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16th November 2017
Promoting defence engineering careers/Shadow Minister headlines final day of SubSTEC4
Team Triton ROV presentation/Poster papers session (Wednesday, 15 November)
Three members of Team Triton ROV, the students from Adelaide’s Prince Alfred College who recently attended the launch of “Subs in Schools” in London (as the winner of the Australian finals), provided one of the highlights of SubSTEC4.
Late on day three of the conference, they told delegates at the Adelaide Convention Centre about their trip, the planning that went into it and how they are now much more aware of the importance of STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) as a result of their overseas adventure.
The boys brought the remotely-operated under-water vehicle which brought them so much success to their presentation.
They described how they had learned about the physics of neutral buoyancy and trim of the vehicle.
One of the skills they learned was marketing, with the team explaining that it set up a website and a Twitter handle to promote what they were doing.
Members of Triton ROV are setting a fine example to other school students who are aiming to become the defence engineers of the future.
The Submarine Institute of Australia (SIA) was a proud sponsor of Triton ROV’s trip.
Day three of SubSTEC4 concluded with a Poster Papers session, where university students workshopped ideas with senior defence industry executives who attended the conference.
Final day of plenary sessions – Day 4 (Thursday, 16 November)
The Shadow Minister for Defence, Hon Richard Marles MP, delivered a keynote speech on the fourth and final day of SubSTEC4, drawing on his learnings since his first address at a Submarine Institute of Australia (SIA) conference 12 months earlier.
Mr Marles restated that in almost all cases, the Labor Opposition is taking a bipartisan approach on defence policy issues because Australia’s national security is beyond day-to-day party politics.
“There’s some parts of our (Australia’s) policies that have longer time-frames and our approach to national security – and especially submarines – is one of them,” he said.
“One of the things I’ve come to appreciate in the past year is that our approach to submarines is given stability because the underlying strategic imperative for them is a constant we can rely on.
“The size of our coastline, our distance from the rest of the world and the importance of sea lanes – these facts drive our approach to submarines and their unchanging nature giving continuity to the submarine program across changes of government.
“It’s why Australia has landed in a place where there is bipartisan agreement on the need for 12 long-range submarines.”
Mr Marles repeated the Opposition’s pledge not to significantly disrupt the future submarine program, if it is successful at the next election.
“Labor is a party with no interest in sovereign risk,” he said.
“I want to assure you – as I did last year – that we will honour all contracts that have been signed.
“The Government has found a very good partner in Naval Group Australia.
“It is a world-class company with a strong history of delivering submarine capability for the French and others.”
The SIA would like to thank all speakers, sponsors and delegates who attended SubSTEC4.
Planning is already underway for our next conference, which is scheduled to take place in November 2018.
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