Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence Richard Marles visits RAAF base Townsville following flood disaster
The Defence Minister said in the last decade the ADF has been called upon more and more for disaster relief as extreme weather events increasingly devastate communities around Australia.
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While the Australian Defence Force and Emergency services ability to provide assistance during disaster events is second to none, it seems as though in recent years they are becoming increasingly well-versed in it as more extreme events continue to ravage Australian communities.
That was the message from the Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister, Richard Marles, on Tuesday during a visit to RAAF base Townsville.
“I’ve really noticed that even over the three years in which I’ve been in this role, there’s been a really significant engagement by Defence in respect of disaster relief and that’s a function of the fact that we are seeing more disaster events, be that flooding or be that bush fires,” he said.
Personnel from the 5th Aviation Regiment (5AVN), the 3rd Combat engineer regiment (3CER), the 3rd Combat Service Support Battalion (3CSSB), the 3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (3RAR) and the 4th Health Battalion (4HB) were greeted by the deputy prime minister as he thanked them for their dedicated hard work.
“The emergency personnel across the board have played an incredible role in the last couple of weeks but the members of the defence force can really hold their head up high in terms of the contribution that they’ve made to that,” Mr Marles said.
While the skills deployed during the flood disaster by Townsville based troops may be a part of their day to day training, it made all the difference to residents who were left without power, water or supplies.
“The chinooks flying supplies and equipment is what they (5AVN) do and that is something that is pretty familiar,” Mr Marles said.
“The bridge at Ollera creek that was something that was relatively novel in the context of a disaster, the Army engineers who are responsible for that put that bridge up and down.
“A lot of what you do in the Defence Force is training, in many ways it’s a very large training organisation among many other things.
“Over the last couple of weeks has been an opportunity to really serve very much first hand to the community and so I think the sense was one of feeling proud of what they have been able to do.”
The Commanding Officer of 3CER, Lieutenant Colonel Ryan Mitchell said for their regiment it was a rewarding experience to take the skills they practice and use day in and day out, and apply them to a disaster situation.
“It was a good opportunity for the unit to contribute to what was a community and state response,” he said.
“We kind of did one thing and it was actually all the work from the state emergency services that came together around that.
“From my point of view I was pretty proud of the guys and girls that were part of that, they knocked it out of the park.”
Originally published as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence Richard Marles visits RAAF base Townsville following flood disaster
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