Australia's role is to keep peace in region

CANBERRA - Australia's 2013 Defence White Paper underlines the country's role in keeping peace in the Indo-Pacific region, Prime Minister Julia Gillard said at a press conference of launching the white paper on Friday.

According to Gillard, there had been significant changes since the country's 2009 White Paper. This included a shift in global economic and strategic weight to the region, the renewed US focus on the pacific, Australian Defence Force (ADF) drawdowns in Afghanistan, Timor-Leste and the Solomon Islands and the global financial crisis.

"The white paper underlines the enormous stake Australia has in managing strategic change in the Indo-Pacific region and managing it peacefully, in particular in an US-China relationship in which competition is minimized and co-operation maximized," she said.

She said the white paper reaffirms the importance of "our longstanding Alliance with the United States as our most important relationship and a cornerstone of our defence policy."

"The United States' rebalance to our region presents further opportunities for cooperation with Australia through a range of enhanced practical cooperation measures," she added.

According to the white paper, Australia will adopt a "long-term" goal of raising defence spending to 2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). And defence spending this financial year was expected to be around 1.56 percent of GDP.

Defence spending estimated over the four year forward had topped 100 billion AU dollars (almost $102.5 million) for the first time, Gillard said. "In this year's budget we will once again allocate more than 100 billion AU dollars to defence over the forward estimates."

The key spending changes include the purchase of 12 EA-18G Growler electronic attack aircraft, which are basically F/A-18 Super Hornets fitted with technology capable of scrambling enemy aircraft systems.

And Gillard's Labor government has decided to focus on two design options for the Future Submarine Program, either an "evolved Collins Class" or new options suited to Australia's strategic requirements.

Another key announcement is that further detailed work will be done on establishing a land-based test facility in Adelaide - the Submarine Propulsion Energy Support and Integration Facility - which will assist submarine capability design, delivery and sustainment.