Twenty-five Republic of Fiji Military Navy sailors are confirmed as members of the RFNS Kikau team preparing for ‘Exercise KAKADU’.

Exercise KAKADU is a joint-enabled, biennial exercise hosted by the Royal Australian Navy and supported by the Royal Australian Air Force.

Exercise KAKADU is the Navy’s premier maritime exercise, developing interoperability between nations in the maritime and air domains and providing training opportunities for maritime security and surveillance.

Navy Commander Captain (Navy) Humphrey Tawake while finalising the number of Fijian participants said he was also on the list.

“We have a ship compliment of 21 with some officers to be engaged as observers,” Capt (Navy) Tawake said.

“A senior officer is attending the VIP conference day; in total 25 Fiji Navy personnel are participating.”

HMS Kikau departs from Cairns on Friday, August 24 for Darwin in the Northern Territory, Australia.

50 naval vessels are expected to be part of this year’s 14-day KAKADU exercise on the first week of next month (September).

“The purpose is for enhancement of Original Corporation in terms of maritime security and working towards best practices of interoperability between navies,” he said.

“It is a two way learning – we learn from them as much as they learn from how we do things.

“But whatever happens,  the fact is what it brings; for example earthquakes in terms of refuge displacement of people those are the common challenges that we face and same thing we can learn from the practice and how they manage it,” Capt (Navy) Tawake said.

Benefits, he said are capacity building learning from other and exchanging of ideas, training, and exchange of personnel and sharing information.

Exercise KAKADU participating nations include Australia, Canada, Fiji, France, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Republic of Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Timor Leste, Tonga, United States of America, and Vietnam.

Meanwhile Capt (Navy) Tawake has confirmed the return of the refurbished RFNS Kikau at the end of next month.

The arrival of the RFNS Kikau would be followed by the arrival of new naval vessel RFNS Kacau, donated by the People’s Republic of China.

By 2020 they would be receiving another new vessel from the Australian Government’s “Pacific Patrol Boat” programme.