Pac Pacific Hotel, Perth

I begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land, the Whadjuk Nyoongar people, and pay my respects to their Elders, past and present. 

I also pay my respects to all our serving personnel, those that have served and the families who support them.

Distinguished guests, 

A special thank you to my friend and state colleague Paul for your remarks. 

It has been just over 100 days since I was reappointed as the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs and Defence Personnel, so it is a good time to take stock of what we’ve achieved over the past three years, and look to the future.

The Australian government is delivering the largest Defence budget in generations. 

We’ve secured the future of continuous shipbuilding in WA, creating thousands of jobs.

And we are investing in the runways, hangars, logistics hubs and other critical infrastructure at bases like Learmonth, Curtin and Stirling, so our sailors, soldiers and aviators have what they need to realise AUKUS and defend and protect the nation. 

We’re also moving ahead with rapidly evolving technology – setting aside $1.3 billion for acquisition of counter-drone capabilities over the decade. 

Investments like this can only be made when you have a credible and budgeted pathway to deliver on your commitments.

The National Defence Strategy recognises the urgent importance of recruiting, retaining and growing the highly specialised and skilled workforce required to meet Defence’s capability needs.  

When we came to government just over three years ago, we committed to fixing the Australian Defence Force’s recruitment and retention crisis. 

And while there is more work to do, I am proud to say that the ADF is now growing again. 

We have recruited more than 7,000 people in the last 12 months alone. 

The ADF’s full-time headcount has grown to over 61,000 – an increase of over 1,000 on last year.

Most importantly, the number of serving personnel wanting to leave our ADF is at the lowest rate in a decade.

Our annual intake of recruits is at the highest it has been in 15 years, and, despite a historically tight labour market, interest in joining the ADF is growing. 

More than 75,000 people have applied to join the ADF in the last financial year. 

And I’m pleased to say we are on track to grow our permanent ADF workforce to meet the target of 69,000 people by the early 2030s. 

Retention

When I was first sworn in a little over three years ago, I got about talking directly to our personnel, especially at the enlisted ranks, about what weighed on their minds – the good, the bad, the ugly – I was looking to determine what their frustrations are – the little things that add up – the friction points – that might result in them wanting to leave the Defence Force. 

As I visited bases across the country, what I keep hearing from our sailors, soldiers and aviators was their deep sense of duty, and commitment to service. 

I also heard about a basket of issues – financial pressures, housing and family health support, leave allowances and rental assistance – that together, were then tipping the balance against staying in the ADF by putting unnecessary pressures on our members and their families. 

Finding quick wins to address some of these issues was just as important as the longer-term reforms we needed to put in place. 

We improved our salary offers across all ADF ranks and pay arrangements for members in critical skilled roles across a wide range of areas. 

We incentivised people in the middle ranks to stay on by providing two tranches of continuation bonuses. 

We expanded schemes to help ADF members own their own homes, sooner. 

We brought forward access to rental assistance to give members and their families greater certainty when moving as a part of their posting cycles – which has been fruitful in helping families enrol their kids in schools in particular.  

And we locked in place measures to better support Defence families. Improving maternity and parental leave, and expanding the ADF family health program by doubling the annual benefit and expanding the services available for claim. 

And, we are encouraging our personnel to think about what their future careers might look like in Defence and beyond by providing expanded study assistance. 

These are all common-sense improvements to the way Defence supports our people – who are, after all, our most important capability; they address those friction points and have made it easier for personnel and their families to say ‘yes’ to serving for longer. 

Royal Commission

We also have a real commitment and a concrete plan to build a more inclusive and supportive Defence culture. 

We’re working at pace to implement the Government response to the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide, because it is the right thing to do and it’s a crucial component of building a Defence Force that people want to join and where they want to stay. 

Work is well underway – we’ve already legislated for the Defence and Veterans’ Service Commission – the independent oversight body that the Royal Commission deemed their most important recommendation… that’ll be formally up and running in September.

Where changes were able to be made immediately, we have done so. 

My priority is to improve the wellbeing of our people – from the day they sign up, to long after they’ve hung up their uniform for the last time. 

We want to strengthen suicide prevention and drive better outcomes for current and former serving personnel – making sure we’re supporting them in ways they not only need, but deserve. 

Recruitment

As much as we need to keep our valuable personnel inside Defence, we also have to encourage more Australians to come through the door.

There is a myth that young Australians aren’t interested in serving their country. 

It is unfair, and it’s wrong. 

I’ve talked to countless young Australians, passionate and interested in serving in the ADF.

But upon coming to office, the Government identified three problems with the recruitment pipeline: 

the time it took to recruit was too slow – especially in a tight labour market….

we were turning away too many applicants…

and we were failing to give the right information to the right people in the right places. 

While I acknowledge we still have work to do to reduce our recruitment timeframes, we have made real progress – with average timeframes that were more than a year now down to about 266 days and only 150 days for priority roles. I want those times shorter still!

We have brought together Navy, Army and Air Force under one recruiting banner with a new approach, a new ‘master brand’ – ADF Careers – and a mandate to speed up the application process. 

We are getting information about joining the ADF to Australians who don’t consume traditional media – advertising smarter.

We are now advertising in computer games and on media platforms like TikTok, speaking directly to Gen Z. 

On the ground, we are meeting people where they are. 

We have removed the tyranny of distance that was a key barrier to our regional recruiting efforts by establishing the Mobile ADF Careers Centre – known as the MACC. 

We’ve staffed the MACC with ADF personnel who can talk from experience about life in the Defence Force, and help match up potential ADF career paths to an individual’s skills and goals. 

The MACC is in WA right now and will continue its travels through the regions throughout September, with plans to travel to Derby, Broome, Port Hedland, Karratha, Exmouth, Carnarvon, Albany, Esperance and Kambalda.

We have also made changes to the way we look at health screening and medical entry requirements to make sure they are fit for purpose. 

Denying someone entry into the ADF for an intelligence or cyber role because they have acne just does not make sense in the 21st Century. 

On that as well, we’re directly recruiting people into skilled roles for our nuclear propelled submarines for the first time and we’ll be doing the same for space operations roles soon. 

And we have expanded eligibility so that permanent residents from New Zealand, the United States, United Kingdom and Canada, who have lived in Australia for 12 months can now apply to join the ADF.

Conclusion

We want to see more people attracted to serving our nation in the ADF, with the confidence they and their families are respected by their leadership, their mates and the broader Defence organisation. 

We want them to know that no matter what may befall them in service, they will be properly looked after and their service acknowledged by our grateful nation. 

As we look to the next three years, the Government remains committed to ensuring the ADF has the workforce for the integrated and focused force we are building…

…skilled and ready for the new capabilities we are bringing online – like space, nuclear propelled submarines and cyber, as well as new guided long range weapons and autonomous operations.

I am proud of what we have accomplished so far.

And I’m looking forward to continuing the work of growing and supporting Defence’s most important capability: our people. 

Thank you. 

[ENDS]