OneSKY Announcement - Australian International Airshow, Avalon 2015
27th February, 2015
Well, thank you very much for the welcome and can I also acknowledge my ministerial colleagues, Kevin Andrews, Stuart Robert and Darren Chester.Chief of the Air Force, Air Marshal Geoff Brown, Chair of the Airservices Board Sir Angus Houston, Airservices CEO Margaret Staib, Thales Australia CEO Chris Jenkins and other board members of Airservices and all who have a particular interest in the aviation sector and our air traffic control system, and ladies and gentlemen.
It certainly is a pleasure to be here today for an historic announcement. For a very long time, as Australians, we have raised the possibility that we should have a single air traffic control system in this country, where we unite our defence and the civilian air traffic control system into a single unit using the same equipment so that we can have a seamless air traffic control system across the country.
It's been called OneSKY.
Self-evident to everybody that we have one sky but we've managed to draw lines around it to add to the complexity of managing our air space, a complexity which is inevitable when the number of aircraft using that air space continues to grow.
It's anticipated that by 2030 the number of aircraft travelling around Australia will have grown by about 60 per cent. It's already a challenge, particularly at peak times, to ensure that those aircraft remain separated, that both civilian and military flyers can in fact go about their travel safely and reliably.
We've managed that task with the best available equipment. As that task grows bigger then clearly we need the most advanced technology available. So, what is happening now as a result of several years of discussion is that we're moving to a situation where the defence forces and the civilian air traffic controllers will use the same equipment.
That will help to bring the two sectors together. It's a fortuitous occasion in that both the defence system and the civilian system are nearing the end of their lives and need to be replaced.
So, we can buy the one set of equipment and actually deliver the results for all. The safety and the efficiency and the capacity of that system essentially is the infrastructure of the skies. It's critically important to the millions of people who travel domestically and internationally every year. Like so many other countries in the world, we operate a dual-system, now it will become a single system.
Now, that inevitably means that the system will be very complex and, indeed, the system we're moving towards I'm told has 172 operational needs. 51 of these are new capabilities that we don't have now and 87 are capabilities that we only partially have now.
So, we're looking at a very substantial step up in technology and in the equipment and the services that will be available. We have reached the stage in the discussions where it is possible now to identify a supplier of the equipment that will needed and a forward works contract will be signed today.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the time when Airservices was established as our national air navigation service provider. So, as we look to the next 20 years of growth in aviation, this investment in technology marks another new phase for our aviation sector.
There'll be greater harmonisation of our civilian and our military air traffic systems and our operations and I'm looking forward to a new era of cooperation between the defence forces and I commend Airservices Australia and the defence force for the cooperation that has already been achieved for us to be able to come to this day at the birth of a OneSKY's navigation and air traffic control system for our country.
So, ladies and gentlemen I am very pleased to announce today, and I guess it will come as no surprise because we have a representative of the company sitting...
[Laughter]
...on the table and I don't think he expects to get bad news...
[Laughter]
I am delighted to announce today the selection of Thales Australia as the designated tenderer for the delivery of Australia's first ever civil military air traffic control system, civil and military air traffic control system and for the signing of the forward works contract.
So, may I congratulate Thales on being the successful tenderer and we look forward to working with you, continuing the long standing relationship there has been in this field over the years which I am sure will be beneficial to you but also the air travellers in this country.
[Applause - ENDS]
