AAP General News (Australia)
02-01-2006
Fed: Govt should look into dropping age to join forces: Bishop
CANBERRA, Feb 1 AAP - The federal government should investigate allowing younger teenagers
to join the defence forces to help with a foreshadowed shortfall of Australian troops,
Liberal backbencher Bronwyn Bishop said today.
Recently appointed Minister of Defence Brendan Nelson yesterday ruled out calls from
a former military chief to reintroduce compulsory national service.
Admiral Chris Barrie says the nation needs to think about a system of compulsory national
service because it is set to run out of young people for the defence force.
He says Australia's ageing population means just 40,000 new entrants would join the
workforce in the decade from 2020 and defence may need 30,000 of them.
Liberal backbencher Bronwyn Bishop said today that lowering the age for joining the
Australian defence force should be investigated.
"I'd like to see a good debate on lowering the age for certain recruitment and education
packages because I do think the ADF has to be competitive," she told ABC Radio.
Neil James from the Australia Defence Association also called for new early entry allowing
the military to offer apprenticeships to 14 and 15 year olds.
"The defence forces of course used to do that.
They used to bring in people for apprenticeship schemes at 15 and the navy had its
boy sailor scheme which bought people in at 15, educated them and trained them up so they
could enter the seagoing part of the navy at 17 and 18," he told ABC Radio.
"Australia stopped that essentially because we acceded to a number of international
conventions to do with getting rid of child soldiers in Africa and the legal interpretation
then was they required Australia to get rid of our early entry schemes."
"It may be that original legal advice is wrong and it should be looked into."
AAP klw/cjh
KEYWORD: MARITIME BISHOP
2006 AAP Information Services Pty Limited (AAP) or its Licensors.
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