Tag Archive for: North of 26° south

Defence needs to signal its intent on infrastructure in northern Australia

It took a while, but the idea that Australia’s strategic environment has become more uncertain seems to have been accepted by policymakers. Also largely accepted is that this period won’t just pass—in time, historians might measure it in decades, not years. Today, the 2020 defence strategic update looks positively optimistic for those working in this space.

With this newfound awareness, and a dash of resolve, the defence organisation is racing to address its capability gaps. Unfortunately, the thinking and investment aren’t stretching towards enabling infrastructure in northern Australia.

Whenever public discourse touches on this issue, Defence rolls out the impressive figures surrounding its investment in infrastructure and estate. To be sure, Defence’s home bases across Australia are impressive and somewhat palatial in contrast with those of even a decade ago. Most of the defence organisation’s training areas are equally impressive. And there’s more to come. The previous government committed to spending almost $8 billion on infrastructure in the Northern Territory planned until the end of the decade. The election campaign also brought new promises from the government to enhance Sydney naval facilities and upgrade four airbases. While Labor hasn’t agreed to match all of these promises, it seems unlikely that it won’t do so.

So, the infrastructure challenge isn’t about a lack of spending but about how and where it’s spent. However, even that is an oversimplification of the challenge.

Estate maintenance and modernisation are expensive activities. Over the last several decades, Defence has experienced several budget crunches that have required reprioritisation of spending. As luck would have it, estate and infrastructure have always experienced cuts before capabilities. Understandably, Defence has learned lessons from these long experiences without the threat of great-power conflict in our region.

The first lesson is to avoid making expenditure commitments outside of defence facilities. The road to Royal Australian Air Force Base Scherger, a bare base near Weipa in Queensland, is an excellent example of this. The road is a key enabler for the bare base’s operation, linking the port and the airfield for logistics. Defence deems its upkeep a ‘local government issue’. The local and state government don’t need it, so it remains unsealed and is often in a poor state of repair.

The second lesson is don’t make long-term infrastructure commitments. The thinking here appears to be that you have budget flexibility if you avoid long-term commitments. You are not locked into subsidising infrastructure by avoiding making any formal pledge to use facilities like the Northern Territory’s planned ship lift. Of course, this increases the financial risks of new project proposals, and therefore many will never get off the ground. It also reduces the ability of the private sector to amortise costs over longer periods.

In contrast, the US Department of Defense often enters into multi-decade infrastructure agreements with the private sector. It makes these agreements to ensure that its contracts are commercially viable, so it can negotiate to encourage better pricing. Finance regulations make it hard for Australia’s Defence Department to use a similar approach.

The third lesson is don’t signal what you are doing to the market. Defence has learned that if you signal your intentions on infrastructure too early, you will be committed to the spending. Once you are committed, stakeholders like local, state and territory governments or the private sector become animated if you change your mind. The problem with this approach is it leaves much to stakeholder perceptions. In northern Australia, industry must be cued to have the right people and capabilities in the right place at the right time.

The fourth lesson is that the private sector will always try to maximise its profit, so it can’t be trusted. Both Defence and the private sector have gone to great lengths to enhance industry collaboration. There is still a prevailing belief within parts of Defence that the private sector is trying to rip them off. This belief prevents partnership and cooperation. For those in Defence it’s an act in trying to prevent it from being shoehorned into becoming an anchor tenant for infrastructure.

But there are alternatives approaches that could be more helpful. For example, if a developer builds a new shopping centre, it doesn’t aggressively approach major chain stores. The major chain stores seeking to expand don’t perceive the developer as a threat. The two realise that they each have the bargaining power to set mutually agreeable prices.

The fifth lesson is to build only what you need. The extension of the airfield at Cocos (Keeling) Island is a good example. The airfield is being lengthened to support P-8A Poseidon operations. If you are doing such work, consideration needs to be given to whether other improvements are required, including target-hardening works. In this instance, this sort of thinking does not appear to have occurred.

These lessons are essential for a defence force used to operating on a project-by-project basis during a prolonged peace. However, in the current environment, these lessons are far less helpful.

Infrastructure in northern Australia needs to now be at a higher state of readiness to support a range of potential contingencies. To meet Defence’s future infrastructure requirements in northern Australia, the portfolio needs a change of mindset and possibly finance regulations.

In the past, Defence didn’t want to be the anchor tenant for northern infrastructure, as it saw this as an unnecessary financial commitment. Today, Defence must wield market power to maximise success—proactively engaging on projects, making long-term commitments and working collaboratively across government to build and maintain its infrastructure at the best possible price. Defence does not and should not be the one footing all the bills to ensure resilient, cost-effective and fit-for-purpose infrastructure is available, but it does need to signal its intentions.

Rocketing into space from northern Australia

As Australia expands its space sector, the nation’s north is crucial. Among other advantages, its geography provides critical orbital mechanics. The Northern Territory’s Nhulunbuy launch site, being established by Equatorial Launch Australia, lies approximately 12.5 degrees south of the equator.

A rocket picks up energy from the earth’s rotation, and the effect is greatest at or near the equator. So, the closer to the equator a rocket is launched, the lower the launch cost. Sites such as Nhulunbuy offer launches into equatorial low-earth orbit at a lower cost per kilogram—which also makes them ideal sites from which to launch larger payloads.

With backing for a sovereign launch industry from the Australian Space Agency, Whaler’s Way in South Australia, run by Southern Launch, and the Bowen Orbital Spaceport in north Queensland are emerging as additional sites. Gilmour Space Technologies has just won a $157 million grant, as part of the government’s modern manufacturing initiative, to build launch vehicles, which will dramatically boost the establishment of the Bowen spaceport.

The Department of Defence considers sovereign launch a key element of its new space strategy, noting that: ‘Assurance of access to space capabilities in a congested, contested and competitive space environment cannot be achieved unless Defence develops a space architecture that is focused on capabilities that are resilient, [and] can be reconstituted if compromised and defended if under attack.’

