Senator David Feeney, Parliamentary Secretary for Defence, today toured Cultana Training Area in South Australia.
The expansion of the Cultana Training Area is critical for Joint and Combined Arms training for Defence and for Army’s 1st Brigade. An expanded Cultana Training Area also enables future air to ground, ground to air and ship to shore training activities.
A total commitment of $59.5 million in upgrade works will be particularly important to the 7th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (7RAR), which was established at Edinburgh earlier this year.
Among Defence’s suite of training areas, the terrain at Cultana most closely resembles that of Afghanistan. The Training Area consists of small arms ranges, a demolition range, field and driver training areas and a mock Afghan village.
Senator David Feeney said: “The expansion at Cultana will bring additional defence jobs to South Australia and make sure we have the best training facilities available for the Australian Defence Force.”
“Cultana is a great example of tri-service training facilities. It’s location close to the coastline and terrain which resembles Afghanistan makes it an important site for major joint military exercises,” Senator Feeney said.
Senator Feeney also met with a number of pastoralists about the expansion.
He said: “I acknowledge that there has been a long process for a range of affected groups. I’ll be honest, I can’t promise that all the issues will be resolved tomorrow. There are complex legal issues to be worked through.”
“But it is really important that we reach agreements with the pastoral leaseholders and finalise the training area expansion as soon as possible. I want to make sure that the ADF have the best training facilities available and more local defence jobs come to South Australia,” Senator Feeney said.