Ads on TikTok and video games drive 15-year surge in defence force enrolment
The Australian Defence Force has been plagued by a recruitment and retention crisis in recent years, but in the past financial year, the military enlisted 7059 permanent personnel, the highest annual intake since 2009.
The full-time ADF workforce has now reached 61,189, slightly below its authorised strength of 62,700 permanent members but significantly up on previous estimates.
More than 75,000 people applied to join the ADF in the past year, the highest number in five years and a 28 per cent increase on the previous year.
Loading
Defence Minister Richard Marles said the military was now on track to reach a target of 69,000 personnel by the early 2030s.
'In 2025, the ADF is now growing again for the first time in almost four years,' Marles said.
'While there is much more work to do, we are confident these positive trends will continue.'
Under the previous Coalition government, the ADF grew by 2000 people over nine years in office, he said.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Australian
3 hours ago
- The Australian
The government's best major defence purchase
Mogami was selected over the German-made ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems' MEKO A-200 because it was the more capable ship and the company had a better industrial plan, Defence Minister Richard Marles announced. As Australian Strategic Policy Institute senior analyst Euan Graham said before the decision was announced, he had been told the Japanese were 'ahead on every significant criteria except price'. The US is believed to have quietly supported the Japanese bid. The frigates will help secure Australia's maritime trade routes and vital northern approaches. It is a significant advantage that Japan offered to allocate a ship that was already in production to Australia, accelerating delivery of the first vessel. It is scheduled to be delivered in 2029 and operational in 2030. The program will cost $10bn over a decade, delivering three vessels to be built in Japan. The remaining eight will be built at the Henderson shipbuilding precinct in Western Australia. Japanese ambassador Kazuhiro Suzuki said the process would kickstart an advanced manufacturing boom in Australia, as Ben Packham reports. Before the decision was announced, Mr Suzuki said at least 12 major Japanese companies would invest in Australia if MHI's bid succeeded. While Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy previously said that the decision would be made on the basis of the frigates' design and the bidders' industrial plans, rather than geopolitical considerations, the selection also provides important strategic benefits. 'There's no other country in the world that is quite as aligned with Australia as Japan,'' Mr Marles said. The contract would cement Japan's quasi alliance with Australia (sometimes colloquially referred to as 'Jaukus''), Mr Suzuki said, adding: 'Japan and Australia held 39 joint exercises last year, including multilateral ones – roughly one in every nine days.'' The decision, which deserves the bipartisan support it has attracted, is the Albanese government's most important and best defence decision to date, as Greg Sheridan writes. It contributes to the strategic evolution of Japan as a major military and industrial power within the US alliance and gives life to the vision that Tony Abbott pioneered as prime minister by trying to partner with Tokyo to build Australia's future submarine. On that occasion, Japan lost out to France's Naval Group, which later lost the contract when the Morrison government committed to the AUKUS partnership, with nuclear-powered submarines. As China takes its military build-up across the Asia-Pacific region to a level unparalleled since World War II, dangerous times demand lethal defences. The Mogami frigate is designed to carry plenty of firepower. Mr Marles described it as a 'next-generation'' stealthy vessel, with 32 vertical launch cells capable of launching long-range missiles. It also has a highly capable radar and sonar. It was 'a general-purpose frigate capable of engaging in air warfare and undersea warfare', he said. News of the frigates comes a day after Mr Marles announced an improvement in the number of ADF recruitments and retention. Rarely has defence hardware and personnel mattered as much in peacetime. Purchasing the MHI frigates is an important step that paves the way not only for more defence spending, but judicious spending. Read related topics: AUKUS
Sydney Morning Herald
18 hours ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Forget a social media ban. If tech companies won't stop targeting teens like me, block them
