FOUR years after the Thales Hawkei was named as the federal government’s preferred option to replace the Australian Defence Force’s ageing Land Rover fleet, workers at the manufacturer’s Bendigo plant on Tuesday tasted the spoils of success with a staff celebration following the recent tender announcement.
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Details of the $1.3 billion contract to build 1100 of the lightly armoured vehicles were announced in Monegeetta by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Defence Minister Marise Payne on Monday
Thales vice president Kevin Wall briefed Bendigo staff on the win. He said workers were “delighted” by the news.
With several Hawkei variants and 11 different models of the company’s older and larger Bushmaster vehicle, Thales Australia had built an impressive export catalogue, he said.
“The message here is about securing production, securing the future, securing employment and the possibility for export for both of our vehicles,” he said.
Mr Wall said the export potential of the Hawkei could be as much as $2 billion.
“We want to do to the value in international orders of what we’ve done in Australia at least. We’re looking at a market of $1-2 billion in the export pipeline,” he said.
Mr Wall said staff had put in a huge effort to win the tender.
“It’s taken a lot of effort, a lot of engineering and a lot of testing,” he said.
“We’ve got a customer in the army that really cares about their soldiers and genuinely wants to provide the best protection they can give them in the battlefield.
“When you have a customer that has that demand it’s not easy to finalise the design of the vehicle and get it into production.
“We’ve done it now and we’re now going through a process to do the final engineering and once we’re through those we will be in production. It’s exciting.”
The Hawkei project is slated to sustain hundreds of jobs within Bendigo and further afield.
“[On Monday morning] there were less job opportunities in Victoria than there are today. There are a lot of jobs flowing both in regional Victoria, Victoria itself and outside Victoria that will flow on in the supply chain,” Mr Wall said.
It’s expected the project will sustain 170 jobs in Bendigo.
“Theses are really sustainable jobs,” Mr Wall said.
“As we go down off high-rate production of the Bushmaster, we go into a ramping up of Hawkei so we’re sustaining employment with some additional jobs, mostly in engineering and project management,” he said.
Shop floor manufacturing jobs will be created when production of the Hawkei increases to two vehicles a day.
Mr Wall paid tribute to those who advocated for the Hawkei.
“We’ve been well supported locally by the community, by the local members and well supported by the government throughout this project,” he said.
Hawkei production is expected to begin by mid-2017 with the first vehicles delivered by the end of that year.