Canada was always meant to follow the United States in acquiring world-leading Australian radar technology but "things moved quickly" after Donald Trump won the U.S. presidency.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00We're talking about technology developed about four decades ago in Australia, known as the
00:07Jindalee Over-the-Horizon Radar System, or JAWN for short.
00:13Australia uses it to monitor the northern approaches to this country, and it is considered
00:18world-leading.
00:19It can stretch out for thousands of kilometres and uses unique technology to detect incoming
00:27threats.
00:28Overnight, the Canadian new Prime Minister Mark Carney spoke to his Australian counterpart
00:33Anthony Albanese, and then travelled to a remote Arctic region of Canada to make this
00:40announcement of a $6 billion purchase for JAWN to be used in Canada to detect threats
00:47over the Arctic.
00:48This news broke overnight, and the government was not the first here in Australia to announce
00:55it.
00:56It was not the first, obviously, for Canada to do so.
00:59But the Defence Minister Richard Marles, in a subsequent interview with the ABC, speculated
01:04that this could end up being Australia's largest ever military export deal.
01:10We heard the number of $6 billion Canadian dollars mentioned there.
01:15And of course, Australia was also looking to sell this world-leading technology to the
01:21United States first, but that didn't occur.
01:24We understand that under the Trump administration, all Pentagon spending is being closely examined.
01:30But let's hear now from Richard Marles, speaking to the ABC.
01:35What's in prospect here, there's a little water to go under the bridge, but what's in
01:37prospect here is potentially the biggest defence industry export that Australia has ever been
01:42a part of, and that would obviously be very good for Australian industry.
01:47But we've been working very closely with Canada.
01:49I visited my counterpart in Canada well before the inauguration of President Trump last year,
01:57and indeed spoke with him earlier this week.
01:59And we'll continue to partner with a long-term partner of this country.
02:05Defence Minister Richard Marles speaking there.
02:07And obviously, this all comes in the context, Ros, of increasingly frosty relations between
02:12the United States and its northern neighbour, Canada.
02:16We know the Trump administration has been putting a lot of pressure on Canada to lift
02:20its defence spending, also same pressure being applied to Australia.
02:25But part of this Canadian announcement will go to a joint facility run by the United States
02:30and Canada, known as NORAD.
02:33Remains to be seen whether the United States will follow, but Australia is also potentially
02:37looking at another country, the United Kingdom, buying this world-leading technology.