Northern Stevedoring Services has been contributing to the success of one of the largest exercises undertaken by the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) in Australia.
About 6200 SAF soldiers training in Shoalwater Bay are supported by armour, tanks, and fighter planes, as well as logistics, reconnaissance and other corps.
It was an intense time NSS stevedoring manager Scott Neame said.
“Once a year we have the Singapore Army come in for their exercise in Shoalwater Bay and they run a pretty tight schedule,” he said.
“We’ve got a two-week turnaround to have them unloaded through all the processes of getting them into the country and then trucked out into Shoalwater Bay.
“It’s quite a bit of demand on our team to have a good smooth discharge operation of the equipment when it comes in.”
Main image: Singapore Armed Forces train at Shoalwater Bay
NSS also handled the dangerous cargo for the live exercises Scott said.
The SAF was pro-active in meeting the high import standards for the exercise he said.
“AQIS (Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service) do a very important job to keep anything out of country that could impact on our agricultural industry or native wildlife,” he said.
“They actually pre-wash all their vehicles over in Singapore and fly an inspection agent over to Singapore to pre-inspect them. Then it’s a quicker process when they get to Australia.
“NSS also has the ability to do that because we have AQIS-approved wash bays in Gladstone and we’ll get the guys in and we essentially strip the vehicles down and pull them apart and wash every nook and cranny.”
Joining the annual drill, known as Exercise Wallaby, for the first time are three updated pieces of hardware – the H225M helicopter, the Hunter Armoured Fighting Vehicle (AFV) and the ground-based air defence system surface-to-air Python-5 and Derby (Spyder).
The exercise started on 8 September and will end on 3 November. This is about three weeks longer than in previous years.
The Australia Singapore Military Training Initiative was announced in 2015 and designed to build defence capability, enhance Australia’s bilateral relationship with Singapore and provide economic benefits to Central and Northern Queensland.
Photo courtesy Tamil Murasu