Second Minister for Defence Ong Ye Kung visited the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) training in Exercise Wallaby 2017 at the Shoalwater Bay Training Area (SWBTA) in Queensland, Australia today. This year's exercise is conducted from 3 September to 4 November 2017 and involves about 4,000 SAF personnel and 400 platforms from the Singapore Army, the Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) and the Republic of Singapore Navy.     

During the visit, Mr Ong witnessed an Air-Land integrated live-firing mission involving the Army's Light Strike Vehicles Mark II (LSV MK II) and the RSAF's AH-64D Apache Attack Helicopters, and fired the Spike Anti-Tank Guided Missile onto simulated targets. As part of the visit, Mr Ong participated in a mission flight on board the Apache helicopter to better appreciate the close integration between the air and land forces, and embarked on a familiarisation ride on board the LSV MK II and the Bionix II Infantry Fighting Vehicle to experience the rough terrain and challenging conditions in SWBTA. He also interacted with the SAF troops, commended them for their professionalism and commitment, and shared the importance of National Service in ensuring the security of Singapore.

Speaking at the end of his visit, Mr Ong highlighted the importance that the SAF placed on the safety of all servicemen during training. Mr Ong said, “All of them (commanders) briefed me on the exercise scenarios, the concepts, as well as all the safety measures that they had been taking all these years. And they are very thorough...But most importantly, the mindset of the commanders, it left me a deep impression that in all our commanders, the mindset of safety is in their culture. So they have to balance between having realistic, challenging training but at the same time ensuring the safety of all our servicemen.” Mr Ong also shared the importance of the SAF's training at SWBTA. Mr Ong added, “We conduct fifty percent of our training overseas, and Exercise Wallaby in Australia, and Shoalwater Bay Training Area is one of the most important destinations for our training. Here, because of the wide span of space you see here, four times the size of Singapore, we get to conduct training at the scale, scope and complexity that we cannot do in Singapore or elsewhere.” 

Exercise Wallaby 2017 marks the 27th year of the SAF's training at SWBTA, and is a testament to the close and long-standing defence relationship between Singapore and Australia. The SAF and the Australian Defence Force share a long history of military cooperation, with extensive interactions that include joint operational deployments in in countries such as East Timor, Afghanistan and Iraq, bilateral exercises such as Exercise Matilda and Exercise Trident, multilateral exercises such as Exercise Pitch Black, mutual visits, professional exchanges and the cross-attendance of courses.