It is a great honour to be here today to open the royal Australian Navy sea power conference, the international maritime conference, and the pacific 2008 maritime expotition.
The present evolution of naval technologies seems to favor the theory that, for all navies, the era of big surface ships and even big submarines might be nearing its end, in favor of smaller, faster, more numerous and more flexible platforms and the blurring ot the civil-military distinction in the oceans.