That ability to reconstitute the system is essential to ensure access to space. The strategy says: ‘To sustain a mix of orbital regimes and satellite classes and respond quickly to reconstitute battle damaged assets, Defence anticipates it will need access to a responsive and assured space launch capability in the future.’

This key requirement cannot be met by continued reliance on external launch providers. The head of Defence Space Command, Air Vice Marshal Catherine Roberts, told the 2022 Air and Space Power Conference: ‘There will be a launch capability in Australia, but it needs to be commercially viable. Defence won’t have enough launches by ourselves, but there are a lot of customers out there.’

The government’s support in its space strategy, and in its space strategic update, for sovereign launch to support Defence requirements is very welcome. Important too was the announcement at the Australian Space Forum that the government no longer plans to introduce partial recovery of the costs of  launches. This signals that Australia’s space policy has matured and the nation can work closely with allies to strengthen space resilience. Northern Australia must play a key role in this national endeavour.

With launch comes a range of services, including payload integration, range safety, launch tracking and telemetry. As the establishment of the Nhulunbuy site proceeds, a ‘space coast’ approach could include local development, design and manufacturing of small satellites and components to allow easier payload integration on site. That could complement the rapid development of commercial space in South Australia, particularly in proximity to Adelaide’s Lot Fourteen site embracing space, defence and general high-tech and creative industries, and with the Space Park established by the South Australian Space Industry Centre.

Excessive competition must not slow development of Australia’s space strategy. The establishment of a vibrant commercial space industry in southern states shouldn’t detract from the importance of northern Australia, especially for launches.

It’s also important not to ignore the potential benefits of northern Australia’s location for ground-based space domain awareness, including as part of Defence’s Joint Project 9360, to complement the space surveillance telescope and C-band radar facility at Exmouth in Western Australia. The Northern Territory’s dark skies, away from large urban areas, are ideal for space surveillance and for experimenting with new space surveillance technologies such as networked sensors, demonstrated by Lockheed Martin’s FireOPAL, and laser-based systems developed by EOS Australia. The NT can support the operational requirements of the nations involved in the Combined Space Operations initiative through Operation Dyurra as part of Operation Olympic Defender.

Collaboration in space under AUKUS and the Quad opens up potential for northern spaceports to support launches and returns for Australian and allied launch vehicles. That will allow Australia to deliver critical space support capability to allies and partners during a crisis and to launch replacements if satellites are attacked by an adversary. Burden-sharing in orbit will strengthen credible space deterrence against Chinese and Russian counterspace capabilities that will only grow over time.

It’s important to consider ‘what ifs’ as new ways of accessing and utilising space become available. As Australia develops a sovereign launch capability, companies should explore reusable rocket technologies that may open up global logistics through point-to-point services between spaceports. Government support for launch and return means Australia can support those logistics in addition to offering regular (potentially daily) launches, establishing megaconstellations of satellites, helping build large structures in orbit and supporting lunar activities including mining.

Space 2.0 has challenged the dominance of Apollo-era state-run space endeavours as the cutting edge of innovation, leading to Space 3.0, which will enable humanity to truly become a spacefaring civilisation.

For northern Australia, this can be opened up to much more than launch sites at Nhulunbuy and Bowen. Bold vision and large ambition can shape Australia’s future in space, and now is the time for those states and territories best able to contribute to move quickly. A cautious, risk-averse approach will likely see opportunities slip away. The ancient saying ‘Fortune favours the bold’ was never more apt or timely.

Defence needs a clear plan for investment in northern Australia

During World War II, hushed voices in Nazi-occupied Europe shared the words, ‘The Americans are coming!’ At the time, it was a message of hope among many Europeans who felt utterly helpless. February marked the 80th anniversary of the first Japanese bombing of Darwin Harbour in that same war, and both the Americans and Japanese are again coming, but under very different circumstances. Today, similar words are freely spoken in northern Australia whenever discussions of the economy arise.

Everyone knows that the American military is already in Darwin. There’s plenty of Chinese (Darwin Port) and Japanese (Inpex) foreign investment as well. However, this time around, ‘the Americans are coming’ is a reference to what the US Department of Defense is spending, or might be willing to spend, on construction and infrastructure in Australia’s north.

Of course, for some, the phrase still opens up a discussion of how many more American armed forces personnel will become part-time denizens of the Northern Territory.

Territorians understand that the US considers northern Australia to be strategically important, and they are rolling out the red carpet for economic and security reasons.

Everyone from Darwin to Canberra is just waiting to see what the Americans, among others, are going build, do and spend in northern Australia.

The US has already been busy investing in Royal Australian Air Force Base Tindal, and more spending has been promised.

But it’s projects like the construction of a $270 million fuel storage facility in Darwin to support US defence operations in the region that are exciting many. This new 300-megalitre facility will be owned and operated by Florida company Crowley Government Services. The project addresses a problem that has long plagued the Australian Defence Force in northern Australia: liquid fuel supply. And it’s not wasting any time, with stakeholders in Washington, Canberra and Darwin working together to deliver the project within two years.

Historically, the US has been reluctant to invest outside its sovereign territory. The fuel storage and RAAF Base Tindal decisions illustrate that the US government is willing to invest in infrastructure in Australia. Or, more specifically, that it will pay to resolve problems that neither market forces nor Australian policies have fixed.

It’s hard not to conclude that the fuel-storage investment was a sign of a lack of US confidence in the Australian government getting strategic liquid-fuel reserves right in northern Australia.

The US isn’t the only one investing in Darwin. Japanese company Inpex has established the Ichthys liquefied natural gas project to guarantee energy security for Japan. And it now looks set to spend $868 million to build one of the world’s most extensive carbon-capture facilities in Australia. It also seems likely that we’ll see the Japan Self-Defense Forces training more often and in more significant numbers in northern Australia.

Collectively, these developments are excellent news for the economy of the Northern Territory. It’s also a great news story for Defence, which will have access to desperately needed infrastructure in times of crisis.

