During her career, the frigate has operated as part of the INTERFET peacekeeping taskforce, served in the Persian Gulf, and responded to the 2006 Fijian coup d'état.

The frigate was decommissioned on 30 June 2019 and transferred to the Chilean Navy on 15 April 2020 and renamed as Capitán Prat (FFG 11).

[2] Although the Oliver Hazard Perry class was still at the design stage, the difficulty of fitting the Type 42 with the SM-1 missile, and the success of the Perth-class acquisition (a derivative of the American Charles F. Adams-class destroyer) compared to equivalent British designs led the Australian government to approve the purchase of two US-built Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates in 1976.

Propulsion machinery consists of two General Electric LM2500 gas turbines, which provide a combined 41,000 horsepower (31,000 kW) to the single propeller shaft.

[8][7] As part of the mid-2000s FFG Upgrade Project, an eight-cell Mark 41 Vertical Launch System was fitted, with a payload of RIM-162 Evolved Sea Sparrow missiles.

[7] Newcastle was laid down by AMECON at Williamstown, Victoria on 21 July 1989, launched on 21 February 1992 and commissioned into the RAN on 11 December 1993.

[7] Unlike the first four Adelaide-class frigates, Newcastle was not constructed in the United States of America, so was never assigned a US Navy hull number.

[11] At the start of November 2006, Newcastle was one of three Australian warships sent to Fiji during the leadup to the 2006 coup d'état by Fijian military forces against Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase.

[20] In November that year the frigate sortied from Sydney to intercept a merchant ship off the north coast of New South Wales which was believed to be involved in drug smuggling.