Australia — New direction for ADF Reserve capability

Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary for Defence Sen­a­tor David Feeney today fore­shad­owed a new direc­tion in Aus­tralian Defence Force (ADF) Reserve capa­bil­i­ty.
This new direc­tion will enhance the ADF’s abil­i­ty to meet oper­a­tional require­ments to defend nation­al secu­ri­ty.

“The uni­fy­ing qual­i­ty of the Aus­tralian Reserve com­mu­ni­ty can be summed up in one word: team­work,” Sen­a­tor Feeney said. 

“This team­work was clear­ly on dis­play in recent months as Army and the Reserve com­mu­ni­ty devel­oped a mod­erni­sa­tion plan which will opti­mise the Reserves’ con­tri­bu­tion to capa­bil­i­ty with­in a Total Force construct. 

“Reserve Mod­erni­sa­tion Work­shops and broad con­sul­ta­tion with stake­hold­ers such as the Defence Reserve Asso­ci­a­tion (DRA) have shaped Army’s Plan Beer­she­ba, which will increase Reserve inte­gra­tion into Army’s force gen­er­a­tion cycle,” Sen­a­tor Feeney said. 

“Reserve inte­gra­tion with­in the Total Force will opti­mise the deliv­ery of spec­i­fied war fight­ing capa­bil­i­ties, such as sta­bil­i­sa­tion operations. 

“The Roy­al Aus­tralian Navy and Roy­al Aus­tralian Air Force (RAAF) con­tin­ue to progress inte­gra­tion with inno­va­tion and pro­fes­sion­al­ism. For exam­ple, in Navy, Reservists have been incor­po­rat­ed into the new intel­li­gence spe­cial­i­sa­tion and the RAAF are cre­at­ing an improved inte­grat­ed train­ing sys­tem for Reservists,” Sen­a­tor Feeney said. 

“The Labor Government’s com­mit­ment to greater inte­gra­tion will be sup­port­ed by a range of oth­er Gov­ern­ment ini­ti­at­ed mea­sures, includ­ing Plan SUAKIN. 

“Plan SUAKIN is exam­in­ing the Reserve employ­ment mod­el and con­di­tions of ser­vice to bet­ter align capa­bil­i­ty require­ments with employ­ment con­di­tions,” Sen­a­tor Feeney said. 

These ini­tia­tives imple­ment White Paper and Strate­gic Reform Pro­gram commitments. 

Press release
Min­is­te­r­i­al Sup­port and Pub­lic Affairs,
Depart­ment of Defence,
Can­ber­ra, Australia 

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