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The Albanese Government is rebuilding the Australian Defence Force (ADF) – driving the highest recruitment in 15 years, slashing separation rates, and keeping the force strong at over 61,000 full-time personnel. 

Over the last three years, the Albanese Government has focussed on introducing bold and targeted initiatives to address the declining recruitment and retention rates inherited from the former Coalition government, and set Defence up for long-term growth. 

These efforts are delivering results and for the first time in years, the ADF is growing. 

• In 2024-25, the ADF enlisted 7,059 permanent full-time personnel – the highest annual intake since 2009-10 and 17% increase on the previous year. 
• As at 1 July 2025, the permanent and full-time ADF workforce reached 61,189 people – higher than the targeted growth path for 2024-25. 
• More than 75,000 applications to join the ADF were received in 2024-25 – the highest number in five years and 28% year-on-year increase, compared to the same time last year. 
• Importantly, retention has also improved. The ADF-wide separation rate fell to 7.9% – well below the ten-year average and a dramatic turnaround from three-years ago.

The ADF is now well on track to meet the Albanese Government’s target of 69,000 permanent Average Funded Strength by the early 2030s – a key outcome of the 2024 National Defence Strategy and the 2024 Defence Workforce Plan, which provides a credible and budgeted pathway to grow the Defence workforce. 

While there is more work to be done, these results highlight significant progress in attracting and retaining the skilled workforce required to build the future Defence Force. 

Deputy Prime Minister, Richard Marles: 

“It is essential that Australia has the Defence Force it needs to help protect its strategic interests, and that is why we have made significant investments to support our current Defence workforce and grow it for the future. 

“When the Albanese Government came to office we inherited a personnel crisis. Throughout the near-decade the Coalition was in office, the ADF grew by just 2,000 people. 

“In 2025, the ADF is now growing again for the first time in almost four years. While there is much more work to do, we are confident these positive trends will continue. 

“The Defence Workforce Plan centres our efforts to recruit and retain the highly specialised and skilled workforce required to meet capability needs.” 

Minister for Defence Personnel, Matt Keogh: 

“Thanks to our recruitment and retention initiatives the Australian Defence Force is seeing increased applications, enlistments and more people staying in service than we have in years. 

“It’s fantastic to see more and more Australians signing up for an exciting and fulfilling career in the ADF. 

“These efforts are complemented by our ongoing efforts to retain our personnel in service for longer, with improvements to how Defence personnel and their families are supported at work and at home. 

“A stabilised and strengthened workforce is the foundation that we need to continue to grow, to reskill and transform to have the future workforce required to deliver against the 2024 National Defence Strategy.”

The Albanese Government is today making a further humanitarian contribution in response to the catastrophe in Gaza.

Australia will provide an additional $20 million to support organisations with the scale and capacity to respond quickly to deliver food, medical supplies for field hospitals and other lifesaving support to women and children in Gaza, following the announcement of new humanitarian corridors.

The Australian Government has now committed more than $130 million in humanitarian assistance to help civilians in Gaza and Lebanon since 7 October 2023.

As with all our humanitarian assistance to Gaza, we’re delivering our aid with key partners, including close coordination with the United Kingdom and humanitarian organisations.

The Australian Government’s new package of support includes:

• $2 million for relief support with the UK, through our existing partnership arrangement
• $6 million to the UN World Food Programme for the provision and distribution of food supplies
• $5 million to UNICEF for nutritional support to children at risk of starvation
• $5 million to the International Committee of the Red Cross to meet essential needs, including access to healthcare
• $2 million to the Jordan Hashemite Charity Organization, expanding our cooperation with the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan to provide medical supplies to support the operation of field hospitals in Gaza.

This funding supports the efforts of our international partners in addressing the most urgent need of innocent civilians in Gaza.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Senator Penny Wong:

“Australia has consistently been part of the international call on Israel to allow a full and immediate resumption of aid to Gaza, in line with the binding orders of the International Court of Justice.

“The suffering and starvation of civilians in Gaza must end.

“Australia will continue to work with the international community to call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire, the release of hostages and a two-state solution – the only path to enduring peace and security for the Israeli and Palestinian peoples.”

International Development Minister Dr Anne Aly MP:

“We’re working with partners to deliver immediate and sustained life-saving assistance to the people of Gaza. They must be allowed to do their vital work and deliver aid at scale.

“Australia’s additional funding will bolster international efforts to address urgent needs in Gaza. It will provide urgently needed food and healthcare.

