8/9RAR improving safety standards for defence

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11 March 2021

By: Liam Garman

8/9RAR improving safety standards for defence

8/9RAR is taking part in health and safety assessments during indoor live fire exercises to improve Defence guidelines.

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8/9RAR is currently taking part in health and safety checks to assess how much indoor live firing is safe for soldiers under current guidelines.

The checks are currently taking place at the Greenbank Military Training Area in Brisbane, with an aim being to undertake a battalion level live-fire urban training package while protecting the welfare of soldiers undertaking the exercise.

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The soldiers are examining safe levels of copper exposure produced from the rounds. Currently, Greenbank Military Training Area is equipped with specialised ducts and sensors for soldiers’ welfare.

Simon Stuart, the project manager, outlined that the results are expected to inform Defence on which rounds they should be using in the future.

“This testing is to facilitate and define the exposure levels of copper contaminants for the proposed close target rounds and we’re utilising some pretty innovative designs, providing assurance that the contamination levels fall within the Australian standards for safe work practices,” Stuart said.

“The design is primarily based on air flow across the breathing zone to minimise exposure to copper in the air, and shows what exposure is likely to be encountered by soldiers using the facility.”

Urban training packages are a crucial training component for soldiers, stressed 8/9’s Captain Ryan Kelly.

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“As the battlespace develops over time, conflict in urban spaces will continue to become more predominant, so it’s becoming more important for us to practice and train in an urban environment as opposed to solely in the bush,” CAPT Kelly said.

“The end result will allow us to have large-scale urban facilities that we can safely fire and train through regularly.”

Liam Garman

Editor – Defence and Security, Momentum Media

Liam began his career as a speech writer at New South Wales Parliament before working for world leading campaigns and research agencies in Sydney and Auckland. Throughout his career, Liam has managed and executed international media and communications campaigns spanning politics, business, industrial relations and infrastructure. He’s since shifted his attention to researching and writing extensively on geopolitics and defence. He holds a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Sydney and a Masters in Strategy and Security with Excellence from UNSW Canberra, with a thesis on post-truth, postmodernism and disinformation operations.

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