MEDIA RELEASE

Briefings on the Jindalee Over the Horizon Radar Network

The Defence Project Office and contractors for the Jindalee Operational Radar Network (JORN) will hold public briefings on the Project in Kalgoorlie and Laverton next week.

Briefings to be held in May were cancelled at short notice because a C130 Hercules aircraft bringing Project officials and contractors was no longer available.

The JORN Project Office is responsible for the development of an over-the-horizon radar capability to provide continuous, real-time surveillance of Australia’s northern coastline and approaches, to become an important element in the national defence strategy.

One of the three sites involved in the network is situated about 60 km from Laverton, north-west of Kalgoorlie.

Representatives of the Jindalee Project Office and RLM Management Pty Ltd (a Lockheed-Martin and Tenix Defence Systems Joint Venture company) will be in the Kalgoorlie/Laverton region from next Tuesday to Thursday (Oct 13 -15).

As well as visiting the site near Laverton, where electronic equipment is now being installed in buildings, Project officials will conduct briefings with audio-visual displays to which community leaders and all other members of the public interested in the Project are invited.

The team will be at the Kalgoorlie Town Hall at 7.30pm next Tuesday (Oct 13) and conduct a second briefing at Laverton Shire Hall at 10am on Wednesday (Oct 14) and follow it with public tours of the transmitter and receiver sites.

"We look forward to meeting all people from the Kalgoorlie and Laverton areas and providing them with an update on the work so far, what’s to be done and the contribution this important project will make, in due course, to the defence of our country and shipping lanes," the Director General of Strategic High Frequency Systems, Air Commodore Dick Hedges, said today.

Further information . . .

Tony Underwood: (02) 6265 2703
                (0419) 213 885