Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee, , 8:08:22 to 8:11:55
Details on widening ADF eligibility to include permanent residents from New Zealand, the UK, Canada, the US, and Papua New Guinea, including policies against poaching from New Zealand.
Topics: ADF, Pacific relations
Speakers: Natasha Fox, Jacqui Lambie, Unknown Speaker
>> No, Senator. So um
>> how's it all working with these? Yeah. And Papa New Guinea that who's in charge of those? How does it work?
>> Uh that sits under my responsibility as well. So uh in July 2024, sorry, I'll make sure I get the correct date. Um uh we widened the eligibility um of recruiting uh in July 2024 to recruit um New Zealand permanent residents in Australia. >> Yeah. Uh and so the uh requirement is that you had been in Australia for one year prior, you'd not served in another foreign military in the previous two years because we didn't want to have a situation where people were leaving the New Zealand military and coming straight into our military because we're actually stronger together. And so it's a deliberate policy of not poaching from New Zealand in that regard. So um that was in July 2024 and then that opened up to the remainder of Canada uh the United Kingdom and the United States.
>> Is that the same for them too for political diplomacy? Just two years. Okay. So that's >> so they shouldn't have been >> Okay. So you're only just starting to get that lot maybe coming through now.
>> And as of um we've opened up that program to Papa New Guinea as well. So since that the whole of the permanent residence recruiting uh opened we had five in the first year all from New Zealand. Uh we had 42 47 in the second financial year again more from New Zealand and the United Kingdom. uh and uh this financial year to date we've had people from New Zealand, Canada uh and the United States uh come through the program all up um over the financial uh financial years the program has been running. It's 103 people that have come into the ADF from the um permanent resident recruiting eligibility criteria that we widened.
>> Okay. So defense is holding that, not the contracted people. you're you're dealing with that because we haven't got a massive a lot coming through. So defense is actually dealing with those overseas.
>> They dealt with so that program is for people living in Australia.
>> Yeah.
>> Uh and defense force recruiting still deal with that. Yeah. >> Uh and we have around 700 applications in for um uh from that permanent resident recruiting program. At the moment there is another program where it's the overseas lateral entry program >> where people who may be in another country um seek to join the Australian Defense Force and we bring that through defense force recruiting as well. Uh and that's based on a skilled migration visa uh cont uh approach that we have and that is based on where we might have gaps in critical ranks and critical trades.
>> Yep. Got you. Um and just the last one. So when it comes to our deco uh and it doesn't uh it doesn't doesn't reach its performance indications uh indicators is there a renumeration like do they if they're not reaching their targets is there a consequence for that is what how does that what does
that look like? Uh yes, Senator. Uh they are only paid by the headcount that they recruit. So and there's a fixed fee as part of the contract, but we do only pay them for who how the number that they
>> Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Chair.