Defence’s future role in humanitarian and disaster relief

Not a summer seems to pass without Australian soldiers responding to the latest cyclone, flood or bushfire or delivering emergency relief to disaster-afflicted regional neighbours.

After local volunteers of the bushfire brigades and state emergency services, the Australian Defence Force is increasingly the go-to organisation for governments responding to catastrophic weather and other events.

That’s because the ADF is very good at this mission. It has readily deployable, skilled personnel plus equipment such as earth-moving machinery, vehicles, helicopters and ships.

With climate change set to make major weather events more common and likely more severe, that task will surely continue and expand.

With no foreign wars (at the moment) plus a looming climate crisis, there’s an ongoing debate inside and outside Defence about whether it should be structured to better respond to humanitarian and disaster relief (HADR) missions.

“The ADF’s current approach of contributing on a part-time, as-available basis to HADR operations was designed last century to manage periodic natural disasters,” writes strategic analyst Peter Layton on The Lowy Institute’s The Interpreter blog.

“The time has arguably now come to restructure the ADF to undertake HADR missions on a full-time basis. Accepting HADR as the new normal for the ADF would involve adding a new dedicated HADR element.”

The ADF willingly undertakes HADR tasks and there are well-established, though not widely understood, procedures for calling on defence assistance. But it has been traditionally reluctant to depart from its core defence mission.

Further, HADR activities are delivered at a substantial cost. Training and exercises have had to be cancelled when personnel have been assigned to disaster relief.

Former ADF chief Chris Barrie, an advocate for climate change action, told a conference in Canberra last year the defence force Australia could afford would never be large enough to deal with concurrent and extreme weather events such as the 2019-20 Black Summer bushfires.

“That’s why we need to think carefully about how we’re going to head off the likelihood that these things might happen, and then be prepared to deal with them,” he said. “But not using ADF people. They’re the most expensive people you can buy to do this kind of work.”

Defence and disaster relief

ADF personnel are trained to a very high standard at taxpayer expense. Equipment is also expensive, with ADF helicopters costing as much as 10 times more to operate than civil aircraft.

Layton suggests a 5000-member standing force that delivers full-time HADR capabilities. This force need not be military and members could be drawn from neighbours such as Papua New Guinea. Annual cost? About $2 billion.

That the ADF isn’t configured for disaster relief was a point made in the Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements, which reported in October 2020. Of more than 340 public submissions, about one-fifth referred to the ADF, with many calling for a greater Defence role in responding to natural disasters.

“There appears to be a lack of understanding about the role, capacity and capability of the ADF in relation to natural disasters,” says the final report. “The ADF does not have the capacity or capability to fight bushfires. It does, however, have unique capabilities to provide ancillary support. Understanding of ADF capabilities and processes needs to be improved to ensure that it is used effectively.”

After a decade of engagement in the Middle East, the ADF is concentrating on activities closer to home. Climate change has grown incrementally larger in Australia’s peak defence planning documents, most recently in the 2020 Defence Strategic Update. That highlighted growing security challenges and that Australia could no longer rely on a decade of clear warning of an emerging threat.

“Within Australia, the intensity and frequency of disasters … will test Australia’s resilience,” it said. “Disaster response and resilience measures demand a higher priority in defence planning.”

Significantly, the government has commissioned Office of National Intelligence head Andrew Shearer to review the security threats posed by the climate crisis. This will likely feed into the over-arching Defence Strategic Review, with its broad terms of reference.

“The review must outline the future strategic challenges facing Australia, which may require an Australian Defence Force operational response,” the government says. Former ADF chief Sir Angus Houston and former Labor defence minister Stephen Smith will deliver their findings by March.

Whatever the conclusions, the ADF will certainly need more people. This was recognised when minister Peter Dutton announced Defence’s total permanent workforce would increase to more than 101,000 by 2040. That’s an increase of 18,500 over the baseline growth already agreed in the 2020 Force Structure Plan.

ASPI senior analyst Marcus Hellyer says Defence will need to find about 13,800 in the first decade. This is a tall order, with current ADF numbers rising by an average of just 300 per year.

Defence has seldom been able to attract sufficient recruits. It’s why conscription was twice attempted – unsuccessfully during World War I and successfully in 1964, when it became associated with the war in Vietnam. Except in the direst of national emergencies, no Australian government would contemplate conscription.

Defence needs to rely on its recruiting systems and the ADF to retain those it entices into its ranks, but there are grounds for optimism. In the ASPI 2022-23 Defence Budget Brief, Hellyer says the ADF workforce comprises 0.23% – one person in 400 – of the growing Australian population. “The ADF just has to preserve its current share … to achieve the target.”

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