Australia day visit to HMAS STUART by Minister Snowdon

The Min­is­ter for Defence Sci­ence and Per­son­nel, War­ren Snow­don, joined the ship’s com­pa­ny of HMAS Stu­art in the Per­sian Gulf for a morn­ing tea to acknowl­edge Aus­tralia Day.

HMAS Stu­art, which is crewed by 190 mem­bers of the Roy­al Aus­tralian Navy, this week com­menced mar­itime secu­ri­ty oper­a­tions in the Mid­dle East Area of Oper­a­tions as part of Oper­a­tion SLIPPER.

While deployed, Stu­art is work­ing in an area of oper­a­tions that cov­ers more than two mil­lion square miles of inter­na­tion­al waters to con­duct counter-ter­ror­ism, counter-pira­cy and mar­itime secu­ri­ty operations. 

Address­ing the ship’s com­pa­ny yes­ter­day, Mr Snow­don com­mend­ed the sailors for the sig­nif­i­cant role that they car­ry out in the Mid­dle East as part of the Com­bined Mar­itime Forces, which show­cas­es Australia’s secu­ri­ty cre­den­tials at the inter­na­tion­al level. 

“It is a source of great pride for me, and for the peo­ple of Aus­tralia, to see the deter­mi­na­tion and com­mit­ment you dis­play as you com­mence this impor­tant mis­sion. Your skills and pro­fes­sion­al­ism enable Aus­tralia to make a valu­able con­tri­bu­tion to region­al sta­bil­i­ty and in the pro­vi­sion of secu­ri­ty to sea trade,” Mr Snow­don said aboard HMAS Stuart. 

“By tar­get­ing ille­gal traf­fick­ing of peo­ple, drugs and weapons that sup­port inter­na­tion­al ter­ror­ist organ­i­sa­tions, and deny­ing free­dom of move­ment to pirates, your work is instru­men­tal in pro­mot­ing a safe mar­itime envi­ron­ment,” he said. 

Mr Snow­don also praised the self­less­ness of all ADF per­son­nel cur­rent­ly away from home while serv­ing on oper­a­tions on behalf of the Aus­tralian people. 

“Despite the many per­son­al and fam­i­ly sac­ri­fices involved, includ­ing being away from loved ones on spe­cial days like Aus­tralia Day, you ded­i­cate your­selves to this valu­able endeav­or, and for this I, on behalf of the Aus­tralian peo­ple, express my sin­cere thanks and gratitude.” 

Press release
Min­is­te­r­i­al Sup­port and Pub­lic Affairs,
Depart­ment of Defence,
Can­ber­ra, Australia 

Face­book and/or on Twit­ter