Sea Control - Sea Control 568 - An Australian Coast Guard

Episode Date: March 25, 2025

Links1. "Time for an Australian Coast Guard," by Jennifer Parker, Australian Naval Institute, November 2024.2. Twitter: JAParker293. Jennifer Parker personal website.

You're listening to Sea Control, hosted by the Center for International Maritime Security. Aloha, shipmates, and welcome back aboard Sea Control. Today, we're welcoming Jennifer Parker, and we're going to discuss her recent article published by Australian Naval Institute's occasional paper series, Maritime Threats Require a Structural Resync, Time for a Coast Guard. You're listening to Sea Control, hosted by the Center for International Maritime Security. Jennifer, welcome. Could you please tell the audience a bit more about yourself? Hey, Jonathan. Thanks so much for having me on. I'm a girl from rural Australia who joined the

Navy at the age of 17 and spent 21 years in the Navy, leaving last year as a warfare officer. So I served as second in command as HMS Darwin as one of my last sea postings and my last posting in the Navy before retiring last year was as the director of operations of the Combined Maritime Forces based out of Bahrain. Now I work in think tank world and academia. I'm an expert associate at the National Security College here in Australia and also attached to the University of New South Wales, the Australian Defence Force Academy and a few other think tanks. really writing on Australian defence and policy issues with a specific interest in maritime, given my previous history. And as a reminder, all opinions are our own and not reflective of any institution with which we might be otherwise associated. Could you walk us through just what a Coast Guard is specifically, and how does Australia handle its maritime issues currently?

It should be a short answer of what a Coast Guard is, but it's actually not so straightforward, because different countries deal with the idea of a Coast Guard differently. Now, primarily, a Coast Guard is the maritime capability responsible for law enforcement within a country's maritime domain. Sometimes that also involves the search and rescue capability, as it does, obviously, in the US, and other responsibilities. And they often sit on the spectrum between that civil law enforcement towards that paramilitary role.

Australia doesn't have a Coast Guard, which seems strange, right? When you think about the fact that Australia is an island nation, it has the third largest exclusive economic zone in the world. In fact, its exclusive economic zone is 10,000 square kilometers, which is actually bigger than its landmass, which is crazy when you think about that. But Australia, really, its maritime security set up lists on a couple of different organizations. So broadly, we actually have over 30 departments and agencies that have a stake in the maritime domain. When it comes to our search and rescue functions, which is normally associated with a

Coast Guard, we have the Australian Maritime Safety Authority that is responsible for the safety and search and rescue functions. When it comes to the maritime law enforcement functions more broadly, kind of outside of three nautical miles from our coast, it comes down to Maritime Border Command, which is a multi-agency headquarters established in 2005 under a different name but basically the same construct. Now the thing about Maritime Border Command is it's our operational headquarters to deal with maritime security incidents within our maritime domain, focus on civil maritime security, but it doesn't have its own people or assets. So as a multi-agency task force it requires support from the Australian Defence Force and also support from our Australian

Border Force who are responsible for protection of our borders. Now our Australian Border Force has a small maritime unit, which is about 550 people. They've got about 11 small patrol vessels. They've got one large whole kind of long haul vessel, and they lease about 10 Dash 8s and a couple of helicopters. So broadly, when it comes to the civil maritime security threats in Australia, it's often supported by the Royal Australian Navy. So out of the patrol force that NBC, maritime border command use about 14 of those vessels are actually royal australian navy patrol craft and often that has to be supplemented with other navy capabilities so really one of the challenges in australia is because we don't have that coast guard function we have a small

maritime border force capability of about 550 people which again when you think about the fact that australia has the third largest exclusive economic zone in the world is quite a challenge and then it's supplemented by the navy and i think that's a bit of a structural problem given the current geostrategic circumstances we're facing in the indo-pacific so what has changed to warrant the creation of a coast guard now in australia's history there have been debates about a coast guard the last really significant debate was in the early 2000s and you've got to remember in the early 2000s kind of after 9-11 there was a big focus on the threat of maritime terrorism and how do countries strengthen their maritime borders to focus on that? And then for Australia,

we went through a phase of a big focus on irregular migration via sea, which had been a big policy focus for our governments. And so at that time, there was a discussion about how do you best deal with this? And certainly in the early 2000s, the judicial circumstances were different. We weren't thinking about the ideas of major power conflict. So the design of a multi-agency structure that relies on ADF and our border force seemed fine, right? That seemed to make sense. Now, 20 years on from that, I guess there's a couple of things that have changed that makes me think we really need to rethink it. I think the first thing is 20 years of operating that structure, we've consistently seen that the Australian Border Force Maritime Unit, despite the

hard work of the women and men who serve in it, has often struggled to meet the government-directed sea patrol day requirements and the aerial surveillance requirements and so that's had to be picked up by the Australian Defence Force. So I guess in 20 years we've learned that hey this probably isn't the right structure and we haven't really resourced the border force maritime element. I think the second thing that's happened is maritime security threats have evolved in the last 20 years. You know we're recording this in late November and we've seen again more attacks in Europe on subsea cables. Australia depended on subsea cables for 99% of its data.

