The marine precinct home to Australia’s HMAS Cairns naval base in Far North Queensland will receive $24 million worth of critical upgrades as part of a coalition Liberal-National Party election pledge.
In light of Beijing signing a security pact with the Solomon Islands, a small Pacific island nation just 1,700 kilometres from HMAS Cairns, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the critical upgrades to the marine maintenance precinct were “incredibly important.”
“HMAS Cairns has played a very important role [in the Pacific],” Morrison told reporters in Cairns on April 28.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison addresses the media at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, on April 10, 2022. (Martin Ollman/Getty Images)
“This is where we’re providing patrol boats to every single Pacific Island Forum nation as part of our responsibilities, as we understand it, to help them to secure their own fisheries,” Morrison added. “This is what we’ve been doing for some time.”
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