CAPT
Phil Pyke
HMAS
Kanimbla, Ex Mercury
(MPEG video 6.77 MB)
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An
SASR trooper scales a ladder up the side of HMAS Kanimbla
as part of Exercise Mercury. Photo: CPL Darren Hilder
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An
armed group took over a floating oil platform on the North West
shelf, an explosion in Port Melbourne destroyed a bus and South
Australian Police foiled the kidnapping of a foreign delegate.
It was serious business, but don’t worry. The events signalled
the start of Exercise Mercury 04.
HMAS Kanimbla played a vital role in assisting operations in the
Timor Sea during the exercise – Australia’s largest
and most ambitious counter-terrorism exercise across three States,
the ACT and the Northern Territory.
The aim of Mercury 04 was to test Australia’s planned and
co-ordinated approach to national security as part of the National
Counter-Terrorism Committee’s four year $15.7 million expansion
of the exercise program.
Mercury 04 is the first major test of the new counter-terrorism
arrangements since extensive preparations were made for the Sydney
Olympics in 2000.
Based around attacks, bombings and kidnappings by a fictitious
terrorist group, the exercise scenario saw the Prime Minister
of Tarajara kidnapped from Victoria and flown to Tasmania.
As the exercise continued, each State and Territory stood up their
respective police forward command posts, police operations centres
and State (or Territory) Crisis Centres.
Premiers, Chief Minister’s and other senior members of government
were also involved as role players as the national counter-terrorism
alert was notionally raised from medium to extreme.
The co-ordinated assaults bought Mercury 04 to a successful conclusion.
While examination of the overall responses will be assessed over
the coming months, Defence Minister, Robert Hill, saw the ADF
contribution as successful.
“The ADF has demonstrated its ability to work with the Commonwealth,
State and Territory authorities to resolve simultaneous terrorist
hostage incidents,” he said.
“Exercise Mercury 04 has proven the newly created Special
Operations Command’s ability to coordinate Defence’s
response and tested the new Special Forces units established by
the Howard Government post September 11th.”
The Minister said defence command and control arrangements were
also tested as part of the coordinated national approach to a
domestic security incident.
“The exercise has provided an invaluable opportunity to test
our counter-terrorism preparedness and serves to highlight the
crucial role the ADF plays in the defence of Australia and the
protection of critical national infrastructure,” he said.
Many months of planning went into making the exercise as realistic
as possible, with dozens of exercise writers, umpires, and observers
involved behind the scenes.
CAPT Pike is a reserve officer and was working with the Tasmanian
Police Service in his capacity as a PAO.
