Radio Interview, ABC Radio Drive

Subjects: new ADF Ready app, expansion of eligibility for ADF to Permanent Residents from Five Eyes nations

WARWICK LONG, HOST: Joining you now, Matt Keogh, Federal Member for Burt, Minister for Veterans’ Affairs and Defence Personnel, welcome to the program. 

MATT KEOGH, MINISTER FOR VETERANS’ AFFAIRS AND DEFENCE PERSONNEL: Thanks Warwick, great to be with you.

LONG: A change and I suppose a hope to increase Defence Force Recruitment becomes well part of the Australian fabric in just a couple of days time. What’s happening?

KEOGH: So we're rolling out two things. One is we've just released a ADF app called ADF Ready, which will be coming out end of January, and available starting with Navy and then towards the end of the year for Army and Air Force. And the other thing is that from the first of January, Five Eyes nation permanent residents in Australia, so the people from the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada, that are permanent residents in Australia and have been for the last year, and that have not been in a foreign defence force for the last two years, and otherwise meet the normal ADF recruitment requirements, including security vetting, they'll be able to apply to join the Australian Defence Force, and they'll be joining New Zealand permanent residents that have been able to do this since the first of July 2024, and this is about expanding the aperture of people who are able to join the Australian Defence Force as we seek to grow to 69,000 service members by the early 2030s. 

LONG: How many extra recruits do you think allowing Canadians and Americans and Brits that are joining our Defence Force will this create? 

KEOGH: So we're expecting that in this financial year, opening up recruitment to permanent residents from the Five Eyes nations will deliver about 350 additional recruits into the Australian Defence Force. Already, we've seen, we've got just under 400 applicants from New Zealand permanent residents that are working their way through the system, and the first of those will enlist in coming months. But we expect that across those Five Eyes nations, we'll see about 350 join this financial year. 

LONG: So really we have the rules changes about 6 months ago for the New Zealand residents, you already have 400 applications from New Zealand permanent residents in Australia? 

KEOGH: Yeah, we've got 400 or just under 400 New Zealand permanent residents that are working their way through the application process now, which is great. We've got a few that will be actually enlisting in coming months, which is wonderful. And we expect that across those Five Eyes Nations, we'll get to about 350 actually joining this financial year. 

LONG: Why do they want to join our military and not the Kiwi’s military? 

KEOGH: Well, what we've sought to do here is making sure that we're opening up the opportunity for permanent residents in Australia, for people who are genuinely committed to being in Australia. So they've got to have been here already for a year. They've already made that decision to come to Australia and become a permanent resident in Australia. And of course, they've got to meet the normal other enlistment requirements, including security vetting. But that's important also. We don't want to be taking people that are in New Zealand, who should otherwise be, say, joining the New Zealand Defence Force. This is about people that have already made a decision for many different reasons to be living in Australia.

LONG: And do people who sign up from a foreign country to serve in the Australian Defence Force, do they get a faster path or any carrots towards citizenship in any way?

KEOGH: So there is a pathway to citizenship here, that's correct. So after 90 days of service in our Defence Force, after they've enlisted, they become eligible to become an Australian citizen. And the expectation is, is that they are required to take out that citizenship. And of course, they have to go through the normal other requirements for citizenship as well. 

LONG: So does that make a visa loophole for people to become Australian citizens? 

KEOGH: People that are, we're talking about people that are already in Australia, and people that are already permanent residents and would already be on an eligible pathway towards citizenship. But what this means is they're able to meet that requirement quicker through this process by becoming a member of our Australian Defence Force. And that's about, you know, us using innovative and bold approaches to grow the numbers in our Australian Defence Force. That's what we need to do, because under the previous government, when Peter Dutton was the Defence Minister, we saw the numbers in our Defence Force continue to decline. We've got to grow those numbers because we are confronted by some of the most complex set of strategic challenges we've seen in our region since the Second World War. 

LONG: It’s not just a Peter Dutton problem though is it? Matt Keogh’s with you the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs and Defence Personnel, the Defence Force has hit 12 years of not hitting it’s targets in terms of recruitment. How do you turn that around? 

KEOGH: Yeah, certainly, we saw over the entirety of the last Government that there was big problems when it came to recruitment and retention in our Defence Force, and so these are the sorts of measures that we're undertaking to turn that around, growing, opening the aperture, by being able to recruit Five Eyes permanent residents in Australia, supporting those that are already in service with things like the continuation bonus that we rolled out last year and are now expanding and extending so that people can get that at different stages through their defence career, providing additional family supports, for healthcare, improving the housing offering for members of the Australian Defence Force, expanding the opportunity to study and get qualifications whilst working in the Australian Defence Force, all of these different things, to improve the attractiveness for people looking to join, but also to encourage people to stay longer in service in our Defence Force, and what we've seen now is that we're on track for a 24 per cent increase in the number of people joining the Defence Force this financial year.

