ADF: Transcript Of Dr Nelson Interview, Adelaide

Signing of contracts to build three Air Warfare Destroyers; Afghanistan deployment.

ADF: Transcript Of Dr Nelson Interview, Adelaide

DR NELSON: Today is an extremely important day for South Australia, for Australia, and for the Royal Australian Navy. We have formally signed $8 billion in contracts for three Air Warfare Destroyers that will be built by the Australian Submarine Corporation.

More than 3,000 Australians will get jobs from this. More than 1,000 contractors throughout Australia will be undertaking work to help build the ships. More than $4 billion of that will be invested directly in Australia, and importantly it means that the Royal Australian Navy will be able to protect our very large amphibious ships that we're also about to build, and make sure that Australia is able to play the key role in our area of paramount defence interest in our region, and in wider parts of the world.

QUESTION: Dr Nelson, I guess the question everyone's asking, will we get a fourth ship?

DR NELSON: Well I certainly am disposed to seeing a fourth destroyer being built. Obviously we have kept the option open. We will need to make that decision before the end of next year. But we'd be talking about $1.5 billion, which is a lot of money, and we've got to make sure the ink dries on the contracts that we've just signed. But certainly I would be disposed to a fourth ship. We've kept the option open, and we'll count our pennies over the next few months to a year, and see how we go.

QUESTION: Dr Nelson, you may have to make that decision in the next few weeks, given the pending federal election, of course, but has that put any pressure on you to come to a decision more quickly?

DR NELSON: Well firstly, the decision as to whether we do have a fourth Air Warfare Destroyer, which means just over $1.5 billion more, is a decision that does not have to be made until the end of next year, because Raytheon, which makes the Aegis combat system, which is the fighting part of the ship, will have a production line going until then.

We've got to make sure that we keep Australia moving in the right direction, we're in a strong economic position at the moment, but let's just bed down the three ships we've just signed up for, before we start looking at another one.

QUESTION: So it won't be a pre-election announcement?

DR NELSON: Well, we'll just watch this space.

QUESTION: It could be a pre-election announcement, Mr Howard…

DR NELSON: I'm not going to comment on it.

QUESTION: What about the ASC sale, how is that progressing?

DR NELSON: Well, we would expect that the Australian Submarine Corporation will go to sale some time next year. We will be obviously looking at the through-life support contract for the submarines to make sure that that meets the needs of both ASC and the Commonwealth and any potential purchaser.

Now that we've signed the contracts for the Air Warfare Destroyers, I think we'll be in a position to go to sale some time next year, and I expect that there will be healthy competition for it. By selling the ASC of course, it just locks in efficiency and ensuring that the people continue to get jobs in the company.

QUESTION: Dr Nelson, The Australian is reporting this morning that Australia will send hundreds more troops to Afghanistan, southern Afghanistan, is that report correct?

DR NELSON: Well, we currently have just over 900 Australian troops in Afghanistan, principally in Oruzgan and also in Kandahar. We are sending two Chinook helicopters back into Afghanistan in February next year, which will mean another 110.

Recently I deployed a dozen soldiers to support mortars for our troops in Oruzgan, but at this stage, we certainly have no plans to increase our troop presence in Afghanistan.

We currently have Australian diggers in 10 different parts of the world; four of those are quite large deployments. We're waiting for our partners in Afghanistan – that's the Netherlands – to make a decision as to whether it will continue its deployment or not, and if so, in what numbers. But certainly the Australian Government is not planning to send any more soldiers to Afghanistan.

And I think it's also worth remembering in the context of the survey we saw yesterday, that half of Australians apparently don't support us being in Afghanistan. We shouldn't forget that 88 Australians were murdered in Bali by three men that trained with al Qaeda, under the support of the Taliban in Afghanistan. If our kids are going to live in a world that's free of that kind of heinous, dreadful violence, driven by terrorists, we've got to make sure that we go and fight these people in their own backyard, which is Afghanistan, and seeing the distance out in Iraq.

QUESTION: But the Dutch are preparing to pull out. Wouldn't the Australian troops need to back-fill there?

DR NELSON: Well, in fact, Australia is not a NATO country. This is a NATO-led operation; the Netherlands is a NATO country. Australia is partnering with the Netherlands. The Netherlands is making its own decision as to whether it will continue in Afghanistan. We understand that it is likely to do so. It may not continue in the numbers that it is, and if the Netherlands does decide to reduce its numbers then obviously NATO will fill any gap that it's left.

ENDS

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