While foreign investment and its second- and third-order effects are welcomed in northern Australia, there’s a question here about why the Australian defence organisation isn’t addressing some of these issues itself. Sure, it might save some money, but policymakers need to consider whether so much decision-making power over the future of northern Australia should be in foreign hands. Even if they’re the hands of allies that share the same values.

One of my significant objections to the Darwin Port lease arrangements has always been that Australians should be the ones making decisions about the future of our northernmost deep-water port.

US investment in defence facilities in northern Australia is critical because infrastructure development will have mutual benefits. It also ensures the kind of closer military ties that are important during periods of strategic uncertainty.

Nevertheless, Australia shouldn’t be passively and patiently sitting back waiting to see when, where and how the Americans will arrive. Nor should Defence or any other arm of government see US investment as a means to reduce its own investments in infrastructure and local industry. If anything, American investments should be viewed as an opportunity for the Australian government to think bigger.

Could the federal government have contributed to the US fuel project and built a fuel line between RAAF Darwin and Tindal or expanded the overall size of the storage? Alternatively, if the Americans solve a fuel problem in Darwin, could the money saved be used to build additional infrastructure? Could it be used to make all-new investments in the northern Australian economy to ensure that Defence has the kind of scalable industry base it needs?

Unfortunately, Defence still hasn’t been able to clearly articulate the role of the north in Australia’s defence and strategic policy. It’s still unclear how the government’s 2020 defence strategic update changed (or didn’t change) Defence’s thinking about the north.

Defence has provided even less clarity on its intentions in its communications with state and territory governments and the private sector. In the meantime, they haven’t waited around for Defence to tell them what they should be doing in the north. Instead, they’re getting on with the job. They’re trying to maximise the benefits of these foreign investments and their own in the hope that Defence will join them.

What should be clear for Canberra is that Australia’s various governments should be deciding what infrastructure is needed and where they would like the Americans, and maybe one day soon the Japanese, to be.

Sea country, climate change and Indigenous knowledge

Extending beyond Australia’s 30,000 kilometres of coastline are millions of hectares of ‘sea country’, which encompasses the flora and fauna, beliefs and cultural practices of the many Indigenous groups that care for these areas. The Australian coastline has receded over the past 35,000 years, with an estimated two million hectares inundated as climate systems changed. This land, though now submerged, still has significant cultural connections for many traditional custodians.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples hold the knowledge of past responses to climate change, but our ability to continue to add to this body of knowledge is limited.

Past generations were able to freely move and adapt to a changing climate. Today, many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities that are being impacted and will continue to be impacted by climate change rely on Western management systems, imposed through colonisation, to address the issues they face. On the island of Masig in the Torres Strait, storm surges, higher king tides and rising sea levels are inundating roads, graveyards, freshwater supplies and homes. With current sea-level rise in the region at 6–8 millimetres per year, some islands are likely to become uninhabitable.

The impacts on communities are likely not to end there. The indirect impacts—as a result of ocean acidification, temperature increases on the sea surface and species redistribution—will influence traditional and economic resources, along with culturally important species and practices.

In northern Australia, it’s predicted that cultural species such as turtles will suffer nesting site loss due to sea-level rise. Even where nests survive, ocean temperature increases will result in a skewed gender ratio among hatchlings, with the potential for all-female populations in some nesting areas. Among human populations, there will be direct impacts on health from increased heat stress and spread of disease, such as mosquito-borne illnesses.

In the south, the Tasmanian Aboriginal shell-stringing community is already noticing changes to the culturally important species of maireener shells. Western-led scientific studies are yet to confirm whether these changes are linked to climate change, but increased ocean acidification is a likely driver. Decreased abundance and increased shell brittleness may also be caused by increasing ocean temperatures and a reduction in kelp beds due to habitat destruction from invasive sea urchins.

One of the biggest unknowns is the effect that increased storm surges, cyclones and rising tides will have on Australia’s coastlines. Climate change and other human activities are reducing the capacity of natural coastal defence systems—such as seagrass meadows, mangroves, saltmarshes, dunes, beaches, shellfish reefs and coral reefs—to protect our shores. Many communities will lose significant cultural sites and species, resources, spiritual connections and food sources. This will have numerous flow-on effects, including impacts to mental health and wellbeing.

The recognition of Indigenous knowledge and traditional ecological knowledge as a science is increasing among natural resource scientists, researchers, managers, practitioners and policy partners, especially since the Black Summer bushfires of 2019–20. While appreciation of the effectiveness of traditional firestick fire-management techniques is expanding across the country, the idea that this knowledge also extends beyond our shores and into our coastal and marine environments is still new for many. In a recent survey, most marine scientists who responded acknowledged the importance of Indigenous engagement, but many were unsure of how to weave it into their research practices.

There are some important considerations for researchers, practitioners and policy partners who want to include an Indigenous perspective in their work. Perhaps foremost among these is reframing the idea that traditional custodians are stakeholders who need to be engaged in addition to and in the same way as other stakeholder groups. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are rights and title holders under international and national frameworks and legislation such as the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the Commonwealth Native Title Act 1993. The engagement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities needs to reflect these rights and involve traditional custodians in the earliest project stages. Included in these rights is the principle of ‘free, prior and informed consent’, which is considered standard practice for Indigenous communities.

There’s a move towards co-designed and Indigenous-led marine and coastal management. This shift is about balancing the power dynamics and knowledge governance between traditional custodians and government departments, organisations and researchers. The inclusion and use of Indigenous knowledge frameworks are one way to empower and weave Indigenous rights and knowledge into marine and coastal management arrangements. Internationally, the ‘Two-eyed seeing’ or Etuaptmumk (in Mi’kmaw) framework as explained by Mi’kmaw Elder Albert Marshall is an example of an Indigenous framework that has been used in research. It is a guide to seeing through one eye with strengths and ways of knowing from the Indigenous lens, seeing through the other eye with the strengths of Western ways of knowing and then using both eyes together to find benefits for all. In Australia, the eight-ways pedagogy framework has been used by some scholars.

