory stretches 2,000 kilometres from west to east and 1,700 kilometres from north to south. They deal with 120 language groups. With approximately 1.8 million square kilometres, their operational area is the largest of any military unit in the world. The area NORFORCE soldiers safeguard is two and a half times larger than New South Wales and covers nearly one-quarter of all Australian territory. In total, there are 680 soldiers, mainly reservists, who deal with this huge area.

While my colleagues and I were in Alice Springs we were very fortunate to be able to go on patrols to Uluru and Kings Canyon and back along 320 kilometres of very corrugated road. When we got back at 10 o’clock that night we were told that we had a clandestine operation at Barrow Creek, which is about 280 kilometres north of Alice Springs. That was a very good exercise. We were given four hours to have a sleep before we left. We camped out for two days. We observed and were involved in all of the security that goes along with these exercises.

At dawn the following day the aircraft came in and finally delivered what had to be delivered. NORFORCE are there to observe and to do everything they can, but they do not actually contact the people they are observing. The car that was collecting the ‘goodies’ went south and an hour and a half later a police siren was heard and the car came back doing about 150 kilometres an hour with the local police chasing it. That was a very good demonstration of just how everything works.

I would like in closing to thank Lieutenant Colonel Michael Rozzoli and Major James Cook for the work they did in preparing such a great exercise for us. It has really been a privilege for me to have Major James Cook here for the last week with the Defence Force exchange program. I think he really did enjoy being here and learning so much about the work that we do in comparison to the work that he does. He is a lawyer and is very interested in the workings of both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Also my congratulations go to Commodore Trevor Jones and to Lynton Dixon, the ADF Parliamentary Program Executive Officer, for putting this all together and providing us with such an experience.