Australia – Singapore Defence Cooperation

I met Singapore’s Deputy Prime Min­is­ter and Min­is­ter for Defence, Mr Teo Chee Hean in Can­ber­ra today, Mon­day 22 Novem­ber.
Deputy Prime Min­is­ter Teo is vis­it­ing Aus­tralia from Fri­day 19 Novem­ber to Tues­day 23 Novem­ber.
This is my sec­ond meet­ing with Deputy Prime Min­is­ter Teo since my appoint­ment as Min­is­ter for Defence. We pre­vi­ous­ly met dur­ing the ASEAN-Plus Defence Min­is­ters’ Meet­ing, held last month in Hanoi.

Dur­ing our meet­ing today we dis­cussed the close coop­er­a­tion between Aus­tralia and Sin­ga­pore on a range of shared strate­gic and defence inter­ests, includ­ing our coop­er­a­tion in Uruz­gan Province in Afghanistan, and our secu­ri­ty coop­er­a­tion in Asia-Pacif­ic region. 

I dis­cussed the out­comes of the NATO/ ISAF Sum­mit in Lis­bon over the weekend. 

Sin­ga­pore and Aus­tralia have a close defence part­ner­ship based on shared his­to­ry, com­mon strate­gic inter­ests and prac­ti­cal coop­er­a­tion between our defence forces. 

The Five Pow­ers Defence Arrange­ments, which Aus­tralia and Sin­ga­pore share with Malaysia, New Zealand and the Unit­ed King­dom, will mark its 40th anniver­sary in 2011. 

Aus­tralia and Sin­ga­pore con­tin­ue to work togeth­er to strength­en the region’s peace and secu­ri­ty archi­tec­ture through coop­er­a­tion in forums like the ASEAN Region­al Forum and the ASEAN-Plus Defence Min­is­ters’ Meeting. 

Dur­ing his vis­it, Deputy Prime Min­is­ter Teo will also meet Prime Min­is­ter Julia Gillard and For­eign Min­is­ter Kevin Rudd. 

Since 1995, Aus­tralia and Sin­ga­pore have had an agree­ment on the use of Shoal­wa­ter Bay, near Rock­hamp­ton in Queens­land, for annu­al Sin­ga­pore Armed Forces exer­cis­es. On Fri­day 19 Novem­ber, Deputy Prime Min­is­ter Teo observed these exercises. 

I look for­ward to see­ing Deputy Prime Min­is­ter Teo in Aus­tralia again in 2011, when Aus­tralia hosts the Sin­ga­pore-Aus­tralia Joint Min­is­te­r­i­al Com­mis­sion, the bien­ni­al meet­ing of For­eign, Defence and Trade Min­is­ters from both our countries. 

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

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