Aboriginal culture is the longest continuous culture on earth. This continuity means that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures are living and can change in response to interactions with different societies, environmental factors, new technologies, changing political beliefs and new discoveries. Adequate weaving of Indigenous knowledge in marine and coastal management must involve Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander processes and protocols and move beyond only including Indigenous knowledge as content.

How Defence can embrace the sustainment opportunities northern Australia presents

There are both far-reaching opportunities and new challenges for the Department of Defence, industry and local governments when it comes to maritime sustainment in Australia’s north.

Traditional Defence and industry models used in Australia’s southern states have less utility in the north if they aren’t adapted to the region’s unique economic context. A deeper understanding of industry capability in the north, coupled with greater collaboration and partnering, is needed to overcome those challenges and take advantage of the opportunities that abound in northern Australia.

Our new ASPI report, Northern sovereign maritime sustainment, launched today, explores the future of maritime sustainment in Australia’s north through the lens of regional maintenance centres proposed under Defence’s Plan Galileo. Included in the report is consideration of the strategic environment and implications for the north, an overview of the Royal Australian Navy’s maritime sustainment model and of Plan Galileo, and discussion of the US approach to maritime sustainment.

The report highlights opportunities that could arise from improved collaboration between Defence, local governments, defence industry, and small and medium-sized enterprises. This report has again reinforced the need for the Australian government to articulate how it will leverage northern Australia’s strategic geography as a strength, both now and in a future conflict.

Our report explores the potential to gain strategic advantage by leveraging cross-sectoral investment to create economies of scale and develop a scalable industry base. Such framing can produce greater clarity and align crucial economic, social and national-security decisions. Harmonised positioning is essential when considering maritime sustainment in the north.

We also consider how current market forces can restrict or prevent the achievement of government goals. Commercial competition in an economically ‘small’ north can be fierce, and there’s a need to emphasise whole-of-north outcomes.

Finally, the report considers the role of northern Australia in the Australian Defence Force’s maritime sustainment and its contribution as a centrepiece in joint force cooperation through the Quad and AUKUS. A joint approach will help achieve our national interests beyond the defence realm in a complex geopolitical landscape characterised by an increasing number of players and expanding needs.

The Australian government needs to consider how to harness interests from different fields and identify points where it may have to intervene with policies—and investments—that shape and enhance market forces. That’s a big shift from just thinking through how it might take advantage of market forces and existing capacities and capabilities as circumstances change.

The report emphasises the need for defence industry to establish more collaborative subcontractor arrangements that even out commercial peaks and troughs for small and medium-sized enterprises. This is a critical step in building sustainable maritime capability and capacity given that the economics that apply in southern Australia’s larger cities don’t work in the north. Local businesses are willing to support each other in meeting clients’ needs. And there’s a greater level of collaboration in remote regions with smaller populations, which is a big plus for defence industry.

In developing the report, we consulted representatives from Defence; people representing the interests of state, territory and local governments in northern Australia; port operators; business organisations; and the defence industry. Funding support for the production of the report was provided by the Thales Group.

Our engagement revealed traditional challenges, misunderstandings and some dated assumptions. It also highlighted opportunities that could arise from Defence improving communication, embracing interdependence between stakeholders and establishing partnerships. Often, our research interviews encompassed the discussion of innovative ideas about what could be done in northern Australia. They also revealed that there was a lack of strategic certainty about what role northern Australia ‘should’ play in most cases.

An increased focus on maritime sustainment in the north will drive many benefits for local communities, but flow-on impacts must also be considered, such as the need to upgrade road infrastructure to accommodate additional traffic and heavier vehicles, source additional housing to accommodate workforce growth, and provide social infrastructure to encourage families to move to an area.

Defence can also drive positive market influence by expressing the intent to be an ‘anchor client’ for infrastructure and capability development.

We found that businesses and governments in the north are ready to contribute but they’re preparing without clarity from Defence on what is needed.

It’s also apparent that because capability development (including infrastructure and workforce) has long lead times, a commitment is required in order to foster investment. And niche defence needs can’t be met through standard commercial capability arrangements.

To some extent, Defence recognises that sustainment operations in the north and the north’s economies are different to those in the south. However, more open engagement is needed to fully understand the north and harness the opportunities it presents.

Lost opportunities mounting as uncertainty over Darwin Port lease continues

It seems we’ll be waiting until at least sometime in the first quarter of 2022 for the government to decide on the future of the Port of Darwin lease. In the meantime, the lost opportunities resulting from the lack of a coherent strategy for Australia’s most important northern port are starting to stack up. These opportunities don’t relate to overly simplistic debates about symbolism or passive intelligence collection; rather, they’re tied to fundamental challenges like national resilience and preparedness. Some recent US and Australian government announcements on liquid-fuel storage in Darwin illustrate these costs.

Let’s start at the beginning. Despite its vastness and remote geography, northern Australia has only limited capacity for bulk liquid-fuel storage. There’s little surplus capacity in the storage that does exist and it relies on just-in-time supply chains underpinned by dated assumptions. The storage capacity at Darwin’s Vopak Terminal, for example, was built on a 1996 assessment of fuel requirements.

For the Australian and US militaries, liquid-fuel supply is a challenge, but jet-fuel security is northern Australia’s Achilles’ heel. The ships supplying jet fuel to the region depart from Singapore and then arrive at Darwin’s port. The fuel is then transferred from the port to the Vopak Terminal, where almost all of northern Australia’s jet fuel is stored. The fuel for Royal Australian Air Force Base Tindal is then transported the 300 kilometres from Darwin to Katherine by trucks owned and operated by private companies.

For most of the year, airlines are the biggest consumers of jet fuel in Australia’s north. The Australian Defence Force’s use of 30 million litres annually pales in comparison with the commercial aviation sector’s consumption of 125 million litres.

It’s during major military exercises, when consumption rates rise rapidly, that the jet-fuel supply chain in northern Australia gets stretched, even though exercises are planned years in advance. Even in peacetime, jet fuel from Singapore is subject to availability and weather conditions. Despite this vulnerability, there’s no legislated or mandated requirement for a strategic reserve of jet fuel to be held in northern Australia. And it’s hard to find a commercial driver for the development of such reserve capacity without government intervention.

