Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Lambie for the question and acknowledge her many years of contribution both in this place and beyond in relation to matters associated with defence, and in particular her deep concern always for members of the ADF, including veterans. She is right to point out that the ADF has, under governments of both political persuasions, not been able to recruit and retain at the level that we seek. She's right. I don't pretend that there is an easy answer to that, and the government has been seized of this issue.

Obviously there has been a lot of work on the DSR as well as AUKUS, and in the context of the budget we're very focused on trying to work through how we might deal with some of these recruitment and retention issues. We note the previous government made some very substantial announcements about increases to the ADF but were not on a pathway to deliver them, and we are looking at a range of ways in which we might seek to do that.

I don't come in here, Senator Lambie, and tell you that somehow, magically, all of those challenges associated with recruitment and retention will be resolved by one policy only. I suspect they won't be. I think it will assist, but I think more needs to be done. And I'd make the broader point that it's not just an issue for the ADF. Obviously, there are a lot of sectors of the economy where we have labour shortages. There are a lot of sectors of the economy where skilled staff are hard to both attract and retain, and the— (Time expired)