Hundreds of soldiers to be moved to Townsville in Defence shake up

Townsville is emerging as Australia's new army capital with hundreds of soldiers to be moved there in the coming years.

Transcript

00:00 One of the major changes is that two major Adelaide-based combat units will be disbanded.

00:08 They'll be relocated across the country to Townsville, Darwin and Brisbane, about 800

00:14 personnel all up.

00:15 Now the majority of those, about 500 people plus their families, will end up here in North

00:21 Queensland.

00:23 Now this is the biggest overhaul we've seen of the Army in more than a decade and it'll

00:29 see Townsville's 3rd Brigade becoming, or reforming as the Army's only heavy combat

00:34 formation.

00:35 The city will also host the Army's entire fleet of armoured vehicles, so things like

00:40 tanks and infantry fighting vehicles.

00:43 Townsville will also become home to about half of the Army's aviation capability with

00:48 the new fleet of Apache attack helicopters joining the existing Chinook fleet in the

00:53 city from 2025.

00:56 Now Army's numbers in Adelaide will drop as we see those 800 people posted out, but the

01:02 numbers will eventually rebuild as South Australia becomes home to the Army's long-range strike

01:09 capabilities.

01:10 These changes come in the wake of the Defence Strategic Review which was released earlier

01:15 this year.

01:16 Now that review found the force was no longer fit for purpose amid rising tensions in the

01:21 Indo-Pacific.

01:22 It outlined the need to strengthen Australia's Northern Army bases as well as reposition

01:28 the service for future littoral operations.

01:31 So these changes that will be announced today are designed to sort of reposition the Army

01:37 for future amphibious operations in Australia's immediate region against an adversary like

01:43 China as opposed to waging land wars in the Middle East.

01:47 Now we know that recruitment and retention in the Army has also been a major issue and

01:53 the idea with these changes is to address some of the hollowness in the force by consolidating

01:59 people and resources into key locations.

02:02 But of course here in Townsville seeing an extra 500 personnel plus their families moving

02:08 here in the future will require a rethink about housing because we do have a very tight

02:14 housing market here and that's going to create problems down the track as well.

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