Australia — Parliamentary Secretary praises the Asia Pacific Civil – Military Centre of Excellence

The Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ment is com­mit­ted to devel­op­ing Australia’s civ­il-mil­i­tary capa­bil­i­ties to pre­vent, pre­pare for and respond more effec­tive­ly to con­flicts and dis­as­ters over­seas, the Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary for Defence, Sen­a­tor David Feeney, said today.

Sen­a­tor Feeney was com­ment­ing on the open­ing of the con­fer­ence cen­tre and library at the Asia Pacif­ic Civ­il-Mil­i­tary Cen­tre of Excel­lence in Quean­beyan, New South Wales.

“The Labor gov­ern­ment has invest­ed $8 mil­lion in the Cen­tre, which was estabished in 2008,” Sen­a­tor Feeney said. “We estab­lished the Cen­tre to under­take a num­ber of tasks to devel­op Australia’s civ­il-mil­i­tary capa­bil­i­ty, includ­ing devel­op­ing and facil­i­tat­ing train­ing and strength­en­ing inter­de­part­men­tal civ­il-mil­i­tary collaboration.” 

“I recent­ly had an oppor­tu­ni­ty to vis­it the Cen­tre and was briefed on its work by the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, Maj-Gen Mike Smith. I was very impressed by the enthu­si­asm and pro­fes­sion­al­ism of the Centre’s staff and the impor­tance of the work they are doing.” 

“I want to acknowl­edge the work of my pre­de­ces­sor as Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary, the Hon Dr Mike Kel­ly AM, the mem­ber for Eden-Monaro, in get­ting this cen­tre estab­lished in Queanbeyan.”

The Cen­tre is now deliv­er­ing a num­ber of key out­comes, includ­ing the devel­op­ment of draft guide­lines for the pro­tec­tion of civil­ians for the African Union; Civ­il-Mil­i­tary Coor­di­na­tion Cours­es, deliv­ered both here in Aus­tralia and in the region, on behalf of the Unit­ed Nations Office for the Coor­di­na­tion of Human­i­tar­i­an Affairs; and the devel­op­ment of a con­cep­tu­al frame­work for civ­il-mil­i­tary col­lab­o­ra­tion in con­flict and dis­as­ter man­age­ment overseas. 

The Cen­tre now includes a train­ing and con­fer­ence facil­i­ty, as well as a civ­il-mil­i­tary research library, which have been estab­lished to facil­i­tate the deliv­ery of the Centre’s pro­grams in train­ing and edu­ca­tion, con­flict man­age­ment and pre­ven­tion, gov­er­nance and the rule of law, human­i­tar­i­an, recov­ery and dis­as­ter man­age­ment, and research. 

“I com­mend the Cen­tre for its achieve­ments to date, and wel­come the con­tri­bu­tion it is mak­ing to Australia’s nation­al capac­i­ty to man­age more effec­tive­ly its response to con­flicts and dis­as­ters over­seas,” Sen­a­tor Feeney said. 

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

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