We're seeing developments in terms of maritime militias in the South China Sea. We're seeing weaponisation of long-range fishing fleets. So maritime security threats are starting to change. With grey zone warfare and hybrid warfare, that divide between civil and military maritime security isn't as clear anymore. And so I think that puts more stress on the organisation and certainly I think it requires a higher degree of capability for a civil maritime security organisation and a higher degree of training. And I think the third element that has fundamentally changed in the last 20 years is the geostrategic circumstances in our region.

So in 2020, Australia released a defence strategic update that said, hey, this idea of strategic warning time that we've always talked about, it doesn't really exist anymore. And so prior to our Defence Strategic Update in 2020, Australia had this concept for force design, for instance, defence forces, that you would have kind of 10 years' notice of the chances of a major conflict in the region that impacted Australia. And in 2020, we said in our strategic documentation, hey, we don't have 10 years' notice. Actually, there might be a conflict in the region. Now, I don't think a conflict in the Indo-Pacific is inevitable or probable, but there's certainly a lot of trend lines that are indicating that's increasingly likely and it's certainly possible

and so that defence strategic update in 2020 was backed up by a defence strategic review for Australia in 2023 that reinforced that view that there's no strategic warning time anymore and we kind of need to be preparing for the chances of a conflict but also highlighted that Australia because of our internal structural setup that we rely on the Australian Defence Force too much to deal with civil assistance to the community. And so I think that third point is really that the chances of the conflict in a region are increasing, the defence force needs to be focused on high-end warfare, and we can't be pulling them back to what is a civil constabulary function. And so for those three reasons, I think we really need to revisit this conversation

in Australia, and what is the appropriate maritime security structure? And my paper suggests that we really do need to look at the idea of a paramilitary coast guard to look at that civil maritime security law enforcement, but also that maritime home defense focus to really free up the Navy to focus on that high-end warfare elements. So what capability does Australia currently lack and how do you see them being rectified with this issue? When we think about capability, in some ways what we're talking about is what is the capacity that's being sucked up and what is the opportunity cost. Australia has a navy of about 16,000 people,

10 surface combatants, two large amphibious craft, a couple of tankers, a patrol force of about 14 patrol craft, some hydrographic vessels etc etc. In terms of its Australian border force maritime unit I think I mentioned before it's about 550 people, it's about 11 patrol craft, two fast interceptors and a long-haul vessel. If you group all that together, look, that's certainly broadly enough capability to be able to police your own exclusive economic zone. But the problem is that that draws upon the Navy really heavily to do that. So if you want to free up the Navy to focus on high-end warfare, which is what our strategic documentation says we need to be doing given the geostrategic circumstances, then actually you're down to pretty limited capability in terms of your

border force maritime unit. And I mentioned before the structure for that border force maritime unit is they actually lease aircraft, so about 10-8, a couple of helicopters to support that aerial surveillance. So I think in terms of what do we actually lack, I think we lack a joined up paramilitary force with the capability in terms of the numbers of vessels, but also the types of vessels, but also the training to be able to respond to those evolving maritime threats without relying on the Defence Force, which needs to be focused on high-end challenges. There are some other areas too. So Australia, of course, we are a three-ocean nation here. The Southern Ocean in Australia doesn't get a lot of focus, but the Southern Ocean is a pretty hard area to operate

in. We don't tend to have a lot of capability that can operate down there. Previously, we've had to do some illegal fishing operations down there to chase Patagonian toothfish, and we've had to send our frigates to do that. We don't have a civil maritime capability that really is built to operate in the Southern Ocean. So again, if we're thinking about a Coast Guard, that's certainly a capability I think that we need to bolster. But I think too, when you think about the idea of structure, often when we think about capability, we think about numbers. But often with these challenges, I think what you need to be talking about is what is the capacity to deal with the evolving maritime security threats. And capacity is definitely a question of capability, it's a

question of workforce but it's also a question of do you have the most efficient structure and I think after 20 years of the current structure in Australia the bifurcation of civil and military maritime security the multi-agency structure that relies on the Australian Defence Force to do a lot of those civil functions I think we've learned that that structure is just not right and whilst we may have been able to plug those gaps using the Navy and the Air Force over the last 20 years those two services need to be focused more on what is happening in the region, what is happening in the South China Sea, and what is happening more broadly around. So I think that that capacity issue is what needs to be addressed here, not necessarily just buying a new type of ship or

