A major partner will buy Australia\u2019s world-leading radar system under a multibillion-dollar deal, making it the nation\u2019s largest defence export agreement.<\/p>\n
The landmark pact was signed in Canberra on Monday by Defence Minister Richard Marles and Canada\u2019s Secretary of State for Defence Procurement Stephen Fuhr.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday\u2019s agreement really is a historic moment for Australia\u2019s defence industry, but it is also a historic moment in the bilateral relationship between Australia and Canada,\u201d Mr Marles said.<\/p>\n
JORN to be deployed in the Arctic<\/p>\n
Canada will use Australia\u2019s Jindalee Operational Radar Network, known as JORN, to surveil vast swathes of the Arctic.<\/p>\n
The over-the-horizon system has been in service for 40 years and can detect aircraft and ships up to 3000km from the northern Australian coast.<\/p>\n
Mr Fuhr pointed to both nations being Commonwealth countries and Five Eyes partners.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve stood shoulder to shoulder for generations as the world adjusts to its new strategic and economic realities,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll continue to work with the Americans. That\u2019s not going to change, but the relationship is different.\u201d<\/p>\n
Building on a key alliance<\/p>\n
Australia and Canada will work towards establishing a status of forces agreement, a legal framework allowing militaries to operate in each other\u2019s countries.<\/p>\n
Mr Marles said the \u201cexquisite\u201d radar technology would only be shared with Australia\u2019s most trusted partners.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat said, under our government, we have looked to be more ambitious in terms of finding opportunities to engage in defence industry exports and this is something that we can do with a close friend,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Eyes on future defence collaboration<\/p>\n
As Australia and Germany remain in talks about exporting the Ghost Bat drone, Canada has also shown interest in the locally designed aircraft.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m quite interested,\u201d Mr Fuhr said.<\/p>\n
\u201cCollaborative combat aircraft are a thing, and it seems like Australia has got a bit of a lead there, so I\u2019m curious to see where that\u2019s at.\u201d<\/p>\n
Federal governments have committed more than $2.3 billion into the Ghost Bat\u2019s development since 2019.<\/p>\n
The drone is the first combat aircraft to be designed and made in Australia in 50 years.<\/p>\n
Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy said the government was \u201cvery confident\u201d in the capability, with a factory being built in Queensland to manufacture the drones at scale.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A major partner will buy Australia\u2019s world-leading radar system under a multibillion-dollar deal, making it the nation\u2019s largest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":752880,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[4764,64,63,164,3786,44],"class_list":["post-752879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-aap","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-economy","tag-government","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=752879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752879\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/752880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=752879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=752879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=752879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}