TRANSCRIPT
Usually, you have to live in Australia for at least four years before applying for citizenship.
But soon, there will be a new pathway.
The Australia Defence Force will take non-Australian recruits for the first time from July 1st, starting with New Zealanders before expanding to all permanent residents from January next year.
After 90 days of service, Defence Personnel Minister Matt Keogh [[Kee-oh]] says they'll be eligible for Australian citizenship.
"So the expectation is after somebody joins once they've served 90 days they become eligible to become an Australian citizen and they would be expected to become an Australian citizen at that point."
There are caveats to that - they need to be a permanent resident for at least a year, and meet security requirements, according to Mr Keogh.
"From 1 January next year any permanent resident in Australia who has been here for at least one year as a permanent resident, has not been in a foreign Defence Force of any type in the preceding two years and meets all of the usual security and vetting and character requirements of joining the Defence Force would be able to apply."
Mr Keogh says it's not about poaching people from other countries.
"We're talking about recruiting from people that have already made a decision to become Australians in that they've already taken up permanent residency. Therefore they're already on a pathway over time if they wish to become an Australian citizen. This isn't taking people out of other countries. These are people that have already made Australia home and we are providing them a fast track to citizenship through joining the Australian Defence Force as well."
The government is struggling to meet ADF recruitment targets - and are currently about four and a half thousand people short.
Liberal Senator Simon Birmingham says this move proves the government has failed on ADF recruitment.
"Well this isn't about whether or not we have foreign nationals, it's about the failure of the government to get Australians to sign up and to stay in the military and they've missed the targets by some 5000 people, and we should be seeing more Australians have the confidence to sign up, why don't people have the confidence to sign up and wear the uniform with pride, because a dysfunction in defence policy that has been mired in review after review after review, rather than the type of confidence building measures that would get people to sign up."
Mr Keogh hopes this measure will boost ADF recruitment.
"We've been looking at a number of ways in which we can grow the Defence Force and we're very happy that the retention rate has been improving and we're now back to the sort of long-term historical average when it comes to retention. But we do need to grow the Defence Force and so looking at permanent residents that have already clearly made Australia home, have loyalty to Australia as part of that recruitment pool is a very important way in which we can continue to grow our Defence Force as we need to."
Expert Associate at the National Security College and Adjunct Fellow in Naval Studies at the University of New South Wales' Canberra campus, Jennifer Parker, says changes to the army reserves will help address the shortfall of personnel.
"It's great to see them changing some of the barriers to recruiting to the ADF. But this one only address some of the challenges. I mentioned the need for structural change. But we also need to look at how do we mobilize society differently. And we know, right, that current generations don't necessarily like to do careers forever and like flexibility and thinking about how we deal with the reserves differently as another way to actually increase that capacity, but also allow flexibility."
Independent Senator Jacqui Lambie, who has platformed ADF and veterans issues during her time in Parliament, says it's a good idea.
"I welcome the minister's announcement on bringing foreign nationals into our defence force. I've been calling for this for a very, very long time. I think it's a great idea."
