Australia — Netherlands Chief of Defence Visit

Ear­li­er this week the Chief of the Defence Force, Air Chief Mar­shal Angus Hous­ton, host­ed a vis­it to Can­ber­ra by Gen­er­al Peter van Uhm, the Nether­lands Chief of Defence.

Dur­ing the vis­it, Gen­er­al van Uhm pre­sent­ed Air Chief Mar­shal Hous­ton with the Roy­al Order of Orange Nas­sau in the rank of Com­man­der with Swords on behalf of the Nether­lands Government. 

The award was made in the pres­ence of His Excel­len­cy Mr Willem Andreae, the Ambas­sador for the Netherlands. 

“The Dec­o­ra­tion has been award­ed in appre­ci­a­tion of Air Chief Mar­shal Houston’s ded­i­cat­ed efforts as the Chief of Defence Force, par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing the peri­od of close coop­er­a­tion between Aus­tralian and Dutch forces in Uruz­gan Province in Afghanistan,” Gen­er­al van Uhm said. 

“Air Chief Mar­shal Hous­ton was instru­men­tal to the mutu­al under­stand­ing, respect, trust and syn­er­gy between the Dutch and Aus­tralian units in Uruzgan.” 

Air Chief Mar­shal Hous­ton said he was great­ly hum­bled to accept the Order of Orange Nassau. 

“I thank Gen­er­al Peter van Uhm, Ambas­sador Willem Andreae and the King­dom of the Nether­lands for this won­der­ful hon­our,” Air Chief Mar­shal Hous­ton said. 

“I note this order is in recog­ni­tion of my involve­ment in sup­port­ing Dutch Oper­a­tions in Afghanistan between 2006 and 2010. I there­fore con­sid­er it a reflec­tion upon the pro­fes­sion­al­ism and ded­i­ca­tion of the men and women of the Aus­tralian Defence Force who worked along­side the Dutch in Uruz­gan Province. 

“And I want to take this oppor­tu­ni­ty to thank Gen­er­al van Uhm for the valu­able lead­er­ship role played by his mil­i­tary in Uruz­gan Province. 

“Dur­ing the four years of Dutch com­mand, you were great part­ners. I know that our peo­ple enjoyed an excel­lent rela­tion­ship with your peo­ple and they worked close­ly to pro­vide secu­ri­ty and deliv­er recon­struc­tion and com­mu­ni­ty-based projects.” 

Gen­er­al van Uhm is vis­it­ing Aus­tralia to dis­cuss defence coop­er­a­tion in a range of areas, includ­ing in defence reform, capa­bil­i­ty and materiel. 

“Notwith­stand­ing the end of our coop­er­a­tion in Afghanistan, our shared inter­ests in glob­al secu­ri­ty con­tin­ue to be a dri­ver for col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Nether­lands,” Air Chief Mar­shal Hous­ton said. 

Media Con­tact:
Defence Media Oper­a­tions: (02) 6127 1999 or 0408 498 664 

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

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