Having sat on a decision taken last year to boost Australian Defence Force (ADF) numbers, the Morrison Government has waited until the eve of an election to make yet another announcement that will not take effect for 18 years.
Shadow Minister for Veterans’ Affairs and Defence Personnel, and Federal Member for Blair Shayne Neumann said while Federal Labor supported boosting the ADF, the Government’s announcement should have come earlier and seems to be more about distracting from its inadequate flood response.
“We have concerns about this government’s track record when it comes to recruitment and retention of our ADF,” he said.
“They only met 90 per cent of permanent force recruitment targets in 2020-21 and have failed to meet 2016 Defence White Paper targets every year since 2015-16.
“The last Budget figures show the Morrison Government expects to recruit just eight extra Navy personnel this year and cut 105 Defence public service jobs – so how can we believe they will start recruiting over 1,300 new people a year for the next two decades?
“There is no plan to ramp up recruitment past the next election to the numbers required, with the Government simply re-announcing 200 ADF recruits a year between 2020 and 2024 – something already in the Force Structure Plan announced in 2020.
“It is also telling that despite the increased pressure on the ADF to respond to disasters fuelled by climate change, there is no detail on how to fix the pressures this puts on existing recruitment, retention and training for our troops in their primary areas of expertise.
“After all, this is a government that's all about the announcement and never about delivery,” Mr Neumann said.
Mr Neumann said that under the Liberals and Nationals, the size of Defence’s external contractor workforce has grown to become Defence largest “service”, bigger even than the Army.
“This explosion in external contractors is a direct result of the Government’s public service staffing cap, which is deskilling and demoralising Defence’s uniformed and civilian workforce through high turnover, and eroding capability in the public service.
“In addition to force expansion, we need the defence assets to support them, and considering this Government’s track record of bungling major defence contracts, this is cause for concern.
“Labor approaches defence in a bipartisan way, supporting the need for recruitment, but once again, the Government wants to play politics with national security and has offered no briefings to the Opposition only weeks out from an election,” said Mr Neumann.
