The federal government is considering looking overseas to recruit non-citizens to join the Australian military.
Acting Defence Minister Matt Keogh said “we are certainly looking at all options that we need to look at in terms of how we can grow our Defence Force. And that includes looking at how we might be able to grow it from friendly forces from other countries.”
The government is considering recruitment from Pacific nations like Tuvalu, and from other countries around the world.
Keogh also holds the position of Minister for Defence personnel.
He said that amid the government’s push to retain and hire new personnel, a range of initiatives were being considered.
Among them, would be hopes of attracting trained defence personnel from Pacific nations, and “more broadly than that”, Keogh told ABC’s Radio National.
“We already have ways in which we allow for what we call lateral transfer, people moving say, from the UK, Royal Navy, or from the United States or Canada, other countries, friendly countries.”
The government is considering ways of expanding on these strategies.
Keogh denied that the ADF would be “poaching” experienced servicemen and women from other countries.
He said the government is looking at how they can expand on foreign recruitment while staying “consistent with our ongoing good relations with those countries and their Defence Forces as well”.
“But when people come and visit Australia on maybe a Royal Navy ship or a submarine, and they pop up in Perth, I’m sure the attractiveness of coming to work in Australia is pretty self-evident as well.”
The minister said that Australia’s very low unemployment was having “a serious impact on our capacity to attract people to join the Defence Force in the first place, and to keep them in the Defence Force as well.”
The government recently announced a $50,000 bonus for junior ranked members of the ADF to stay on past their initial term of mandatory service.
It is designed to entice personnel to stay on for another three years.