And my algorithm is relatively benign. In the US, parents who are suing social media companies for allegedly causing their children to take their own life have reported that their children's feeds were filled with material about 'suicide, self-harm, and eating disorders'. Loading For social media companies, profits clearly come before teens' mental health. So perhaps seriously jeopardising those profits would be the most effective way to force change. While the impending social media ban threatens fines of up to $50 million for social media companies that do not take 'reasonable steps' to prevent workarounds, that probably isn't going to be enough of a punishment to create change. The term 'reasonable steps' is too vague, and the profits made from having under-16s illegally using social media apps would likely outweigh the fines. It's instead worth looking to some of the more drastic steps that have been taken in the US against social media companies, for various reasons. The US government's banning of TikTok, though relating to data privacy concerns rather than mental health, did effectively lead to the app going offline in US for a day (the ban was then postponed, but is due to come back into effect in September, unless its parent company ByteDance sells its American operations to a US-owned company.) This kind of broad government action against social media companies, threatening to entirely suspend their operations unless they cease recommending distressing or disturbing content to teenagers, might be worth trying in Australia. But even if this doesn't happen – if there's no effective legislation from the government, and we can't change the fact that kids will be exposed to dangerous content – one of the easiest and most important ways to reduce the harm of social media is education. Parents and schools often warn us about online predators, but not about how we should deal with content that makes us feel bad about ourselves or other people. And that's probably because adults and authorities don't fully understand what we're being exposed to. If schools partnered with social media experts and psychologists to learn what kinds of content social media is promoted to young people, what warning signs parents should look for if their child is at risk of internet-induced mental health issues, and how young people can disengage from harmful content or learn how to better deal with it, then we might make some progress. It's akin to giving kids and teenagers a vaccine against the social media virus, rather than trying to keep it out of the country. Loading Because, after all, social media doesn't cease being a cesspit of negativity and danger once children turn 16. These highly powerful algorithms profit off worsening our mental health, and they're relentless. Educating young people on how to critically engage with or distance themselves from harmful online content is a long-term form of protection. Crisis support is available from Lifeline 13 11 14.
The Age
18 hours ago
- The Age
Forget a social media ban. If tech companies won't stop targeting teens like me, block them
And my algorithm is relatively benign. In the US, parents who are suing social media companies for allegedly causing their children to take their own life have reported that their children's feeds were filled with material about 'suicide, self-harm, and eating disorders'. Loading For social media companies, profits clearly come before teens' mental health. So perhaps seriously jeopardising those profits would be the most effective way to force change. While the impending social media ban threatens fines of up to $50 million for social media companies that do not take 'reasonable steps' to prevent workarounds, that probably isn't going to be enough of a punishment to create change. The term 'reasonable steps' is too vague, and the profits made from having under-16s illegally using social media apps would likely outweigh the fines. It's instead worth looking to some of the more drastic steps that have been taken in the US against social media companies, for various reasons. The US government's banning of TikTok, though relating to data privacy concerns rather than mental health, did effectively lead to the app going offline in US for a day (the ban was then postponed, but is due to come back into effect in September, unless its parent company ByteDance sells its American operations to a US-owned company.) This kind of broad government action against social media companies, threatening to entirely suspend their operations unless they cease recommending distressing or disturbing content to teenagers, might be worth trying in Australia. But even if this doesn't happen – if there's no effective legislation from the government, and we can't change the fact that kids will be exposed to dangerous content – one of the easiest and most important ways to reduce the harm of social media is education. Parents and schools often warn us about online predators, but not about how we should deal with content that makes us feel bad about ourselves or other people. And that's probably because adults and authorities don't fully understand what we're being exposed to. If schools partnered with social media experts and psychologists to learn what kinds of content social media is promoted to young people, what warning signs parents should look for if their child is at risk of internet-induced mental health issues, and how young people can disengage from harmful content or learn how to better deal with it, then we might make some progress. It's akin to giving kids and teenagers a vaccine against the social media virus, rather than trying to keep it out of the country. Loading Because, after all, social media doesn't cease being a cesspit of negativity and danger once children turn 16. These highly powerful algorithms profit off worsening our mental health, and they're relentless. Educating young people on how to critically engage with or distance themselves from harmful online content is a long-term form of protection. Crisis support is available from Lifeline 13 11 14.
