Australia Cans Purchase of Drone Aircraft
Minister Declines US Aircraft; Not in Country's Best Interests
Mar 2, 2009
Australian Defense Minister Joel Fitzgibbon has said his government has decided not to go ahead with an option to purchase long-range Global Hawk planes from the United States, saying to do so would put too much pressure on the Australian Defense Force. The country's Opposition has decried the decision saying it seems to be a cheap cost-cutting measure by the government.
Pressure on ADF
In a statement released by the minister's department on Mar. 2, 2009, the Minister noted the timetable for delivery of the planes had blown out to 2015 and the government had declined the option to purchase under the Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) partnership program with the United States Navy.
“Introducing such an advanced new aircraft at this time would have caused incredible workforce pressures on the Australian Defense Force, particularly given the requirement to transition the Air Force’s AP-3C Orion fleet to a new manned surveillance aircraft in the same time period,” Mr Fitzgibbon said.
“The Australian Government has taken swift action to alleviate these transitional issues by declining the option to continue on with further collaboration with the United States Navy’s developmental program at this time,” he added.
Northrop Grumman
The manufacturer of the Global Hawk long-distance aircraft was reported to be attempting to convince the minister to change his mind on the issue according to a Mar. 2 Australian ABC news item. The company's vice president Ken Crowe said to the ABC the planes were effective in patrolling bushfires as well as having a military capability, an effective argument in a country which has just experienced its worst-ever bushfire tragedy with over 200 hundred people killed in the southeastern state of Victoria.
"The aircraft flies at approximately 20 kilometers altitude and uses its three very advanced sensors to be able to effectively see through the bushfire fronts and the spot fires as they develop and it relays this in real time down to the headquarters of the firefighters as necessary it also provides very broad area communications coverage," said Mr Crowe.
Australia's Best Interests
Mr Fitzgibbon said he was convinced of the quality of the Global Hawk aircraft but had decided it was not in Australia's best interests to continue with purchase at this stage.
“The Australian Government has every confidence that the United States Navy BAMS program will deliver a very capable uninhabited aircraft, he said in the Defense statement. "However, at this stage in the development of this project, it is in Australia’s best interests to not knowingly risk incurring the unmanageable workforce chaos that would result."
“Blindly pushing on with the program would have placed a huge and unnecessary strain on our personnel in trying to potentially manage three separate airframes at the one time and I was not prepared to place this unnecessary burden on our men and women in uniform,” Mr Fitzgibbon said.
However he added that Defense officials will continue to monitor the BAMS program and evaluate similar aircraft.
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