U.S. Embassy in Australia

STATEMENT by Ambassador Caroline Kennedy.

ELECTION DAY | “I came back from the U.S. on Sunday because I wanted to make clear to Australians that no matter who wins, the U.S. has no more trusted or capable ally.” — Ambassador Kennedy Election Day morning with Australian friends.

AUKUS | Today, Ambassador Kennedy addressed the Submarine Institute of Australia on AUKUS. “There's been enormous progress on every single aspect of this program. The U.S. Congress passed bipartisan legislation, enabling a transfer of nuclear power submarines to Australia. Both our countries reformed our export control regimes, which nobody thought was ever going to happen, and we increased our protective security measures to enable seamless technology cooperation. From now, more than 80 percent of our defense trade is license free. The US Navy has made six submarine port visits to HMAS Stirling, culminating in the three-week maintenance period, during which more than 30 Australian sailors conducted maintenance work on the Virginia-Class submarine USS Hawaii, work that had never been done outside of the United States before, and a Royal Australian Navy Lieutenant piloted Hawaii to the harbor alongside Diamantina Pier. He’s one of six Royal Australian Navy officers to complete the U.S. Navy’s nuclear power and submarine training pipelines and serve aboard Virginia class submarines. By the end of the year, those six officers will be joined by eight enlisted Royal Australian Navy sailors who are completing their shore-based training. There are currently 78, soon to be a few more, uniformed members of the Australian Navy trained in the U.S. who will end up serving on U.S. submarines, and just last week, the first Royal Australian Navy officer graduated from our Engineering Duty Officer School in California, and another is working on Masters degrees in naval engineering and business administration as part of the AUKUS program at MIT.” Full remarks ➡️ bit.ly/3YREGBp

There’s an election in the United States tomorrow. Ambassador Kennedy spoke with Vogue Australia about it. 📖 Read it here: bit.ly/40xB6O0

ICYMI | Consul General of NSW and Queensland Christine Elder went on a regional roadshow last month to explore U.S. and Australian cooperation across multiple areas.   Images: 1. Visited CSIRO Parkes Observatory to hear about U.S. and Australian cooperation in radio telescope communications - one of our deepest areas of cooperation. 2. Learned about the UNSW and San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance support for the platypus rescue headquarters at Taronga Conservation Society Australia at Taronga Western Plains Zoo. 3. Attended the Welcome Smoking Ceremony for the 3rd National Gathering on Climate Change with Uncle Lewis Burns, a Tubba-Gah Wiradjuri Elder from Dubbo. 4. Met with Mayor Joshua Black, Mayor of Dubbo Regional Council, and Mike Sutherland, General Manager of Australian Strategic Materials (ASM) to talk economic opportunities in regional NSW.

SYDNEY | Consul General Christine Elder was thrilled to attend Sydney’s Holsworthy Barracks, where the Australian Army has showcased the capabilities of its new Black Hawk helicopter fleet by staging a mock hostage rescue operation on Tuesday using three of the recently U.S. delivered UH-60M aircraft. The helicopters will be used for everything from disaster relief to special operations missions. Ten of the Lockheed Martin produced helicopters are already operating in Australia, with a further two to arrive next month. 📸: MAJGEN King, COL Clark, and CG Elder, photo thanks to United States Department of Defense Defence Australia US Army 🇺🇸🤝🇦🇺

🎧 Mike loves a chat and has a voice made for radio. Mike Sykes — one of our resident diplomats and Parliamentary Advisor to Ambassador Kennedy — stopped by University of Canberra’s Owl Chats podcast to discuss U.S. politics, elections and media with hosts Tia Priest-Willimott and Ben Devlin. 🎙️Have a listen: https://lnkd.in/guSVsdqY

We’re looking forward to joining April Palmerlee 🇺🇸🇦🇺 and the AmCham Australia team for the AmCham Alliance Awards Gala in Sydney on November 14! The Alliance Awards recognize emerging and exceptional Australian and American leaders in artificial intelligence, biotechnology, digital economy, clean energy, quantum, and space. Ahead of the Gala, we welcomed the award finalists to the embassy to say a huge thank you for the incredible work they do to improve our lives. More at the link below! Rich Data Co University of Sydney Kraus Hamdani Aerospace, Inc. Trellis Data Australian Institute for Machine Learning (AIML) Myeloid Therapeutics Vaxxas Pending AI FOXO Technologies Novalith Rux Energy Hysata MicroTau Templar Executives Vantari VR Hannan & Partners Pty Ltd Cocoon Data inndox Q-CTRL QuantX Labs University of Technology Sydney Swinburne University of Technology Equatorial Launch Australia (ELA) The Australian National University Sea Forest Missing Perspectives

Happy Diwali to all! 🪔✨ We join more than 1 billion people around the world lighting diyas and celebrating the fight for good over evil and light over darkness. Arati Shroff shares her experience of the Festival of Lights as an Indian-American Diplomat living in Australia.

Happy Halloween from Ambassador Kennedy and Dr. Schlossberg. 🎃