Chair's Foreword

This elongated Chair’s Foreword serves as a summary of the conclusions of this inquiry into the Department of Defence Annual Report 2021–22. Each of the thematic issues selected have direct consequences for Defence’s ability to achieve capability requirements in line with the Defence Strategic Review.

Serious issues in Defence workforce recruiting and retention

Australia’s changing strategic circumstances demand that Defence achieve workforce growth, in the right areas, to effectively respond across all warfighting domains.

Yet instead of net growth in the order of 1,000 personnel, the Australian Defence Force went backwards by around 900 personnel and is approximately 5.6% below guidance from the last financial year. 42 workforce categories and occupations are classified as critical in 2023 including a high proportion of STEM related roles.

The concurrency pressures that Defence experienced during COVID-19 pandemic and natural disaster relief related activities may be a contributing factor towards job dissatisfaction for some but was not a defining reason for separation.

Plainly speaking, the overriding issue is the strength of the Australian economy and labour market: Defence recruits well in a recession and badly in a boom. While it is difficult to address in the current strong labour market, the slide in the ADF’s numbers and growth in critical skills shortage areas must not continue.

Defence recognises these challenges and is taking numerous worthy actions. The Committee recommends that the Government use the forthcoming National Defence Strategy to address the interaction between recruiting and retention efforts and DSR force posture initiatives and has requested six-monthly reports to monitor progress in recruitment and retention.

If more needs to be done, then more must be done as skilled people are the ADF’s most important fundamental input to capability.

Australia’s Space Command and capability

SpaceandCyberarewarfightingdomainsintheirownrights,aswellascriticalenablersfor traditional land, air, and sea operations. Technologies and competition are evolving rapidly.

The recent transition of Space Command from Air Force to Joint Capabilities group is welcome, howevertheCommitteeconsidersthat itsroleistoobroadandwouldbenefitfrom a revised and more considered and focused mission statement.

TheforthcomingNationalDefenceStrategyalsoprovidesanopportunityto clearly articulate the role of Defence within the deterrence-by-denial strategic framework, requisitepolicysettings,andtheexpectationsforspace-basedinteroperabilitywithcoalition partners.

While outside of Australia’s control and lacking established international governance framework,effectiveSpaceTrafficManagement(STM)iscriticalforspaceoperations. Greater clarity is needed within Australia across Government, private enterprise, and industry, regarding roles and responsibilities and realistic expectations pertaining to STM. A key step is for the Government to decide which agency is the lead for strategic thinking and implementation of international governance framework initiatives.

Australia is heavily reliant on other nations for Defence related space capabilities and must continue to build its own sovereign capabilities while recognising there will be an ongoing interdependence with allied and partner nations.

AsSpaceCommandmatures,Defencecouldalsobetterleverageand develop Australian industry capability by more clearly articulating its planning and capability requirements to trusted industry partners, harnessing their willingness to invest and develop new technologies.

These non-partisan observations by the Committee are made cognisant of the fact this is an emerging domain involving highly sophisticated technologies. There are inherent challenges that successive governments have and will continue to grapple with, about the appropriate balance between access to allied and partner technology and developing sustainable domestic technologies and industrial capability.

Defence support to domestic crises including natural disasters

Over 50% of Defence members have been assigned to domestic disaster relief tasks in recent years. Yes, over 50%.

The near-persistent requirement for Defence to respond to domestic crises is unsustainable and creates unacceptable concurrency pressures that will soon degrade the ADF’s warfighting capability.

Given our nation’s strategic circumstances, the words and conclusions in this section should not be taken lightly by Australians or any Parliamentarian.

Plain-speaking, conclusions may be confronting to some, however the risks to Australia are genuine and profound.

The climate is changing, and State and Territory Governments need to lift their collective game in building resilience and resourcing natural disaster responses.

The ADF cannot continue to be seen as some sort of ‘shadow workforce’, especially in circumstances where certain States or Territories have not adequately resourced and increased their own capabilities, and community resilience and responses.

The ADF must be a force of last resort to aid the civilian community in natural disasters and be called only to provide truly unique capabilities or essential surge capacities when State and Territory responses are genuinely overwhelmed.

