A majority of Defence public servants are no longer satisfied with their remuneration, a staff survey has found.
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The result has prompted the department to explore additional training and development opportunities for its APS staff, as a planned payrise in 2023 is set to be wiped out by cost of living rises.
While uniformed ADF have recently been advised of significant bonuses to their employment offer, including five weeks of leave from next year, their Defence APS colleagues will instead receive a 3 per cent pay increase in August 2023.
Among the large employers in government, only Home Affairs and Defence had fewer than half of the organisation's workforce satisfied with their remuneration, 37 per cent and 47 per cent respectively in the 2022 APS Employee Census. A full results table is available at the bottom of this article.
Defence's pay satisfaction fell 9 percentage points since 2021, despite overall increases in other indicators like job satisfaction.
In a statement, the spokesperson for the department said it closely considers all census results, which were an important mechanism for Defence to identify strengths and areas for improvement.
"While there was improvement in overall job satisfaction, leadership, communication and change, Defence recognises there was a fall in satisfaction with remuneration in the 2022 Census," the spokesperson said.
"Defence is working on measures to improve the employment offer, such as further training and development opportunities for our APS staff."
It comes as 2022 has brought significant cost of living rises along with interest rates rises. The latest year-on-year consumer price index for the September quarter currently at 7.3 per cent - more than twice the pay rise Defence APS will receive next year.
The Australian Public Service Commission is working with portfolios, including Defence, as it shapes a new comprehensive workplace relations policy expected to bring APS wage bargaining under a single system.
Defence APS pay is seen as several years behind other portfolios due to long-stalled bargaining caps and offers rejected by the workforce under the previous government from which it has not caught up.
The government has struggled to fill more than 4000 positions across both the department and the Australian Defence Force, Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles recently revealed.
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Defence Personnel Minister Matt Keogh was asked about the shortfall in a radio exchange, confirming the portfolio needed a lot more people as it pursued new capabilities, like nuclear-propelled submarines and hypersonic missiles.
"We are down on what we currently need, and we need to grow rapidly as well, and that's a key task that I take on," he told ABC Perth on Friday.
He rejected a suggestion that Australia might consider bringing back a form of national service or conscription
"It's not the way our Force operates ... It's a highly professionalised force, rigorous training at all levels," he said.
"If we look at the way in which 21st century warfare is fought, it is much more technologically based than just the cannon fodder approach of some previous wars that many of my forebears have had to suffer."
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