It is “unsustainable” for the Australian defence force to continue to both help with natural disasters and defend Australia, a parliamentary inquiry has heard.
Air Vice Marshal Stephen Chappell, head of defence’s military strategic commitments division, said the “unrelenting tempo” of bushfires, floods and dealing with the Covid pandemic had strained resources, damaged morale and interrupted training.
With climate change leading to more and more severe natural disasters, the “concurrent pressure … will place an unsustainable pressure on our ability to perform our primary role, the military defence of Australia’s national interest”, he told the inquiry into the Department of Defence’s annual report.
The defence strategic review, released in April, found climate change was now a national security issue and was increasing the challenges for defence through domestic and regional natural disasters. “The acceleration of major climate events risks overwhelming the government’s capacity to respond effectively and detracting from defence’s primary objective of defencing Australia,” it found.
Chappell said ADF personnel took “pride and pleasure” in supporting their communities but being taken away from their primary roles started to grate.
“They do get that immediate feedback of ‘thank god the ADF’s here’,” he said.
“That is one thing. But … over a sustained period of time if it means you’ve missed most of your training over a year or two, then it starts to weigh individually and collectively.”
Dr Andrew Dowse, director of the security analyst Rand Australia, warned that “concurrent national crises” of both disasters and military threats meant alternatives were needed.
Dr Alex Bristow, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s director of strategic policy, called for the states and territories to take on more responsibilities as Australia faced the most dangerous strategic environment since the second world war.
The inquiry chair, Labor MP Julian Hill, said defence had been increasingly used as part of the national response to domestic crises, and the inquiry was looking at how that impacted their preparation, training and capability.
In its submission, defence pointed out that while the states and territories have responsibility for domestic disasters, if their resources are overwhelmed, the federal government could also direct defence to assist.
But deploying those resources is “increasingly in tension with the requirement to resource operations and activities to defence Australia and its national interests”, the department noted.
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More than 35,100 personnel out of a workforce of about 62,000 have been deployed in domestic disaster relief operations since 2019, an “unprecedented scale, duration and frequency”.
That pressure on defence affects its ability to its job, the submission notes.
“The opportunity cost on training, exercises or deployments has a resultant impact on capability to effectively respond to defence of Australia contingencies,” it said.
“Future commitments of this scale and duration in a complex and evolving strategic environment may not be without consequence.”
It also warned of “skills fade” in high-end warfighting capabilities because training was interrupted, increased workforce unavailablility, and a decline in workforce satisfaction, with reduced retention and recruiting levels.
The home affairs department is also looking at ways to increase the commonwealth’s capacity to help the states and territories. A separate federal inquiry is looking more broadly at Australia’s disaster resilience.