Joint exercise fosters cooperation between Australia, China, the US, and New Zealand

Exercise COOPERATION SPIRIT, a humanitarian assistance and disaster relief exercise involving military personnel from Australia, China, the United States and New Zealand, ended today.

The week-long exercise was held at RAAF Base Williamtown, Newcastle, and involved 10 Australian Defence Force personnel, five personnel from the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, four from the United States Pacific Command, and two from the New Zealand Defence Force.

Chief of Joint Operations Vice Admiral David Johnston, said the exercise was an opportunity to deepen understanding and coordination of our respective humanitarian assistance and disaster relief capabilities and plans.

“The Asia Pacific is a region prone to natural disasters, which makes humanitarian assistance and disaster relief a natural and important area of cooperation between countries in our region,” VADM Johnston said.

“The exercise is designed to build our collective capacity to provide a disaster relief response in the future.”

The exercise consisted of seminars and a table-top activity based on a fictitious scenario of cyclone damage to a South Pacific nation.

“Unfortunately such scenarios do have real-world application with Cyclone Pam impacting on Vanuatu earlier this year,” he said.

The exercise was first undertaken as a bilateral exercise between Australia and China in 2011, and has subsequently been expanded to a quadrilateral exercise between Australia, China, New Zealand and the United States.

Media note:
Imagery will be available later today at: http://images.defence.gov.au/S20153323

Media contact:
Defence Media (02) 6127 1999