Renewed calls for Australian Coast Guard to ease burden on Navy amid mounting regional tensions

As the largest island continent on the planet with a maritime jurisdiction of in excess of 10 million square kilometres, Australia, as a nation and a people, is defined by its relationship with and access to the ocean.

Beyond the social and cultural aspects, our national relationship with the ocean and our maritime approaches has ranged from angst and anxiety through to hostility as a result of our “tyranny of distance”, but that is now changing as this “tyranny of distance” is rapidly replaced by a “predicament of proximity”.

Recognising the centrality of maritime security and stability, the government’s Defence Strategic Review (DSR) reinforced the renewed importance of the nation’s maritime security, with the Royal Australian Navy requiring an immense and comprehensive restructuring to optimise the fleet for the future tactical and strategic challenges we face throughout the Indo-Pacific.

Unpacking this further, the DSR emphasises a three-pronged approach to modernising and expanding the nation’s maritime combat capabilities, including renewing and reinforcing the nation’s commitment to the AUKUS trilateral agreement and the nation’s pathway to delivering the SSN-AUKUS, nuclear-powered submarines, and what is described as: “An enhanced lethality surface combatant fleet, that complements a conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarine fleet, is now essential given our changed strategic circumstances.”

This major step change in the thinking of the Navy’s mission profile, responsibilities, and implications for force structure have been further influenced by the government’s plans to field two distinct tiers that are capable of “enhancing Navy’s capability in long-range strike (maritime and land), air defence, and anti-submarine warfare requires the acquisition of a contemporary optimal mix of Tier 1 and Tier 2 surface combatants, consistent with a strategy of a larger number of small surface vessels”.

Ultimately, this reprioritisation culminated in the “Independent Analysis into Navy’s Surface Combatant Fleet”, which formalised the government’s plans for the next-generation naval surface combatant fleet and an ambitious plan to bring the surface combatant fleet to 26 major surface combatants consisting of:

• Three Hobart class air warfare destroyers with upgraded air defence and strike capabilities.
• Six Hunter Class frigates to boost Navy’s undersea warfare and strike capabilities.
• Eleven new general-purpose frigates that will provide maritime and land strike, air defence and escort capabilities.
• Six new large optionally crewed surface vessels (LOSVs) that will significantly increase Navy’s long-range strike capacity.

In addition to these “major warfighting” capabilities, the government’s analysis also called for 25 minor war vessels to contribute to civil maritime security operations, which includes six of the Arafura Class offshore patrol vessels (OPVs).

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At the time, Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles stressed the importance of this pivot, saying: “Australia’s modern society and economy rely on access to the high seas: trade routes for our imports and exports, and the submarine cables for the data which enables our connection to the international economy.”

In doing so, the Deputy Prime Minister underlines not only the importance of our access to the global and regional maritime commons but also the importance and sanctity of our maritime economic exclusion zones (EEZ) and critical sea lines of communication that flow through, necessitating a greater emphasis on a maritime-based constabulary force, more traditionally known as a Coast Guard.

Enter expert associate at the National Security College, Australian National University, and former Navy officer, Jen Parker, who, in conjunction with the Australian Naval Institute, has published a position piece titled “Time for a Coast Guard: Maritime threats require a structural rethink” in which Parker illuminates the growing need for the formalisation of an Australian Coast Guard in order to ease the mounting burden on an already stretched and ailing Royal Australian Navy.

Setting the scene, Parker says: “Maritime threats require a structural rethink. The evolution of maritime security threats to Australia is complicated by the vastness of its maritime domain and its reliance on maritime resources. With a coastline of nearly 60,000 kilometres, Australia possesses the world’s third-largest EEZ, covering over 10 million square kilometres – larger than its landmass. Additionally, Australia’s search and rescue region spans almost 53 million square kilometres, or one-tenth of the Earth’s surface.

“This immense maritime domain presents substantial challenges for maritime law enforcement and broader security operations. The reduced warning time for potential conflicts in the region only exacerbates these vulnerabilities, further complicating the maritime security landscape.”

‘Like a Coast Guard’ but not quite one

It is no secret that the Royal Australian Navy as a force is in rough shape and has seen better days. This has been highlighted by a number of examples, but most recently, Australia declining to send a ship to the Red Sea in support of maritime security efforts, a lacklustre showing at RIMPAC 2024 exercises, revelations that Australia only has a single Collins Class submarine available for tasking and a host of ship decomissioning.

Yet, the Navy has, for the better part of two decades, been expected to bear the burden of maritime security operations, in conjunction with the multi-agency Maritime Border Command (MBC), originally established in 2005 as part of a multi-agency effort to coordinate and consolidate critical maritime border security operations, assets, personnel and infrastructure.

The creation of this multi-agency border organisation stems from the 2005 Tonkin review, which recommended the creation of a multi-agency maritime security structure “designed to task, rather than own and operate, civil and military assets assigned to the headquarters”, creating the bureaucratic soup that currently characterises the state of Australia’s civil maritime border security organisation.

Highlighting this, Parker says: “MBC operates under the Department of Home Affairs. It is commanded by a two-star admiral in the RAN, who, for the purposes of MBC command, is also a sworn officer in the ABF. This dual role allows the commander of MBC to direct assets from both the ADF and the ABF. Importantly, MBC does not possess its own assets or personnel; instead, it’s multi-agency
structure relies on support from the relevant maritime security agencies.”

