HMAS Ballarat Welcomed Home From Major International Deployment

9 October 2009

Senator Michael Forshaw, Senator for New South Wales, representing both the Prime Minister, the Hon. Kevin Rudd MP, and the Minister for Defence, Senator John Faulkner, today joined family and friends to welcome home the Royal Australian Navy ship HMAS Ballarat to her home port of Garden Island, Sydney, following a six-month international deployment that took her ship's company to 15 ports across the globe.

Senator Forshaw congratulated the crew of HMAS Ballarat on a successful deployment which saw the ship undertake a range of tasks in support of Australia's diplomatic, international security and defence industry interests in Western Europe, North America and North Asia.

"The Northern Trident 2009 deployment has provided the crews of HMAS Ballarat and HMAS Sydney with extensive training and professional development while the ships provided an excellent platform to promote Australian products and export trade internationally," Senator Forshaw said.

In the final leg of the deployment, Ballarat visited Japan and participated in exercises with Japan's Maritime Self Defence Force while Sydney went directly to her home port of Sydney.

"These exercises are a strong reflection of the maturing defence relationship between Australia and Japan," Senator Forshaw said.

The Commanding Officer of Ballarat, CMDR Kevin Turner, praised the dedication and professionalism of the ship's company and described the six month world deployment as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

"While there was a lot of hard work involved with benchmarking our skills against foreign navies, there were also some amazing highlights such as sailing past the Statue of Liberty and berthing in the middle of the New York harbour.

"Another memorable moment for Ballarat's crew was deterring pirate attacks upon merchant vessels while transiting the Gulf of Aden, a testament to the training and capability of all of Ballarat's Officers and Sailors." CMDR Turner said.