Central Queensland possible base for $10b tank project

Company bidding for multi-billion-dollar defence deal will set up operations and national office in regional Queensland.

Queenslander Senator Ian Macdonald with the Boxer vehicle. The Queensland bloc of federal LNP MPs and Senators, together with Rheinmetall Defence Australia, is stepping up the battle to win Queensland the $5 billion Land 400 Phase 2 defence contract to build 225 Combat Reconnaissance Vehicles.picture Gary Ramage. Picture: Gary Ramage

REGIONAL Queensland could be in line to land another $10 billion in military contracts and export state-of-the-art tanks to governments around the world, it can be revealed.

Defence company Rheinmetall is bidding for the $5 billion Land 400 phase 2 contract to build 225 armoured reconnaissance vehicles, and will base its national office and operations in regional Queensland if successful.

Rheinmetall Defence Australian managing director Gary Stewart, while in Canberra yesterday showing off one of its tanks outside Parliament House, said if his company lands the work billions of dollars more in contracts could follow for Queensland.

Mr Stewart said it would bid for the $10 billion Land 400 phase three contract to build 450 infantry fighting vehicles, and was in line for a separate job to build 1100 HX77 transports.

READ | 450 jobs up for grabs in battle for military contract

But he said its head office and military centre of excellence would also bid for international contracts which could see Queensland designed and built military vehicles exported all over the world.

"Land 400 phase two is the foundation stone. It creates the critical mass to build up the design and manufacture skills base,” he said.

Queenslander Senator Ian Macdonald with the Boxer vehicle. The Queensland bloc of federal LNP MPs and Senators, together with Rheinmetall Defence Australia, is stepping up the battle to win Queensland the $5 billion Land 400 Phase 2 defence contract to build 225 Combat Reconnaissance Vehicles.picture Gary Ramage. Picture: Gary Ramage

Rheinmetall's Boxer CRV, which is its Land 400 phase two vehicles, has protection against landmines, IEDs, medium cannon fire and small arms fire.

Mr Stewart said its technology was closer to that of a jet fighter, than the Australian Defence Force vehicle it was replacing.

Queensland's 26 government MPs are lobbying for the Land 400 contract to go to Rheinmetall, against its competitor in the bid BAE which will base its operations in Victoria.

But Fadden MP Stewart Robert said Rheinmetall should win because it was the best and more than 50 per cent of the vehicle was guaranteed to be manufactured in Australia.

"We're not backing this as an act of parochialism. The vehicle is the most lethal vehicle on the market worldwide, it is the most protected vehicle on the market worldwide,” he said.

The final bids for Land 400 phase two have been entered, while the government will make its decision in the first half of 2018.

Originally published as Central Queensland possible base for $10b tank project