Australian soldiers to be offered $1,000 cash bonuses if they recruit someone else into the military

Australian Defence Force members will soon receive $1,000 payments if they successfully encourage someone to enlist, under a two-year trial program to help meet ambitious military recruitment and retention targets.

Amid growing strategic risks, the government is aiming to grow the size of the permanent ADF to almost 80,000 uniformed personnel by 2040, with new Defence Chief Admiral David Johnston nominating the goal as one of his highest priorities.

In a newly published determination, the Defence Department has outlined a new “careers referral” initiative that sets up “an incentive scheme to encourage members to refer people to join the ADF”.

“This scheme provides a $1,000 payment to an ADF member who refers a person to join the ADF who then completes 12 months of service as a member of the Permanent Forces,” the determination, dated October 3, states.

According to the determination, a “referred person” cannot have previously served in the ADF, be a close relative of the referring member, or already have a current application to enlist.

The two-year trial program will begin within the next month, and has been designed based on the experience of programs operated by AUKUS partners the United States and the United Kingdom.

Minister for Veterans’ Affairs Matt Keogh says under the National Defence Strategy the government is “exploring many options to improve our recruitment, to grow our defence force”.

“We know that around 80 per cent of people that join the Australian Defence Force have a close connection to somebody that is currently or has previously served in the defence force,” Mr Keogh told the ABC.

“This initiative is an important step in recognising how our ADF personnel can contribute to our recruitment efforts in showcasing their experiences and skills to people that they know, and to assist them on the journey of not just joining our defence force, but also starting their career in the defence force.

“This is a scheme that’s not just about having ADF personnel recruit people to the defence force, but it’s also designed to encourage ongoing contact and engagement between the serving defence member and the person that they’ve referred, to provide them with support through initial training in the early parts of their service.”

Earlier this year, then-defence chief General Angus Campbell outlined the extent of the Australian military’s chronic workforce crisis, confirming to parliament it was nearly 7 per cent under strength and was continuing to shrink.

“It puts stress across the entire organisation in terms of being able to both train, recruit, to conduct activity, and to sustain our people, support their families [and] continue our tempo of activity, both internationally and domestically,” he said.