So, considering the increased strategic uncertainty and greater US military presence in northern Australia, what’s the plan?

In February 2020, the government announced that it was investing an extra $1.1 billion in Tindal, including increased fuel storage. That decision was arguably a costly band-aid solution to a supply-chain problem that can’t, and won’t, be fixed by market forces.

Then, in April last year, Energy Minister Angus Taylor announced that the government would establish a national oil reserve. Australia spent $94 million to buy oil at a historically low price. The investment has exposed one of the problems with Australia’s national liquid-fuel supply chains: a lack of bulk storage capacity.

In May 2020, Taylor announced the government’s three-part fuel-security package. The first part restates the government’s commitment to establish a government-owned oil reserve for domestic fuel security. The second is a commitment to work with the private sector to develop options to increase local storage as quickly as possible. The third involves the government considering a temporary change to fuel standards, though details on what impact that would have are scant.

Then, in September 2020, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced that the government would spend $200 million on competitive grants to build an additional 780 megalitres of onshore diesel storage. In July 2021, as part of this program, the government announced that it would fund 50% of the Northern Territory Airport Development Group’s $60 million project to build an 80-megalitre diesel storage facility.

In September this year, the US government awarded a tender to construct a $270 million fuel storage facility in Darwin to support US defence operations in the region. This new 300-megalitre facility will be owned and operated by Florida company Crowley Government Services.

Historically, the US has been reluctant to make such investments outside of its sovereign territory. It’s hard not to conclude that this investment was a sign of a lack of US confidence in the Australian government getting strategic liquid-fuel reserves right in northern Australia.

The net result of all this activity is the expenditure of more than $330 million in Darwin, and another considerable sum at RAAF Base Tindal, on liquid-fuel storage. It appears, though, that each of these decisions occurred within bureaucratic siloes. Worse than that, it remains unclear whether these measures will address our most important northern airbase’s fuel supply-chain vulnerabilities. Would the outcome have looked any different if those involved had used a collaborative approach that synchronised their efforts and investments?

Liquid-fuel storage is just one component of a future Darwin port and harbour strategy. The broader strategy for the Darwin port and harbour, however, is no clearer than that for liquid-fuel storage and resilience.

Today, everyone seems to have a plan for Darwin’s port and harbour: the Northern Territory government, Defence, the US government, gas plant operator Inpex, port lessee Landbridge and the broader private sector. And many of those plans have very real budgets. However, there’s little evidence to suggest that the various ambitious visions are in any way shared, let alone aligned. The uncertainty about the future of the port lease has added further confusion. Still, the real problem is a lack of a coherent, single strategy.

It’s now time for a national discussion on the role of Darwin Port in Australia’s long-term strategic future.

We need to do some big thinking about Darwin Harbour, and the government needs to decide whether it wants to force a change in the existing port’s ownership or to build a new joint naval port instead. The federal and NT governments must produce a national security and economic strategy for Darwin port and harbour. And this strategy needs to have appropriate funding attached. Without that, further opportunities will be lost and resources wasted.

From irrigated plants to invasive ants: opportunities for innovation in northern Australia

Since the late 1920s, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation has been active in the development of northern Australia. Research over the years has ranged from tackling invasive plants like prickly pear to introducing dung beetles and cattle bred to be better suited to the north.

More recently, work on transport logistics has helped target infrastructure investment and led to more efficient transportation of cattle and lower transport costs. CSIRO is also championing technologies such as artificial intelligence to help provide high-quality medical care to remote communities, especially in preventing avoidable blindness.

Now, with renewed focus on further developing the north, CSIRO researchers across many disciplines are looking at how science and innovation can both tackle challenges and harness new opportunities for economic development and sustainability. Among these are new methods for aquaculture, food processing, boosting protein production and improving liveability in the north. CSIRO works closely with collaborators and partners to achieve these goals.

Northern Australia has vast untapped potential. Truly understanding that potential, and the risks that accompany it, is critical to the continued transformation of the north. This is especially the case when it comes to land and water resources and how they can be used for development while preserving environmental and cultural heritage.

A series of integrated assessments across the north led by CSIRO over the past 10 years has brought multidisciplinary expertise to look at the scale of the opportunity for irrigated agriculture. As well as land and water resources, they have considered the social, economic, cultural and ecological risks linked to each opportunity to ensure that informed development decisions can be made.

These assessments are providing a foundation for decisions on future land use in the north.

Numerous presentations at the 2021 Developing Northern Australia conference reinforced the importance of inclusive and sustainable development approaches to ensure better outcomes for the north. One such approach, which has supported Indigenous jobs, enterprises and livelihoods, has been the work to control para grass in Kakadu National Park.

Para grass is a major invasive weed that has choked the floodplains. Local Indigenous knowledge together with the use of drone technology and AI has enabled local rangers to make a real difference in controlling this pest.

Similar results have been achieved with yellow crazy ants, one of the world’s worst invasive species and a major threat to biodiversity and to agricultural industries. A long-term partnership between CSIRO, the Dhimurru Aboriginal Corporation and Rio Tinto has eradicated yellow crazy ants from more than 30 separate locations in northeast Arnhem Land.

There’s great potential in northern Australia for new industries that can respond to the unique characteristics and advantages of the region. This includes opportunities to produce high-quality food products for the rest of Australia and for export.

Prawn farming is already a 5,000-tonne, $90 million industry in Australia. Extending the industry to more remote parts of the north might require a different type of farming system—one with less infrastructure and potentially operating in a near natural state—but it has the potential to become a lucrative industry. CSIRO has recently called for expressions of interest to pilot and assess the viability of this type of prawn production, which would provide employment, training and business opportunities for Indigenous communities.

Another opportunity lies in new enterprises for food processing that adds value to waste. Locally based food manufacturing hubs would produce high-value protein and other shelf-stable foods and ingredients, some of which could use every part of a crop, for human consumption and for aquaculture, cattle, organic soil fertilisers and fibre. Such enterprises would overcome one of the biggest constraints to production from northern Australia: high transport costs.

