1 March 1987
In March 1987, Defence Minister Kim Beazley announced that the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) would become a two-ocean navy. It involved basing half of its fleet at HMAS Stirling in Western Australia, with the other half remaining in its bases on the east coast.
The announcement was made as part of the 1987 Defence white paper, The Defence of Australia. It placed an emphasis, among other considerations, on self-reliance and the ability to prevent an adversary from attacking Australia via its northern approaches.
Defence’s military planning priorities were spread across two areas:
- Direct military interest, or territories and ocean areas proximate to Australia (Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand and the south-west Pacific)
- Broader strategic interests, such as south-east Asia, Indochina and the eastern Indian Ocean.
The area of direct military interest stretched more than 7,000 kilometres from the Cocos Islands to New Zealand and the south-west Pacific. It also stretched over 5,000 kilometres from the Indonesian archipelago in the north to the Southern Ocean.
The country’s economic and security interests were spread across thousands of kilometres of ocean. It was not only to the east but to the west into the Indian Ocean and northern archipelago. To meet these interests, the RAN needed bases on both sides of the country.
In January 1984, HMAS Stuart was the first major warship to make Stirling its home port. HMAS Swan followed in 1985, Derwent and Oxley in 1987, and Orion in 1992. Fleet Base West became a major hub for operations. The development of Stirling enabled the fleet to operate for longer in the north and north-west of Australia.