Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee, , 53:16 to 56:14
The department outlines plans to decommission mine hunter coastal vessels early to accelerate the adoption of autonomous robotic demining systems.
Topics: National security, Government spending
Speakers: Robert Chipman, Mark Hammond, James Paterson, Unknown Speaker, Raff Ciccone
decision taken to or or re we are currently assessing uh whether we can bring forward the decommissioning of our mine hunter coastals and accelerate the the introduction of robotic systems to conduct that mission and and we do believe that there would be savings achieved if we were able to do that.
>> Right. What's the saving? uh we
estimated at the time of the uh IIP that that would be up to $100 million but that that we made the point at the time that that is subject to negotiations with industry around those arrangements.
>> Right. So when would the retirement be brought forward too?
>> We haven't yet uh come to that conclusion. Senator,
>> we can't get an estimate of the savings if you don't have a date. There must be a date.
>> We we we would seek to bring them forward as soon as possible and that could be even in this financial year.
>> Right. So our current mine hunters that are in service could end service before the end of this financial year.
>> Exploring that as a possibility, but we don't yet know that that is feasible.
>> Right. When would the replacement be available?
>> We are already operating systems within our Navy that are autonomous remote systems and capable of doing a demining mission and they are very similar to systems that are deployed by our like-minded allies and partners currently in operational theaters including the Straits of Hormuz.
>> Well, I was going to ask about that. I know the chair is looking to rotate the course. I'll just end on this point that you know hasn't the straight of Hmers demonstrated that demining capability is more important than than we might have previously thought.
>> Senator, it's a really important point and and it's the same point that we have made with the CS27J. We are not devesting of a capability. We are devesting of a platform that achieves that capability and looking for a more cost-effective alternative.
>> Okay, we might come back to that.
Thanks, Chair. your indulgence ham chief defense will I'd just like to make a broader point that just in the last two years there has been so much change in our operating environment that we do need to continually assess the prioritization with the in integrated investment program uh to release funds for enhanced cyber defense capability UAS counter UAS capabilities etc. So that's the process of racking and stacking relative priorities in the context of the day as opposed to the context of a few years ago. And on the um on the mine detection and clearance capability, Sydney Harbor uh was uh was cleared ahead of the anchorages requirements for our 125th anniversary fleet review earlier this year using entirely autonomous systems. Uh similarly we have exercised the capability in Western Australia part of exercise Judong to uh to clear um the anchorages off Fremantle and the approaches down through success Palia channels to fleet base west. So we already do have a a capability that the question at play is is if the um the value for money assessment of continuing to operate crude systems where we can achieve effects with high-end autonomous systems and that's what we're working
>> All right. Thanks a lot. Now, Senator Shoebridge.