This is not actually news; it's been discussed on here before repeatedly. It's just another beat up; necessary to fill column inches and air time now that the election is done. And *money* is not the issue, it's there. The problem is recruiting and training enough personnel to meet the numbers that have been funded and the considerable problem that you can't recruit a clever young Aussie today and give him or her 10 years of experience in one year of training.
And yes, Army and Airforce have the same issues. Money to spend on crew, but not enough recruits and the long term effect of losing the skilled backbone of technical and specialist positions to impossibly higher paid civvy positions. Throwing more money at this would be simply pissing it against a tree - it's a problem shared by virtually every nation that allows their people to choose to serve or otherwise
oldsig
The shortages causing the most pain are technically competent junior members, i.e. those qualified and capable of doing their jobs with minimal supervision but still very much on the tools. These people mostly are in their mid to late 20s, or early 30s have several years in service, are fully qualified in their trades, generally have done some promotion courses, but also a lot are starting families and thinking about alternative careers.
In the past there have been retention bonuses etc. with varying degrees of success but with unforseen side effects, i.e. creating dissatisfaction in more senior members who end up being on less money than their less qualified, less experienced subordinates.
One issue defence has is the lack of lateral recruitment, especially for technical trades, making them almost totally reliant on the people they grow themselves. Even when accepting people from allied militaries they force them to take massive drops in rank, ie WO2 to Corporal, same applies to personnel transferring service RAEME SGT dropping to Ordinary Seaman. (Ironically a corps transfer in army I know of non technical SGTs retaining their rank while doing technical training and being posted to more senior appointments than more technically qualified and experienced soldiers).
Civilians, no matter their qualifications or experience, hence value to defence, have to start at the bottom and spend years redoing things they have already done before they finally reach the level they were at before joining. By the time they get to use the skills they brought to defence they haven't used them in years.
There have been suggestions that the ADF look at reintroducing PO/SGT entry for qualified tradespeople. Great if it happens as they are being employed for their technical skills, not their military experience, the ADF are very good at training people in military skills. Another thought is there is also a shortage of higher level technical personnel, these are the CPO, FLT SGT, WO level, the Articifers. Their sub 4 training (I believe) facilitates Chartered TO Status with Engineers Australia, so why not equate this with providing the possibility of appointing suitably qualified civilians as Articifers with appropriate rank. Possibly also consider the appointment of qualified / certified LAMEs, Marine Engineers, Senior Technical Officers as para professional Special Service Officers, as is done for some pilots, as well as doctors, nurses, lawyers, some engineers, Chaplains etc. Officers being paid to turn spanners may face some resistance though.
