Australia — Major Five Power Defence Arrangements Exercise comes to an end in SE Asia

A mile­stone exer­cise in the Bersama series has come to an end in Malaysia and the South Chi­na Sea with the offi­cial clos­ing cer­e­mo­ny of Exer­cise Bersama Padu 2010 (BP10) held on 29 Octo­ber at RMAF But­ter­worth.

Exer­cise BP10 was the first in the series to include a land force ele­ment com­prised of sol­diers from Aus­tralia and Malaysia, col­lec­tive­ly known as the Five Pow­ers Rifle Com­pa­ny (FPRC).

In total, BP10 involved 1100 Aus­tralian Defence Force per­son­nel, which Com­man­der of the Aus­tralian Con­tin­gent Wing Com­man­der Ken­neth Robin­son said demon­strat­ed the impor­tance Aus­tralia placed on the Five Pow­er Defence Arrange­ment (FPDA) and its com­mit­ment to secu­ri­ty and sta­bil­i­ty in the region. 

“The Aus­tralian Defence Force’s con­tri­bu­tion to Bersama Padu 10 is a tan­gi­ble sign of our endur­ing com­mit­ment to the FPDA,” he said. 

“The mar­itime com­po­nent of Australia’s con­tri­bu­tion to the exer­cise was the largest in sev­er­al years, and we were espe­cial­ly pleased with the exer­cise activ­i­ty and the val­ue derived by our task group.” 

Wing Com­man­der Robin­son made spe­cial men­tion of the intro­duc­tion and inte­gra­tion of the land com­po­nent into the Field Train­ing Exercise. 

“The Com­mand­ing Offi­cer of HMAS Tobruk, Com­man­der Paul Scott, has con­veyed to me a par­tic­u­lar sense of pride and achieve­ment in terms of that ship’s con­tri­bu­tion to the effec­tive and safe amphibi­ous lodge­ment of a com­pos­ite rifle com­pa­ny,” he said. 

The FPDA was estab­lished in 1971 and con­tin­ues to be an inte­gral part of the region­al secu­ri­ty archi­tec­ture because of its abil­i­ty to remain rel­e­vant to the needs of its mem­bers by adapt­ing to the chang­ing secu­ri­ty environment. 

Exer­cise BP10 was con­duct­ed from 11–29 Octo­ber, and involved four RAN ships, Clear­ance Div­ing Team 1, eight F/A 18s from No3 Squadron, and Rifle Com­pa­ny Butterworth. 

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

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