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Speaker 1: Now, as mentioned in the intro, the Defense Force is

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Speaker 1: reportedly planning to cut three hundred and seventy four civilian roles.

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Speaker 1: The Public Service Association says its members have been told

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Speaker 1: about the cuts, but the Defense Force is yet to

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Speaker 1: confirm them. One hundred and forty five civil civilian defense

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Speaker 1: workers took redundancy last year, and uniform staff had to

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Speaker 1: work over Christmas to fill in for striking civilian staff.

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Speaker 1: Hayden Ricketts, he's a retired lieutenant colonel from Mission Home Front,

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Speaker 1: and he joins me, now, good afternoon.

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Speaker 2: Mean tim, thanks for having us on.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you. If all these jobs are cut, how

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Speaker 1: will that affect uniformed staff, Well, I.

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Speaker 2: Think the media commentary so far has been that there

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Speaker 2: will be an increase in workload on the uniform staff,

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Speaker 2: and I think that's dead right. The Defense Force staff

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Speaker 2: at the moment are well and truly overworked, understaffed, and

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Speaker 2: quite poorly paid, and this is just going to add

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Speaker 2: more pressure to their workload as the force is going

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Speaker 2: to be asked to do likely to be asked to

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Speaker 2: do more tasks around the world. Now we're seeing if

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Speaker 2: you look around the world, we've got the US drawing

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Speaker 2: down from security provisions in Europe. In a NATO, we've

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Speaker 2: got the Prime Minister and Ministry Defense talking about deploying

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Speaker 2: additional people to peacekeeping force potentially in the Ukraine. Combats

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Speaker 2: just ran or started again in Ghazan, and we've had

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Speaker 2: Chinese warships closer to home in the Tasman Sea. All

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Speaker 2: of those indicators point to the fact that we're likely

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Speaker 2: to need our defense force more and more often, and

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Speaker 2: this would seem a strange time to be doing personnel cuts.

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Speaker 1: Do we have any idea how many? Because they're cutting

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Speaker 1: the roles, they're often roles that aren't filled. Do we

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Speaker 1: have any idea how many actual people are going to

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Speaker 1: disappear as a result of this, rather than just the

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Speaker 1: number of roles.

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Speaker 2: So I've got no detail on exactly how many actual

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Speaker 2: people are being cut. But this is this decision was

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Speaker 2: announced in September last year, and my understanding is that

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Speaker 2: this is the tail end of the consultation processes, and

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Speaker 2: now they're deciding which role is exactly going to be cut.

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Speaker 2: But the situation in September last year, as you recall,

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Speaker 2: was vastly different to the one now, and this looks

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Speaker 2: like last year's solution for tomorrow's problems.

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Speaker 1: Is it just that announcements like this just undermine morale

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Speaker 1: or is it because we think a bit further and think, well,

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Speaker 1: this is just going to mean more work for me,

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Speaker 1: or is it just the announcement. Look, there's more roles

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Speaker 1: being cut and it sucks.

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Speaker 2: So if you cast your mind back to twenty eleven,

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Speaker 2: when the military is asked to provide a whole bunch

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Speaker 2: of savings around the military workforce, it was identified that

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Speaker 2: military people were quite expensive in comparison to their civilian counterparts.

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Speaker 2: And you know that's true. So they reduced the numbers

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Speaker 2: of uniform personnel and increase the numbers of civilians. And

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Speaker 2: now in the stage we are in order to afford

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Speaker 2: more cuts into the realms of cutting the defensive lielings

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Speaker 2: that they defining, the plan is now too expensive to enact.

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Speaker 2: What it boils down to is the fact that the

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Speaker 2: defense force is not resourced to do all of the

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Speaker 2: things the government wants it to do.

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Speaker 1: What are you looking for yourself in terms of the

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Speaker 1: announcements that would start to boost your confidence.

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Speaker 2: I would like the Defense capital plan that's been announced

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Speaker 2: very shortly to be a balance of investment into more

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Speaker 2: military capability to replace the aging gear that our soldiers, sailors,

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Speaker 2: and air men and women have, investment in the infrastructure,

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Speaker 2: which a lot of it was built in World War Two,

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Speaker 2: and a significant investment into our people's pay because without

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Speaker 2: the people to crew those systems, the defense force is

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Speaker 2: not going to be there when the government asks it

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Speaker 2: to go and undertake these tasks.

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Speaker 1: Well, the fingers crossed, I guess, and at least there's

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Speaker 1: been some signs that we're all talking about up hanging

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Speaker 1: our defense spending. So I really appreciate your time this afternoon.

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Speaker 1: That's Hayden Rickett's retired lieutenant colonel.

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Speaker 2: For more from Heather Duplessy Allen Drive, Listen live to

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Speaker 2: news Talks.

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