Townsville is one place with many of the characteristics required to support such a manufacturing hub. The challenge is to define the competitive advantage for the location and to build on this by manufacturing products that meet the needs of the market.

New industries are also emerging to meet the growing demand for protein in all its forms, in red meat, dairy, fish and plants. CSIRO’s recently launched Future Protein Mission has the bold plan to develop new Australian protein products and ingredients that earn an additional $10 billion in revenue by 2027.

New technologies will be needed to create more sustainable animal protein production to protect and grow Australia’s traditional high-value protein industries of livestock and aquaculture. But there will also be new value chains and products developed to meet the demand for plant protein, with Australian supermarkets now selling five times more meat-substitute products than they did four years ago.

Northern Australia has the potential to play a key role in boosting protein through its livestock sector, with its renewed focus on legumes and by value-adding to food waste.

It’s not just rural areas and industries that have untapped potential in northern Australia. Cities too are well positioned to benefit from the rapid economic and population growth in the nearby ASEAN region.

The Covid-19 pandemic has shown that people are prepared to move from southern capital cities to regional centres. Together with the rise of remote work, this has meant that liveability and lifestyle are strong determinants of where people choose to live. Rising temperatures under a warming climate have the potential to increase the challenges of living in a city in northern Australia. In Darwin, the number of days over 35°C is projected to double by 2030. The Darwin Living Lab initiative aims to use emerging science, local knowledge and innovative approaches to heat mitigation that can improve liveability in the tropical north.

Science and innovation will be vital in addressing many of the challenges in the north and capitalising on the north’s competitive advantages. But science alone won’t lead to economic development; partnerships and deep collaboration are needed across all levels of government and with Indigenous peoples, regional development organisations, the private sector and communities.

The challenge is to ensure science is based on an understanding of the changing needs of industry and community and considers the unique social, economic, cultural and ecological elements to ensure a truly prosperous north into the future.

Turbulent times ahead for Australian humanitarian assistance and disaster relief

Australia has demonstrated the capacity and capability to undertake fast, scalable responses to disasters and humanitarian crises in recent years. Australian governments, agencies, non-government organisations and the public have proven determined and flexible in both domestic and regional disasters and humanitarian crises.

But Australia’s established capabilities are now facing new and growing challenges in disaster preparedness and response. The Indo-Pacific is confronting a complex network of established, evolving and intersecting climate, conflict and human-security risks.

Without innovation in strategy and capabilities, the financial cost of regional disasters will continue to vastly outpace Australia’s capacity to fund preparedness and response efforts comprehensively enough to mitigate the human and strategic security risks those disasters pose.

Australia’s humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) strategies need to consider how to increase capacities for speed, coordination, communication, agility, flexibility, mobility and capability by making better use of the resources already allocated to organisations involved in HADR work, and so that any additional funding has maximum impact.

In addition to maintaining the necessary crisis response capacity regionally and at home, Australia needs to build greater regional preparedness for (the capacity to endure) and resilience to (the capacity to recover from) the natural disasters that are coming and the cascading risks they will bring.

My new ASPI report, released today, focuses on Australia’s HADR capabilities and capacity to respond and mitigate risks by building preparedness and resilience regionally.

This is a challenging threatscape to prepare for and respond to.

The report presents a snapshot view of the Indo-Pacific threatscape for Australia and discusses how key Australian HADR capabilities have been developed through lessons from domestic and regional disasters. It also considers the possible value northern Australia can bring to national HADR capabilities and suggests six opportunities for providing a national-level HADR capability uplift in the short term with minimal increases in spending.

The six opportunities are grouped into three areas: strategy and innovation, regional engagement, and resources. For each proposal, I consider, where appropriate, opportunities for the north to better serve national efforts as a gateway and hub for resources, innovation and regional engagement. This is not an exhaustive list of opportunities, but rather an examination of how we can do more with what we have. Northern Australia is the focus for this study because it’s the area of Australia that is closest to the other countries of the Indo-Pacific region and shares a similar rate of disaster vulnerability.

Opportunity 1: A strategy for the north

Australia has a key role to play in the region as a democracy, partner, ally and middle power. Northern Australia isn’t only central within the region, but a bridge to many of our neighbours. Our cultural and community links to the region in our northern centres illustrate this point.

This isn’t to say that other parts of Australia don’t have similar connections, or that resources need to all go through northern cities rather than just northern sea and airspace. Rather, the northern connections could be better used in building resilience and preparedness in the region. Expanding the north’s role as a logistics and innovation connection to the region would encourage better linkages, particularly between government, university and NGO research centres in Australia and neighbouring nations, and force multiplication between established HADR capabilities in the north.

Opportunity 2: Research and training to build preparedness

Research, education and training are force multipliers. As it stands, HADR will always be on the back foot. HADR funding needs to be adjusted to adequately prioritise the research and training that will allow us to make the most of what we have. For example, the government could spend less on the Australian Defence Force’s capacity to respond to crises and more on research, education and training, which can increase preparedness in the areas in which Australia will then be called on to respond in crises.

Opportunity 3: International relationships as a safety net

Relationships are a safety net and, in a time of increased risk, Australia should actively invest in fortifying that safety net at all levels, from communities up to governments. For Australia and Japan, for example, the current momentum of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue as a nascent but fervent understanding of shared values and interests in maintaining a free and open region stands in no small part on their commitments to one another’s security and prosperity. That in turn reflects the honest understanding that security and prosperity depend on cooperation in a region of many islands where none can afford to behave like one.

There are practical options for the federal government to invest in fortifying regional relationships between Australian and regional education and training institutions, between state and national governments, and even between community organisations in, for example, the arts and development sectors.

Opportunity 4: The role of the ADF

Increased security tensions in the Indo-Pacific pose the risk that military confrontations could occur at the same time as climate-related humanitarian crises in the region. Such a scenario would put Australia in the position of having to support military and HADR capabilities simultaneously, placing huge stress on Australian capabilities and resources, particularly given that major HADR responses in recent history have all relied heavily on the ADF (most recently, the 2019–20 bushfires and the Covid-19 vaccine rollout).