LONG: 24 per cent increase, is that, you’ll stop this lack of hitting the targets, you’ll actually reach those goals? 

KEOGH: So yeah, in November, we released the Defence Workforce Plan, and that set forth our trajectory towards the 69,000 Defence Force members by the early 2030s and this is part of meeting that pathway to hitting those numbers. And we'll continue to look at, and we've rolled out, as I said, a number of initiatives that are about encouraging more people to join and encouraging more people to stay in our Defence Force, and that's what we're focused on. 

LONG: So you’ll do it, you’ll hit the target? 

KEOGH: I'm sure that we will be hitting the 69,000 by the early 2030s that's incredibly important, and we've set out the pathway for that in the Workforce Plan that we released in November, and what we've announced today in terms of the new ADF Ready app that will become available in early January, as well as the opening up of recruitment to permanent residents across Five Eyes nations from 1 January is all part of how we met that trajectory.

LONG: And elsewhere in terms of what’s been advertised at the moment, Matt Keogh is with you Minister for Veterans’ Affairs and Defence Personnel, those jobs, the $120,000 per year to work on nuclear submarines, those jobs are being advertised at the moment and don’t require any military experience – what’s the story behind that because it does read rather oddly doesn’t it?

KEOGH: Well, that's great example of how we pay well in the Australian Defence Force, we don't expect people to have any prior military experience when we recruit them into the Australian Defence Force. That's what we train them for, and we train them incredibly well, and that's a good example of how there are good paying jobs in the Australian Defence Force, including the new roles that have just been opening up now in the nuclear propelled submarine job categories. And of course, they join the job categories that exist for our current conventional submarines and across different new roles in the Australian Defence Force, there's over 300 roles, and I think people would expect that the people undertaking that work are well remunerated. And when it comes to those new nuclear propelled submariner roles, we're talking about roles that will start training in the US and UK. We've already got personnel undertaking that training right now, and that undertake that training, both in theory, and then also get practical experience on nuclear propelled submarines through the Royal Navy and through the US Navy, to make sure that we're developing and growing those skills ready for Australia to be able to operate its own nuclear propelled submarines. 

LONG: So those people working in those roles won’t actually be working with a nuclear submarine for some time? So they’ll work elsewhere in the Navy until such time as they’re required? 

KEOGH: They will go straight into roles where they are being trained in the US. They'll go through training in Australia and then training in the US and the UK, and undertake practical training on American or UK nuclear propelled submarines. So yes, they'll be going directly into roles that go into nuclear propelled submarines.

LONG: And just quickly before we do let you go, what are the further changes? What else are you considering at the moment in terms of changes to Defence Force recruitment to try and boost those numbers and get you to hit your 2030 target?

KEOGH: So other things that we've done is we've reviewed all of the health and fitness policies across the board to ensure that they are actually modern and fit for purpose, and that we're not excluding people from recruitment because they've got medical acne, for example, which used to exclude people from being able to join our Defence Force at all. 

LONG: Really? 

KEOGH: Yeah, that's right. And so we've changed those policies, and there's a suite. We've undertaken a big review of that, and most of those changes have already been implemented, but there's some that will be implemented early in the New Year as well, to streamline and increase the number of people who are really interested in joining in our Defence Force, but have been getting knocked out for reasons that in the 21st century don't make sense. And also making sure that those requirements are fit for purpose, for the actual roles that people are going to be going into. So I think everyone would understand that the fitness requirements and the medical requirements for someone who's going to be in the infantry in the Army is quite different to somebody who's going to be a cyber warfare officer operating from a basement somewhere, remotely from the front line. And so we want to make sure that the fitness requirements, the health requirements, the enlistment requirements for different roles, match the roles, so that they're not unnecessarily excluding people from being able to join the Defence Force when they are very capable of joining the Defence Force and undertaking the role that they want to go into. 

LONG: I did not expect to be talking about medical acne today but thank you very much for that Minister. Just before we let you go we’ve been speaking with the Ambassador to Ukraine, From Ukraine to Australia, Ambassador Vasyl Myroshnychenko about Osker Jenkins and what’s happening with an Australian that has been captured by Russia. Is there any update from the Australian Government on negotiations or his situation at the moment? 

KEOGH: Look, I don't have any update. We've obviously engaged with the Russian government about confirming the circumstances and his location around that, and we'll continue to engage with them around those issues so we can get that confirmation and take things from there.

LONG: It’s a busy day for you so we thank you for your time on the program today. Matt Keogh thank you very much for joining us. 

KEOGH: Great to be with you.