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SINGAPORE \u2013 Former defence minister Ng Eng Hen has received an award from the Australian government which recognised his distinguished service in strengthening bilateral defence relations between Singapore and Australia.<\/p>\n
Ng was conferred the Honorary Officer of the Order of Australia award by Australia\u2019s Governor-General Sam Mostyn in a ceremony at Government House in Canberra on Aug 18.<\/p>\n
The award is a special grade of Australia\u2019s pre-eminent civilian honour that celebrates foreign nationals, such as diplomats and public servants, for service of a high degree to Australia or to humanity at large.<\/p>\n
The conferment underscores the close and longstanding defence ties between the two countries, Singapore\u2019s Ministry of Defence said in a Facebook post on Aug 19.<\/p>\n
In his acceptance speech released by Mindef<\/span>, Ng said the award reflected years of hard work by previous ministers and military personnel from both sides who had nurtured strong and growing bilateral defence ties across the decades.<\/p>\n Troops from the Australian Defence Force and the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) have worked together \u201cshoulder-to-shoulder in some of the most demanding circumstances and challenges\u201d, he noted.<\/p>\n These included joint operations in Afghanistan from 2007 to 2013, in Iraq in 2014 to combat global terrorism, and in counter-piracy missions in 2018 and from 2024 to 2025.<\/p>\n Defence cooperation was also a signature piece of the inaugural Comprehensive Strategic Partnership (CSP) that the two countries signed in 2015, he added.<\/p>\n Key defence initiatives in the CSP included enhanced and expanded military training access for the SAF in Australia<\/span><\/a>. In March 2020, Singapore and Australia signed a treaty that underpinned a $2 billion investment to jointly develop military training areas and facilities in Queensland.<\/p>\n \u201cI can think of no deeper trust than when one country opens its facilities for military training to another country,\u201d said Ng, who retired from politics in April 2025.<\/p>\n At the ministerial level, Ng said working with his Australian counterpart, Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles, had also been thoroughly enjoyable.<\/p>\n It took just six months for a conversation with Marles about a rotational fighter training detachment for the Republic of Singapore Air Force in Australia to receive in-principle support from Canberra, Ng noted. The rotational force became a signature effort under the upgraded CSP 2.0, which the two countries inked in 2025.<\/p>\n This level of strategic trust and mutual assistance has provided strong political cover for the two countries to assist each other, said Ng, and explains why the Republic could offer to let Australia\u2019s upcoming nuclear-powered submarines stop over at Changi Naval Base, and its maritime surveillance aircraft do so at Paya Lebar airbase.<\/p>\n The genuine and warm affection that both military establishments have for each other can partly be explained by shared values and goals for their countries\u2019 collective futures. But it is also because both sides take extra pains to look out for each other\u2019s interests and well-being, he added.<\/p>\n This mutual concern, cultivated through the years, now permeates through the rank and file, he noted. For instance, it was SAF ground commanders based in Australia who requested to assist in evacuation efforts during the 2020 bushfires and the 2022 and 2025 floods there.<\/p>\n \u201cOur SAF troops training here in Australia often respond as if Australia is their home \u2013 as they should,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n While political change is evergreen in all countries, Ng said he was confident that the genuine affection between Singapore and Australia will carry on in future generations of leaders.<\/p>\n In 2025, Defence Minister Chan Chun Sing and Marles signed a memorandum of understanding to further deepen defence cooperation between the two countries.<\/p>\n Ng said: \u201cNo one can be certain what the future brings, but we know for a fact that strong and dependable friendships like what we have in Australia will help both nations weather the storms ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n SINGAPORE \u2013 Former defence minister Ng Eng Hen has received an award from the Australian government which recognised his distinguished service in strengthening bilateral defence…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":77904,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2611],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-headlines","wpcat-2611-id"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=77903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77903\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/77904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=77903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=77903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=77903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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