Australia steps up its defence

Press, 14 December 1985, Page 18

Australia steps up its defence

NZPA-AAP Canberra The Australian Defence Minister, Kim Beazley, has announced moves to improve greatly Australia’s northern defences through radar and, eventually, early warning aircraft Mr Beazley told a Canberra news conference that the experimental “Jindalee” over-the-horizon radar system near Alice Springs would be upgraded to an operational system starting next year. In addition, invitations will be issued world-wide for companies to submit proposals for airborne surveillance and control systems. Mr Beazley said he believed a multi-layered defence system using Jindalee and airborne radar could provide an affordable solution to a long acknowledged weakness in Australia’s defences. He says Jindalee would also make it harder for drug runners to operate civilian planes clandestinely along Australia’s northern coastline. The over-the-horizon radar project known as Jindalee has been running for several years near Alice Springs, in Central Australia, and should be operational by late 1986 or early 1987. Early warning aircraft are not likely until 1991. Systems similar to Jindalee are being developed in both the United States and Soviet Union, but Australia believes it has the edge, particularly in computer processing techniques.

Jindalee uses the ability to bounce radio waves off an atmospheric layer known as the ionosphere and on to targets thousands of kilometres away such as planes and ships.

This bouncing technique overcomes the horizon limitation of conventional ground based radars and provides a relatively inexpensive solution to 24-hour protection of Australia’s extended coastline. However, Jindalee is limited in its ability to precisely locate targets and identify them.

This means there is still a need for more precise microwave radars which can fix targets and direct

defending aircraft and ships towards them. Although ground-based radars could be capable of this, airborne radar is superior because it is mobile and can look-down and detect low flying intruders. Existing early warning and control aircraft systems range from the United States Air Force and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation system based on a Boeing 707aircraft, and the British Nimrod. Lockheed is also developing a system based on the P 3 Orion which is already in service with the R.A.A.F. and has a long-range cruising capacity. Although smaller aircraft have been developed with these capabilities they are thought to be unsuitable for Australia’s requirements. Mr Beazley said the Government’s request for proposals would also permit consideration of less conventional systems such as airships and tethered balloons. He had initially been concerned with conventional planes as radar platforms but now believed a mix of systems, including ground based radar would provide an affordable solution.

“The combination of all these... I think will effectively have achieved an answer to what has been to this point of time a central weakness in the capacity to defend this country with its own resources,” he said. The conversion of the present Jindalee system to an operational level is expected to cost sAust.4O million ($48.79 million).

However, additional Jindalee units will probably be required to obtain full coverage of Australia’s north and a defence study would examine this question. Early warning and control planes could cost between sAust.3OO million ($363 million) and sAust.6OO million ($726 million). Mr Beazley said the decisions were not independent of the advice he would receive on strategic requirements from a defence analyst Paul Dibb in March.

They would simply put the Gov-

emment in a better position to make decisions on the extension of Jindalee and the acquisition of airborne early warning. “As far as we are concerned, as a Government, we see these developments as central to our capacity

to achieve a self-reliant defence, and extremely important to get right.” Mr Beazley said the defence study on Jindalee would be extended to include other interested areas such as customs.

“Once Jindalee is operating verf? effectively I think that there would be major problems imposed on anyone wanting to operate-aircraft** in Australia’s northern regions in a clandestine