a new type of aircraft. In your paper, you mentioned that Australia's current maritime strategy is an issue. Could you go into what it is and why is it interfering with this? I think maritime strategy is one of those things that countries often struggle with, right? And people who look at strategic issues generally start with critiquing their country's maritime strategy. So one of those challenging areas. From an Australian perspective, we think about maritime strategy as a bifurcated strategy between civil and military. So when it comes to our articulated strategies or our released strategies, we have a civil maritime strategy that was released by our Department of Home Affairs, who is in charge of our maritime border command, so not our Department of Defence. In 2022, it talks about the maritime security threats to Australia, right? And from a civil perspective, it lists those maritime security threats as unauthorised maritime arrivals, prohibited imports and exports, illegal exploitation of natural resources, which clearly includes illegal fishing, illegal activity in protected areas, compromise to

biosecurity, maritime terrorism, piracy, robbery at sea. I think the problem with separating our civil and military maritime strategies is there's a gap in between. That is the grey zone threats, the hybrid warfare that we're seeing across the world in the maritime domain. I think also when you look at Australia's civil maritime security strategy, it doesn't use the word subsea cable and it doesn't use the word undersea cable. And so when you think about the fact, and I mentioned before, you know, 99% of Australia's internet data goes through subsea cables. We're an island nation. That is one of our key vulnerabilities.

The last three years, we've seen significant attacks in Europe on subsea cables and undersea pipelines. So it kind of misses that out. It also separates out search and rescue because that belongs to a different department. So that's not part of our maritime civil strategy. So I think one of the challenges with it is when you bifurcate your strategy between civil and military from a maritime perspective, and then you leave out exceptions for subsea cables, you leave out exceptions for search and rescue, you leave out exceptions for pollution. There's so much area and so many gaps that threats can kind of fall in between. Like, who is responsible for that?

I think there's some key questions in Australia in terms of who's responsible for port security. During World War II, Sydney Harbour was attacked by a number of Japanese midget submarines. A number of Australians, and in fact, sadly, a number of Americans lost their lives during that attack. Take that forward to 2024 and think from a geostrategics perspective, right? If Australian ports were a threat, say that's from underwater drones, who's responsible for that protection? And I'm not sure that that's clear in our strategy.

Who's responsible for protecting subsea cables, right? I think that those things could be addressed by a more joined up strategy, but also a more joined up structure that supports that strategy. And I think, you know, so my paper talks about having a Coast Guard that is really anointed as responsible for maritime security against civil threats within the exclusive economic zone, freeing up the Navy. Now, of course, there would be certain capabilities, you know, when we talk about subsea cable protection for example that they would need to rely on the ADF to support in the same way that

in the event of a maritime terrorism event our defense force would certainly be involved because of the capabilities they offer. But I think a more joined up strategy that links civil and military maritime security would be a good approach and the structures under that including a coast guard would assist. I just don't think with the blurring of civil and military maritime threats across the world, you can really separate them out that way. So I think that's one of the challenges with Australia's maritime strategy. What policy recommendations have you laid out and how do you envision the Coast Guard doing its work and how would it be structured? So in terms of the policy recommendations laid out in the paper, look, the first thing is the paper is about 7,000

words. So it certainly doesn't solve all of the problems whatsoever. And so really the first one is that the Australian government needs to conduct a review into our maritime security requirements, including the consideration of a Coast Guard. And part of that review needs to also consider that streamlining existing maritime agencies where feasible. And I mentioned before, right, that Maritime Search and Rescue for Australia

is actually not a part of our Maritime Border Command. That is a separate organisation, as is Fisheries Management, as is a bunch of other organisations. So looking at how do we streamline those civil structures and then how do we join a lot of them up under the idea of a Coast Guard? There's going to have to be conversations in that in terms of trade-off, in terms of impact of capabilities on the Australian Defence Force. There's a big question in Australia about defence funding. So we currently spend about 2% of GDP on defence.

That's going to increase to about 2.4% by the end of the decade. There's a lot of pressure on that funding. You probably would know, your listeners would know, that Australia is going through the process of acquiring nuclear-powered submarines and a bunch of other things. So certainly there needs to be a study that looks at the feasibility and looks at the funding. I have recommended, though, that we do establish a Coast Guard, and we could do that fairly quickly with the transfer of the patrol capability, so those 14 patrol vessels from the Navy and associated personnel and the ABF, Australian Border Force Maritime Unit, into a Coast Guard. For the structure, I've recommended that the Coast Guard become a separate statutory authority under the Minister for Home Affairs. And I think that's important.

