By MADELEINE COOREY
SYDNEY — Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said Tuesday that key naval assets could be relocated north to adapt to a changing security landscape and put personnel nearer to their fields of operation.
Rudd, facing national polls on Sept. 7, said moving Sydney Harbour’s Garden Island base to Queensland, in the east, and Western Australia could improve the nation’s ability to sustain operations in the Asia-Pacific.
“Our national security challenges of the future lie to our northeast, to our north, and to our northwest,” the Labor leader said in a foreign policy speech.
“That has been the strategic logic of Australia’s defense policy for the last 30 years. This is a continuum in Australian defense force policy.”
Rudd said the approach underlined Canberra’s enduring interest in regional stability and would better facilitate Australian military responses to humanitarian crises in the Asia-Pacific.
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