Concurrency pressures are also creating new opportunities for potential adversaries and malign actors to exploit these vulnerabilities via information operations and hybrid warfare. Put plainly again, if the civilian community are over-reliant on the ADF to provide responses to now predictable annual natural disasters in Australia and our near region, this provides an easy opportunity to take hostile cyber, kinetic or hybrid actions coercing governments to make impossible choices.

The Committee supports the initiative by the Federal Emergency Management Minister in developing options for resilience and response options to address now essentially annual climate related crises.

Visits to North and West Defence facilities

The Committee invested four days in an intensive visit program to Western Australia and the Northern Territory and acknowledges the inspiring professionalism displayed by (both ADF and DoD) personnel.

We saw firsthand how critical infrastructure upgrades at strategically important remote airbases and bare bases have been neglected. Investments proposed and planned in 2010-2012 never occurred. It is welcome that major investment at RAAF Base Tindal is now underway, and that planning appears to be accelerating in the context of the DSR at RAAF Base Learmonth and RAAF Base Curtin.

While the Subcommittee does not seek to become a roving complaint shop, members were seriously disturbed to visit the pier supporting diesel refuelling of the Harold E Holt Naval Communications Station and seeks advice as to how Defence allowed it to get into such a state of disrepair. The adage ‘prevention is better than cure’ seems to have been ignored, and urgent action is required within the next few months as this is a critical capability for Australia and the United States.

Further information has also been sought regarding Defence’s allocation of moderate works in the context of several peculiar things observed at RAAF Base Learmonth to understand systemic issues that may arise.

The long shadow of Afghanistan

Concerns were raised regarding Defence’s response to date to the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force Afghanistan Inquiry (IGADFAI) including difficulties and delays in accessing and making redress to Afghan victims and their families. Defence’s assurances in public and private briefings are welcome and the Subcommittee will continue to monitor these issues.

While in Western Australia, the Subcommittee was privileged to spend time at Campbell Barracks with the Special Air Services Regiment (SASR). Formal and informal discussions make clear the scale of the regiment’s transformation in light of the IGADFAI’s recommendations and the strategic circumstances Australia faces.

Australians have every right to expect our public institutions to confront wrongdoing – for individuals to be held to account, and for leaders to take responsibility to lead required change. As is appropriate, there is a clear and unequivocal acknowledgment by senior leaders of an institutional failure over a decade ago in Afghanistan in upholding international law and the standards expected. Detailed briefings make clear the deep strategic alignment and cultural alignment work that has occurred.

Past failures of course in any human endeavour must be kept in perspective and need not define an institution or every individual, provided that change has occurred. Public discourse and some media reporting in relation to these events has implicitly and wrongly conflated the past and the present.

The events of concern occurred well over a decade ago. The rightful acceptance of institutional and collective responsibility for cultural failings, and the process of holding individuals to account, must not be allowed to tar the reputations of the majority of those who served then and who serve today.

Overwhelmingly, Australians who served in Afghanistan did so with distinction. SASR has a proud history, has accepted responsibility for the failings of a few and has been transformed as it continues to self-reflect and learn.

Special operations forces have risked and continue to risk their lives in the service of our country including on missions past and present that cannot be publicly disclosed. It is notable that more SASR members have lost their lives in training than operational service, such is the dangerous nature of what they are required to do.

The Subcommittee concluded that, frankly speaking, it is time to draw a line in the sand and rebalance our national conversation about this period. Most Australians who served in Afghanistan did so with distinction. SASR has a proud history, has accepted responsibility, sought to learn from past cultural failings and transformed.

As a society, Australia risks repeating another Vietnam and callously increasing Veteran suicide if we lose perspective and balance.

Individual and institutional failures over a decade ago do not define all those who serve or served, and security classifications mean most of their good work to keep our country safe may never be known. Hence the Government and the Parliament bear the responsibility to highlight the importance of their service along with reputable media outlets.

Thank you to Defence, academic bodies, industry, and other contributors that provided submissions to the inquiry and appeared at public hearings.

Mr Julian Hill MPChair

Defence Subcommittee