This is a clear vulnerability in Australia’s HADR strategies and capabilities because a military confrontation in defence of national security would have to take priority over regional or even domestic humanitarian crises. A federally led effort to reduce this exclusive reliance on the ADF would be a critical capability uplift for Australia. To avoid ADF involvement in HADR efforts in Australia and the region and to avoid corroding the ADF’s warfighting capability, Defence requires adequate resourcing, strategy and structure to lead HADR in addition to its core role.

Opportunity 5: A suitable and available workforce

The issue of a HADR workforce is perhaps the biggest problem in the reliance of the federal government on the ADF for HADR response. The current defence force ‘pivot to the north’, both Australian and American, needs to be accompanied by a HADR plan or Australia will continue to rely on the ADF for two problems that we can’t simultaneously address.

Australia needs a distinct non-military HADR capability, and, given the cascading risks associated with natural disasters possibly interacting with military confrontations, there’s a need for the significant defence spending in the north to be accompanied by, if not shared with, necessary civilian response capability and preparedness efforts.

Opportunity 6: Resource distribution

Expanding aeromedical evacuation hubs to Cairns and Townsville, in addition to Darwin, would enable efficient Australian HADR responses to the Pacific islands, with Darwin servicing Southeast Asia. This approach would mean patients could be transported less distance to a hub and then onwards to a hospital with patient capacity. Multiple northern hubs would also improve the scalability of responses to meet the need presenting in different areas.

As ever, there’s no magical or comprehensive fix to this challenging outlook, but there are opportunities for innovation in strategy and capabilities in Australia’s emergency-management architecture and arrangements. Those opportunities can increase preparedness and resilience in ways that might look small in comparison to the significance of the threatscape but will nevertheless have important impacts.

Ministerial meetings show deepening ties between Australia and South Korea

With Australia and the Republic of Korea celebrating the 60th anniversary of their diplomatic relations, this year’s 2+2 foreign and defence ministers’ meeting held on Monday in Seoul reflects an expanding security agenda between the two countries. Building on the 2009 joint statement and 2015 blueprint for defence and security cooperation, three features of this year’s joint statement are particularly noteworthy.

First, a combination of shared crises has increased the respective importance placed by Canberra and Seoul on the partnership. Second, the increased prominence of the United States in the bilateral relationship suggests a shifting attitude towards networked allied defence. And third, the ongoing commitment by both countries to promoting international peace and prosperity should not be overlooked.

This year’s joint statement devotes an entire opening section to the Covid-19 pandemic. Australia and the ROK have been relatively successful in protecting lives and livelihoods throughout the pandemic, albeit through radically different approaches. They will have key roles in the post-pandemic regional and global recovery efforts. Close coordination on vaccine production and distribution to Southeast Asian and Pacific neighbours as outlined in the joint statement is an excellent example of how they can accomplish more together than alone.

China also casts a long shadow over the joint statement, even though it is never explicitly mentioned. The joint statement’s focus on vaccines, supply chains, energy and trade diversification are all areas where Australia and the ROK have identified vulnerabilities to potential Chinese coercion. Today, Australia’s 2014 comprehensive strategic partnership with China and the ROK’s 2008 strategic cooperative partnership with China seem like relics of a bygone era. Diplomatic crises with China in recent years have seen public attitudes towards Beijing in both countries harden. Australia and the ROK have thus made clear their commitment to greater self-reliance and mutual support across a wide range of sectors.

This year’s statement describes the Australia–ROK relationship as underpinned by ‘shared values of freedom, democracy, universal human rights and rule of law’. Whereas past statements took their shared values and interests as given, the explicit enunciation of exactly what values the two countries share is striking, even as the ROK seeks to maintain China’s cooperation in pursuit of its North Korea engagement policy.

Climate change is another common crisis covered in the statement. While it was mentioned in the first 2+2 meeting in 2013 in the context of the ROK’s hosting of the Green Climate Fund and Global Green Growth Institute, it was omitted in 2015, reappeared in 2017 as a mention of joint support for the Paris climate agreement and disappeared again in 2019.

This likely reflects President Moon Jae-in’s ambitious green new deal and plans to transition to carbon neutrality by 2050, but it was moderated by the Morrison government’s reluctance to commit to a similar emissions reduction target. The statement’s more modest aims are for both countries to reach their ‘2030 greenhouse gas reduction and global carbon neutrality targets, and to support developing countries’ response to climate change and to conserve biodiversity’.

An important change to this year’s joint statement is the greater attention given to the US. With Foreign Minister Marise Payne and Defence Minister Peter Dutton flying on to the US for the annual AUSMIN meeting, the Australia–ROK 2+2 provided an opportunity to compare notes with another key US ally. Both countries understand that their relations with the US cannot be viewed solely in bilateral terms and that US regional strategy affects them all.

This year’s joint statement thus devotes a new section to their respective alliances with the US, while noting that ‘these relationships are part of a network of alliances and partnerships that underpin broader regional stability and prosperity’. This marks an important shift as both seek to strengthen US regional commitments following their fraught relations with Washington under Donald Trump’s administration.

The ROK also appears to finally be reciprocating some of Australia’s longstanding interest in closer military training. This includes making the United Nations Command a more prominent part of the bilateral security relationship. Bilateral exercises had been confined to the biennial Haedoli Wallaby naval exercise and limited Australian participation in ROK–US warfighting exercises on the Korean Peninsula. Building on the ROK Navy’s recent participation in the Australia–US Talisman Sabre exercise, the ROK Air Force will soon participate in the Australian-hosted Pitch Black air exercises, and ROK Army soldiers will eventually participate in combined training exercises in Australia.

This year’s joint statement also substantially expands the regional and global opportunities for closer cooperation and reflects the rising capacity and influence of both countries. It sets out a detailed and practical policy agenda for contributing to peace and prosperity in Southeast Asia and the Pacific on issues such as health, infrastructure, economic recovery, water management, disaster response and maritime capacity-building.

