By Rob Taylor
(Reuters) - Rising Indian Ocean rivalries as China seeks to safeguard key energy lifelines loom behind an Australian push for a $3 billion fleet of maritime superdrones, which will likely boost intelligence sharing with the United States.
With elections looming and pressure for budget savings, the purchase of up to seven MQ-4C Triton unmanned aircraft has emerged as rare point of bipartisan agreement between Australia's Labor government and conservative opponents, but both sides are reluctant to discuss their wider strategic aims.
"There's not a lot of new money in our policy, (but) we are going into Broad Area Maritime Surveillance, the Triton," said conservative defense spokesman David Johnston, who is likely to become defense minister following the September 14 elections.
The Triton, under development by Northrop Grumman, is the size of a small airliner with a 40-metre wingspan. It can cruise at 20,000 meters for up to 30 hours, sweeping a distance greater than Sydney to London with 360-degree radar and sensors including infra-red and optical cameras.
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