Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will quickly associate myself with the previous member and his words around those difficult times in Afghanistan—unnecessarily difficult times, I might add, because of the way that whole evacuation was handled. However, I did speak earlier, in the Federation Chamber, echoing our country's admiration for the members of the 1st Battalion and attachments for the work they did during that difficult time. I want to talk about the last four months in the Northern Territory, where we've proudly hosted the air forces of 17 allied and partner nations based out of RAAF bases in Darwin and Tindal as well as in Amberley, Queensland.

In May and June of this year we hosted Exercise Diamond Storm, which included three integration exercises: Diamond Seas, Diamond Shield and Diamond Storm. The aim was to develop expert air warfare instructors. As the exercise director Group Captain Matt Harper said, 'We could not do this without the understanding and support of the Northern Territory community.' Also, 2,500 personnel took part in the biennial Exercise Pitch Black 2022, which saw 100 aircraft, jet fighters, practising tactics in realistic air combat scenarios over the Northern Territory's vast ranges. This brought to 14,500 the total number of Australian, allied and partner troops deployed to the north in recent months.

This year's exercises saw a number of firsts. Five Japanese Mitsubishi F-2 fighter jets and eight KF-16 Fighting Falcons from South Korea's air force made their debut, demonstrating our strengthening defence ties with those countries. US and Australian F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighters made their first appearance in Pitch Black. Germany's 6 Eurofighter Typhoons and other planes also saw their first appearances in these multinational exercises. The Luftwaffe was also there, deploying planes to the Indo-Pacific in 24 hours, which was truly remarkable, and included a lot of air-to-air refuelling. These German pilots flew alongside our strong defence partners of the UK, France, India, Indonesia and Singapore. I know the member for Ford, who was on the ADF parliamentary program, was very impressed with these countries and what he saw.

I'd really like to thank the people of Darwin and Palmerston and the rural area—Territorians generally—for their forbearance during this year's exercises. I've spoken to the Minister for Defence about this. These were three very large-scale exercises with more aircraft noise than usual, so I really thank our community for their understanding. Those F-35s are pretty loud when they take off. I also want to thank the Department of Defence for the measures they put in place to reduce the noise and disruption to local people's lives, such as reducing the number of daily flights, reducing the afterburners and increasing flight altitude to 2,000 feet. Thanks for those efforts on Pitch Black, which really showcases our strong relationships and the high value we place on regional security and fostering closer ties throughout the Indo-Pacific region.

It's an opportunity to test the ADF's force integration on one of the largest training air space areas available in the world. There's been a lot happening in the air space. But we also had Exercise Kakadu 2022, which concluded last Friday, after it was cancelled in 2020 due to COVID. It is the Royal Australian Navy's largest international engagement in Australian waters. There were 3,000 personnel, 19 vessels and 34 aircraft from 25 participating navies. It was huge!

This year's was the biggest Exercise Kakadu in history. If that's not enough, we've also got Talisman Sabre. You get the picture, Mr Speaker: there's a lot going on in the north. We've got excellent training areas, we love working with our partner security countries, and the more we work together the better we'll fight together should that be needed.