While to many, this might seem like a Coast Guard, it isn’t, and, in fact, it leaves a lot to be desired.

Parker explains this, saying: “This is an important distinction, as the MBC is often referred to as ‘like a Coast Guard’ or a de facto Coast Guard. However, the similarities are limited. While MBC is responsible for coordinating maritime law enforcement beyond state jurisdiction, three nautical miles from Australia’s coast, it is fundamentally a coordination body. Staffed primarily by personnel from the ADF and ABF, MBC directs assets from both the ADF and the ABF. MBC is also not responsible for common Coast Guard functions, such as search and rescue. This organisational structure distinguishes MBC from traditional coastguard entities.”

Ultimately, this leaves Australia with a suboptimal response to a mounting series of peer and near-peer challenges across our maritime environment and those areas of the maritime domain that are essential to our national interest.

Recognising this, Parker says: “While the deterioration of Australia’s strategic circumstances and the increasing contestation in the maritime domain call for a renewed role for the RAN beyond border protection, the evolving complexity of civil maritime threats means the current structure of the MBC and the ABF maritime unit are ill equipped to address them.

“This includes the growing scale of non-traditional maritime security threats, such as illegal fishing and irregular migration driven by regional instability, as well as the use of non-traditional threats for military purposes, such as presence operations or the targeting of Australian maritime infrastructure. This evolution of threats also poses questions about which organisation in Australia’s current complex maritime security architecture is responsible for responding to them. For example, it is unclear in Australia’s maritime security strategy documentation who is responsible for port security or the protection of subsea cables, offshore oil platforms, ports, the list goes on.”

This has resulted in a dangerous over-dependence on the Royal Australian Navy and its aging ships and overworking of personnel as the MBF and its associated assets, personnel and structures (of which there are over 1,000) are ill equipped to face the challenges of a new era of great power competition and multipolarity on both the global and regional stage.

Overcoming these challenges

It is quite a laughable reality that Australia, which is unique for a maritime nation on the basis of its size and jurisdictional responsibility, yet it doesn’t have a dedicated, consolidated and coherent Coast Guard responsible for maritime border security and interdiction.

Luckily, Jen Parker has provided some key policy solutions that can help us navigate our way out of this bureaucratic, policy and materiel maze to establish a coherent Coast Guard structure capable of delivery the maritime presence and capability we need.

In doing so, Parker presents seven key policy recommendations, namely:

1. The Australian government conduct a review of Australia’s maritime security requirements, including consideration of a Coast Guard. This review should consider streamlining existing maritime agencies where feasible under a Coast Guard, with a particular focus on Australia’s search and rescue and fisheries management functions.
2. The Australian government establish a Coast Guard as a separate statutory authority under the Minister for Home Affairs.
3. The Department of Home Affairs transfer the ABF marine unit personnel, capability and contracted ABF aircraft to the Coast Guard where appropriate.
4. The Australian Department of Defence transfer its patrol boat and offshore patrol vessels (OPVs) to the Coast Guard, including personnel where appropriate.
5. Consideration be given to the transfer of several Royal Australian Airforce Force (RAAF) C27 Spartans to the Coast Guard as part of a broader Coast Guard capability review.
6. The Australian government transfer responsibility for the lead authority on law enforcement operations within Australia’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and territorial waters to the Coast Guard.
7. The Australian government create a Coast Guard Act and amend the Defence Act 1903 to account for the transfer of the Coast Guard to the Department of Defence in the event of crisis or conflict.

Final thoughts

The rapidly deteriorating geopolitical and strategic environment that is transforming the global and regional security paradigm requires a realistic analysis and assessment by Australia’s policymakers; taking shortcuts and ending up with 50 per cent of something, as opposed to 100 per cent of nothing, is an admirable goal, but will ultimately only prove more costly in the long run as we scramble to rapidly develop high-end warfighting capability.

But concerningly, Australia doesn’t seem to be delivering either the Tier 1 or the Tier 2 combat capabilities that provide Australia with the balance of forces needed to secure our national interests and critical maritime sea lines of communication that underpin our economic, political and strategic security, prosperity and stability.

Equally, both the Australian government and the Australian public have to accept and understand that we will need to dramatically increase spending in our national defence and do so over the long term rather than short-term sugar hits or slights of hand that push money out over the forward estimates and allow inflation to account for “increases” in spending, despite there being little-to-no new money in real terms.

Ultimately, this comes back to the government’s shift away from a “balanced force” towards a “focused force” as championed in the Defence Strategic Review. It equally fails to account for the planned increase in ADF personnel by 2040 and places ultimate hope in a series of as-yet-to-be-developed “wunderwaffen” or wonder weapons, like autonomous systems, cyber or tactical weapons like HIMARs and others to provide both “impactful projection” and deterrence against “any potential adversary”.

This requires a greater degree of transparency and a culture of collaboration between the nation’s strategic policymakers and elected officials and the constituents they represent and serve – equally, this approach will need to entice the Australian public to once again invest in and believe in the future direction of the nation.

Get involved with the discussion and let us know your thoughts on Australia’s future role and position in the Indo-Pacific region and what you would like to see from Australia’s political leaders in terms of partisan and bipartisan agenda setting in the comments section below, or get in touch This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..