New security treaty expected to allow PNG soldiers to join the Australian Defence Force

Australia Broadcast Center

03-05-2025

The three years Papua New Guinean soldier Derek Levi spent seconded with the Australian Defence Force (ADF) were some of the best of his life.
"Australia felt like a second home. I never got homesick and the standard of employment was the pinnacle of what I saw," he said.
These days he's back in PNG commanding an engineer battalion in the Papua New Guinea Defence Force (PNGDF).
Derek Levy was seconded in Australia for three years between 2021-23 as an instructor at the School of Military Engineering in Sydney.
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Supplied: Derek Levy
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But like many in the PNGDF, he wonders if his next posting to Australia might be permanent, as Australia and PNG prepare to begin work on a new defence treaty,
It follows the release of the ADF's workforce plan last year, which pledged to explore recruiting non-Australian citizens from the Pacific.
Experts say opening the door to Pacific recruits would strengthen Australia's relationship with our closest neighbours, beef up security in the region, and potentially pave the way for a new Australian fighting force, similar to the Gurkha in the British Army.
ADF recruitment woes
PNG officials say Australia has indicated it needs thousands of Papua New Guineans to join the ADF.
Australia aims to grow the number of ADF personnel to 80,000 by 2040, however it's not on track to meet that target. A Senate hearing last year was told the military was 7 per cent under strength, or about 4,000 personnel below where it needs to be.
Mr Levi said there would be countless Papua New Guineans willing to serve Australia if given the chance.
"They [Australia] would get overwhelming applicants,"
he said.
"It would be an employment opportunity with the pride of wearing a uniform.
"That's the opposite of the ADF right now, where the young generation (of Australians) don't want to join the army. For us it's different. We do it for the loyalty."
Members of the Australian Army and Papua New Guinea Defence Force training together in Wewak on the north coast of PNG.
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Supplied: Australian Army/3rd Brigade
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It's often been reported that young Australians are turning away from the uniform due to cultural and moral reasons.
However, Jennifer Parker, an expert associate at the Australian National University's National Security College, said this was a simplistic narrative.
She said pinning the ADF's recruitment shortfall solely on young people's values was assumptive because the ADF doesn't release the number of yearly applicants it received.
Jen Parker is a an expert associate at the Australian National University's National Security College.
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Supplied
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She said the bigger issue was the ADF's recruitment process, which
"It is multifaceted, but we do have evidence from Veterans' Affairs Minister Matt Keogh himself saying it takes 300 days to get people through the door," she said.
"That's too long, so I think that is the major issue Defence needs to address."
Green light, just a matter of time
As for whether PNG recruitment will get approved, she believed a green light was imminent, particularly if Labor was elected back into government.
She supports the idea in theory, however she said drafting a recruitment policy would need to be done carefully to avoid issues around brain drain, citizenship and potential pay gaps between Australian and Pacific recruits.
She said a hybrid system where Pacific soldiers operated in their own units but under an ADF banner might be the best bet.
Papua New Guinea Defence Force members conduct assault exercises as part of Exercise Wantok in 2024.
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Supplied: Australian Army/3rd Brigade
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I think the focus should be on recruiting units as opposed to individuals with a policy that if they serve in Australia, they return home after service," she said.
"Taking highly educated people away from their country can have negative implications, and a difference in pay and standards between the ADF and PNGDF members could create a bad culture."
Ultimately, Ms Parker said the initiative was more about strengthening security partnerships than filling holes in the ADF and did not foresee large numbers of PNG recruits being admitted.
Photo shows
An Australian Army major gives orders to his soldiers who are assembled outside in full combat gear
The government says more personnel are needed to operate new military capability, including promised nuclear-powered submarines and missile systems. But defence insiders doubt the ADF will be able to attract the numbers needed.
Constitutional amendments may be required to change rules that require foreign recruits to apply for Australian citizenship within 90 days of joining the ADF.
However, PNG's Defence Minister Billy Joseph told the ABC last month the impetus to move forward with the plan was strong.
"We have a huge youth bulge below the age of 25 and we see the need for us to find employment, jobs and to upskill them so they come back and serve our country later," he said.
Back in Australia meanwhile, a detailed recruitment strategy has already been floated.
The top 1 per cent
Ross Thompson is the the chief executive of Australian labour hire firm PeopleIN.
His firm recruits Pacific Islanders as part of the government's seasonal work program, known as the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme.
In his younger years, he was a British Army officer in the Queen's Gurkha Engineers.
Ross Thompson (left) was a former British Army officer.
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The brigade of Gurkha is made up of soldiers from Nepal and has been part of the British Army for 200 years.
They are considered some of the finest and most fearsome soldiers in the world, and Mr Thompson said they offered a blueprint which could be used to recruit soldiers from PNG.
"Around 25,000 people apply every year in Nepal for a position in the Gurkhas, and they only take 1 per cent,"
he said.
Mr Thompson's firm presented a strategy based on the Gurkha model to government officials last year. The proposal offered a detailed selection process to fill areas of need for the ADF.

"We have 6,000 workers on the (PALM) scheme, so part of this proposal is taking lessons we've learnt over the years, and the other element is my experience in the Queen's Gurkha Engineers, where I was exposed to the recruitment process," he said.
"You would have an initial registration, then a selection process with the regions of PNG, and then cut that down to a final stage selection that would be in Port Moresby.
"Each stage would have a fitness, medical and aptitude element, and the aptitude element would get tied back to the gaps in the ADF and the roles it needs to fill," he said.
A Nepalese Gurkha on a training exercise in New Zealand's South Island's Buller and Tekapo regions.
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Supplied: New Zealand Army
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Mr Thompson said his firm's data suggested PNG had enough skilled individuals to meet the ADF's selection criteria.
However, Ms Parker said training pathways would still need to be put in place to bridge education gaps. This is another area where the ADF has shown a reluctance to budge on.
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute wrote in February the ADF needed to lower its recruitment standards, saying many Australians who fought and died in World War I and II would have been rejected by today's ADF.
However Neil James, executive director at the Australia Defence Association, said there was a deeper question Australia needed to answer before it started recruiting Pacific Islanders into the ADF — why do we need the help of foreigners in the first place?
The moral dilemma
The idea of Pacific Islanders joining the ADF is not new, according to Mr James. In fact, two Pacific battalions served in the Australian armed forces up until 1975 when PNG gained independence from Australia.
He said he can't foresee any model that would work legally without a path to citizenship, which the UK's Gurkha program provides. However a model similar to the Gurkha one raised ethical questions.
"One of the arguments we've often heard is that these young, fit Pacific Islanders come from warrior cultures and it's natural to recruit them into our army," he said.
"
But we've always been very uncomfortable with that because it's a racial assumption.
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He said the deeper question was why can't Australians do it?
"If your own citizens won't join your own defence force, there's a moral question everyone needs to start asking as opposed to looking for a quick-fix solution to recruit South Pacific Islanders," he said.
The ABC has approached the ADF for comment.