It's not under the Minister for Defence. It's under the Minister for Home Affairs because the primary function is actually that civil law enforcement. But you do need paramilitary capability to be able to do that and step that up into the changing maritime security threats as they evolve. I've also looked at there the transferring of Australia's offshore patrol vessels that we're currently building to the Coast Guard. Look, they're about a 1600 ton vessel. They've got a 25 millimeter gun on it. They're not particularly survivable in the event of a conflict. So they're really not a vessel designed for naval operations. I've looked at whether we could consider, instead of leasing aircraft, which is what we do for Australian Border Force to give that aerial surveillance capability, whether we actually just straight away transfer some of the Australian Air Force's C-27 Spartans to a Coast Guard. And we know that the US Coast Guard, for example, operates C-27 Spartans in that aerial surveillance role.

The other elements there is recommending the designation of an Australian Coast Guard as a lead for maritime law enforcement within Australia's exclusive economic zone. That is currently the Maritime Border Command, which again, as I mentioned before, is that multi-agency structure that is staffed with a lot of Australian Defence Force personnel and a lot of Royal Australian Navy capabilities. And then the other elements to talk about, well, in the event of a potential maritime crisis or conflict, that that Coast Guard would be set up in legislation that it could be transferred to the Department of Defence under the Minister for Defence and the Chief of Defence Force in the event of a crisis or conflict. So one of the other elements that

I've recommended to be able to do that is looking at the employment conditions of the Coast Guard. Currently, Australian Border Force Maritime Unit, great bunch of people who work very hard, they are considered public servants for the purposes of our legislation on workplace relations in Australia, which means they can unionise. It also means they could strike if they wanted to. Australian Defence Force can't do that because we need the flexibility and the availability. So looking at the conditions of service of this Coast Guard, making sure that they are adequately remunerated, similar to the Australian Defence Force, and making them effectively, under our Defence Act, classified as defence members. So they can't unionise,

they can't strike, they need to be flexible and available, but they are appropriately remunerated for that so they're kind of the the policy recommendations in terms of the structure as i mentioned before independent statutory authority in australia coming under our department of home affairs transferring to our department of defense in the event of conflict which i think is a fairly similar setup potentially to the u.s coast guard are transferring all of that patrol force capability immediately to the coast guard and then looking at bolstering their capability in terms of dealing with threats to maritime infrastructure and operations in our southern ocean. Certainly from a training perspective I think one of the difference between you know this

idea of Australian Border Force Maritime Unit and a Coast Guard is that paramilitary training that allows you to step up to a higher level of threats and so I think a key element of an Australian Coast Guard would be the establishment of a Coast Guard Academy and there are some benefits to that too because Australia is one of the only countries in this region that doesn't have a Coast Guard but we do actually provide a lot of training and support to regional countries. We have our Pacific Patrol Boat Program which we've renamed but I can't remember the name off the top of my head where we provide patrol boats and training to the Pacific. We provide similar capabilities to some countries such as Sri Lanka, areas in Southeast Asia. So this Coast Guard Academy

could actually be a bit of a regional hub as well to provide skills and potentially become sort of a centre of excellence for Coast Guard operations. So I think you can link that in. I mentioned before the Pacific Patrolboat Program, where Australia provides that assistance and capability to the Pacific. It's now renamed as our Pacific Maritime Support Program. So I think that is the general structure. In terms of the headquarters, I would move away from the Maritime Border Command multi-agency structure and make that a Coast Guard operational headquarters, of course, with appropriate liaison officers from departments

and from the Defence Force, but with the Coast Guard bearing the majority of the burden of the workforce for that headquarters as opposed to it being borne by the Australian Defence Force. So that's kind of the structure that I've looked at and recommended in this paper. Unfortunately, that's all the time we have for today. I'd like to thank my guest, Jennifer Orker.

Jennifer, where can we find you online and what are you working on next? Thanks so much, Jonathan. You can find me online in a few places, not to cross-publicize, but I do a weekly Maritime Matters podcast, which is available on most podcasts with Richard Dunley, where we look at issues across the Indo-Pacific affecting Australia's maritime security. I've also got a website, so it's just jennifertackparker.com.au.

And yeah, you can find most of the articles I've been writing, publications, media, etc. In terms of what I'm working on next, I'm actually switching my mind to Australia's defence export controls, which might seem a really weird shift from looking at the structure of a Coast Guard. But as I mentioned before, you may have heard about this AUKUS thing. It's pretty important for Australia. So I'm working on a piece of, okay, well, what have we done with the US to address just export controls to support AUKUS and what needs to happen next.

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