In a global context, their shared democratic values are much more apparent, with strong positions taken on Afghanistan, Myanmar, free trade, human rights and women’s empowerment. These are all endeavours to be applauded and show the wider promise of Australia–ROK cooperation.

Much has changed since Australia and the ROK held their first 2+2 meeting in 2013. As the ROK’s first such ministerial talks apart from those with the US at the time, the meeting was carefully scrutinised for what it meant vis-à-vis an escalating North Korean nuclear threat and US–China competition. Those challenges have only intensified in the intervening years.

Eight years and five biennial gatherings on, the 2+2 meetings have become an important anchor in the bilateral relationship, especially during periods of leadership instability in both Canberra and Seoul. As both countries head to the polls in the coming months, it remains to be seen whether high-level support for the relationship will continue, even as their respective bureaucracies push on with closer cooperation.

Collecting the bones: community healing in Timor-Leste

The 1999 withdrawal of Indonesia and its military from East Timor eventually ushered in a Timorese- and United Nations–mandated truth and reconciliation process. In 2005, the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation reported on its findings and recommendations, yet for various geopolitical reasons the report was tabled but never debated in Timor-Leste’s national parliament.

Of course, the process of truth-telling, reconciliation and community healing didn’t end when UN funding for the commission ended in the mid-2000s. Dili’s Centro Nacional Chega! (National Centre for Memory) was established in 2016 in part to continue documenting the local voices, experiences and practices of everyday Timorese during the occupation. It has a mandate to preserve Timor-Leste’s 1974–1999 history, and to promote and foster human rights, solidarity and a culture of peace.

In rural areas, there’s an ongoing search for the missing. Countless Timorese remain unaccounted for because of the conflict and displacement during the Indonesian occupation. According to the customary beliefs of Timorese people, while the bodies of family members remain unaccounted for, the health and wellbeing of the living cannot be ensured.

In September 2018, I was carrying out research into customary healing practices among the several ethno-linguistic groups living in the Baucau municipality in the northeast. Accompanied by my Timorese husband, Quintiliano, and retired mental health nurse Senhor Fransisco, I travelled deep into the Baucau hinterland to interview a local healer.

The healer, Senhor Domingos, met us at the agreed location and directed us up a steep, narrow path to a house and yard full of people. Tarpaulins were draped in a marquee arrangement out the front where many people were gathered, some eating and others working on what looked to be carpentry. A monument of sorts was under construction just uphill from the house. More people were seated inside around a long table that was covered in a tais, a woven Timorese cloth.

We were invited onto the veranda and many men quickly gathered to sit with us. All this activity made me think that somebody must have died, and that we’d arrived during the early stages of a mate uma (funeral). What an unfortunate time to arrive for an interview, I thought.

It soon became apparent that something else was going on. Instead of a coffin, as one would expect to find at a mate uma, many bundled materials were lain carefully along the length of the table. We learned that these 23 sarongs contained the remains of this origin house’s war dead. As we were later shown, each contained the actual bones—or rocks, as symbolic bones—of men, women and children who had died in the early years of the invasion.

As Indonesian troops took control of the area, many had fled across the valley to the relative safety of the Matebian mountains. Some were hunted and killed by the Indonesian military; others starved to death. Their bodies had never been recovered and laid to rest. Until now.

After recent consultation with the nature spirits, family members of the deceased had organised a bone-recovery party and over two months followed a path down across the valley and into the forests of the Matebian range. The remains they recovered had been temporarily stored in the health clinic in the mountainous village of Kelikai before being transported from the mountains to the coast and back up to Mount Ariana.

As we were invited to pay our respects, each sarong was carefully opened to reveal the name of the deceased written on a scrap of cardboard.

In two days, a Catholic priest would attend the house to posthumously baptise each of these people in accordance with contemporary expectations. Their individual remains would then each be ‘dressed’ and placed in the tiny chipboard coffins the young men were busily making under the marquee. Two days later, the community would gather in the graveyard overlooking Matebian for a full Catholic mass. A large grave with 23 separate compartments had already been prepared.

It was a palpably emotional time for everyone assembled. The property was crowded with people, from the infirm to newborns. I could feel the powerful aura surrounding the task at hand and the determination to honour their relatives and respectfully lay them to rest. The monument under construction outside the house commemorated two fallen heroes, fighters of the FALINTIL resistance movement who died in battle. For this process, they had support through the reparations available from the government-sponsored resistance veteran’s fund. But the reburial of family members—ordinary victims of war—had fallen to the survivors of the conflict. One origin house, comprising more than 200 people, had 25 dead bodies to lay to rest.

As we sat with the men on the veranda, I was struck with a wave of emotion and an overwhelming sadness. I wasn’t sure if I could go through with the interview. But this sorrow trains its wrath on the world that I customarily inhabit and that grants me great privileges.

Here we were in an obviously impoverished community coming together to try to recover from the ravages of war waged more than 40 years ago.

My own country had covertly supported the invasion and occupation of East Timor. The guns used by the soldiers and the bombs dropped by planes were supplied by the US and UK governments, Australia’s allies.

Now, these distant Western powers congratulate themselves on overseeing Timor-Leste’s independence and status as a new nation-state. At the same time, they increasingly express their exasperation at the lack of Timorese ‘development’ and capacity.

Yet the people affected by these bloody campaigns continue to draw on their collective cultural capacity to try to deal with their loss and trauma and to move forward in the most intimate and physically connected way possible. Their everyday lives are a world away from the boardrooms where development experts seek advice on overcoming ‘cultural barriers’ to development.

The burial of these physical remains is not the end of the journey. Rather, it opens a path into the future. It gives the living a way to continue with their own lives and it allows the deceased to take up their rightful places as the protectors of the living.

The exchanges between origin houses that surround a death ritual help settle outstanding debts and bring past events to a close as they create new paths and openings. But all of this requires a body to collectively grieve over and lay to rest. This process had not been possible. Until now.