The Australian defence force’s war-fighting ability may “soon be degraded” by the increasing burden of responding to natural disasters and domestic crises, a parliamentary committee has warned.
Amid rising debate about the security threats posed by the climate crisis, a new report warns that the ADF is too often seen as a “shadow workforce”, a situation which is becoming increasingly risky.
The competing pressures also create “new opportunities for potential adversaries and malign actors to exploit these vulnerabilities”, according to the joint standing committee on foreign affairs, defence and trade.
The defence subcommittee said it had been informed that, since 2019, the ADF had “committed over 35,000 personnel from a workforce of approximately 62,000 in support of domestic disaster relief tasks”.
“There is a real risk now that the ADF’s warfighting capabilities will soon be degraded,” the defence subcommittee said in a report tabled on Thursday.
“This problem is compounded as it is occurring at a time when geostrategic competition is challenging the rules-based global order and in which rapidly increased strength is essential to deter conflict.”
The report said potential adversaries could “exploit these vulnerabilities via information operations and hybrid warfare”.
“Put plainly again, if the civilian community are over-reliant on the ADF to provide responses to now predictable annual natural disasters in Australia and our near region, this provides an easy opportunity to take hostile cyber, kinetic or hybrid actions coercing governments to make impossible choices,” it said.
“These words and these conclusions should not be taken lightly by Australians or any parliamentarian.”
Julian Hill, the Labor MP who chairs the defence subcommittee, wrote that the risks were “genuine and profound”.
“The climate is changing, and state and territory governments need to lift their collective game in building resilience and resourcing natural disaster responses,” he wrote in the report’s introduction.
“The ADF cannot continue to be seen as some sort of ‘shadow workforce’, especially in circumstances where certain states or territories have not adequately resourced and increased their own capabilities, and community resilience and responses.”
Hill said the committee supported the initiative by the federal emergency management minister, Murray Watt, to develop resilience and response options “to address now essentially annual climate related crises”.
The committee also urged the government to use the new national defence strategy, due next year, to clearly articulate “the ongoing risks arising from climate change and how that is informing government-led initiatives”.
It follows growing calls from the crossbench for the government to release a declassified version of the Office of National Intelligence’s assessment of climate security risks.
The defence subcommittee’s findings were wide-ranging as they were conducting an inquiry into the Department of Defence’s annual report.
During the inquiry’s work, committee members visited sites in Western Australia and the Northern Territory, and “saw first-hand how critical infrastructure upgrades at strategically important remote airbases and bare bases have been neglected”.
“While the subcommittee does not seek to become a roving complaint shop, members were seriously disturbed to visit the pier supporting diesel refuelling of the Harold E Holt Naval Station [in Western Australia] and seeks advice as to how Defence allowed it to get into such a state of disrepair,” Hill wrote.
“The adage ‘prevention is better than cure’ seems to have been ignored, and urgent action is required within the next few months as this is a critical capability for Australia and the United States.”
The subcommittee also raised concerns about the tenor of debate stemming from the Brereton inquiry into alleged war crimes in Afghanistan.
“As is appropriate, there is a clear and unequivocal acknowledgment by senior leaders of an institutional failure over a decade ago in Afghanistan in upholding international law and the standards expected,” Hill wrote.
“The subcommittee concluded that, frankly speaking, it is time to draw a line in the sand and rebalance our national conversation about this period.
“Most Australians who served in Afghanistan did so with distinction. [Special Air Service regiment] has a proud history, has accepted responsibility, sought to learn from past cultural failings and transformed.
“As a society, Australia risks repeating another Vietnam and callously increasing veteran suicide if we lose perspective and balance.”