“We continue to call on Israel to allow immediate and unimpeded aid access into Gaza.”

The ACT Greens are alarmed by Labor’s inaction on climate change and nature restoration, saying work in progress when Greens previously held the portfolios have ground to a halt.

Following questioning in Budget Estimates on Friday from the ACT Greens, it was uncovered that the ACT Labor Minister for Climate Change, Environment, Energy and Water has no vision and is dragging her feet on climate action.

ACT Greens Leader and former Minister for Energy, Water and Emissions Reduction, Shane Rattenbury said one thing Labor can do to show they are taking climate action seriously is to progress the next ACT Climate Change Strategy, given the current one ends this year.

“The next strategy should be almost ready to launch but the Labor Minister couldn’t provide any clear update on where it’s up to, or when we might see it,” Mr Rattenbury said.

“There is no excuse. Towards the end of my term as Minister, I instructed the Directorate to prepare options for the development of the new Climate Change Strategy for consideration by the incoming Minister in November 2024.

“It usually takes about 12 months to prepare, consult and then get Cabinet approval for a new strategy. Nine months later and we still can’t get a timeline.

“During the hearings, the Head of ACT Climate Change Council, Arnagretta Hunter, said that Canberra needs to plan for 55 degree days. We know more extreme weather events are coming and that we need to better equip Canberra to remain resilient in the face of these threats.

“At the election Labor promised almost nothing on climate action, but did say there would be ‘no backwards steps’. Clearly they also meant no steps forward.”

ACT Greens Deputy Leader Jo Clay said Labor is going backwards on environmental care, and that the green spaces and key environmental areas that currently make Canberra a great place for people, animals and plants, will further decline without major ongoing investments in nature.

“Environment is clearly at the bottom of ACT Labor’s list of priorities. In the hearings they doubled down saying they won’t boost much-needed funding for environment and nature care delivered by environmental volunteers,” Ms Clay said.

“These are the organisations that maintain Canberra’s green spaces, keep nature thriving across our suburbs and generate a strong sense of community, belonging and mental wellbeing across the ACT.

“Just a few months ago, in their Close to the Edge report, the ACT’s Commissioner for Sustainability and the Environment damned the “demonstrably inadequate” environmental funding from ACT Government.

“The report stated ‘It is therefore hard to take the view that biodiversity protection is a genuine priority for the ACT.’

“I had hoped Labor’s new Environment Minister would take the Commissioner’s recommendations seriously, but it’s clear that is not the case.

“The Greens are still driving environmental protection from the crossbench this term, with the Labor Government sitting in the back seat.

“It’s only because of Greens work alongside the community that the ACT will set an urban growth boundary, fund efforts to save the Canberra Earless Dragons from extinction, protect all of Bluetts Block and recognise the environmental, cultural and agricultural values of the Western Edge and Eastern Broadacre areas.”

The ACT Greens have condemned the Federal Labor Government for pushing the critically endangered Canberra Grassland Earless Dragon towards extinction, following news today that the Environment Minister has given the green light for the Canberra Airport Northern Road development to go ahead.

Deputy Leader of the ACT Greens Jo Clay said that despite the community’s best efforts, with hundreds of people backing calls to save the critically endangered Canberra Grassland Earless Dragon, Labor has once again chosen the interests of business over people and planet.

“The approval of the Northern Road at Canberra Airport is a blow to the community and sends a message that our Federal Government does not care about nature,” said ACT Greens Deputy Leader Jo Clay.

“The offsets and conditions in this road development approval are an attempt to buy the goodwill of the community in exchange for habitat degradation, the annihilation of one of our local critters and potentially the uplisting of many other species who live in temperate grasslands.

“The reality is there are very few patches of this habitat in Australia. Let’s be clear – the impacts on the dragons and grassland habitat are entirely avoidable, and not compensated for by the conditions attached to the development.

“We call on the ACT Labor Government to use all compensation funding from the road development to protect remaining natural temperate grassland habitat – otherwise there will be nowhere left in the wild to reintroduce dragons from the breeding program.

“Hundreds of Canberrans wrote to the current Environment Minister, the former Environment Minister and all Independent and Labor Parliamentarians for the ACT, urging them to help save the dragons and stop the road. For the few that actually responded, they insisted they care about the environment.

“But actions speak louder than words – and it’s not a one off, it’s a trend. The Federal Labor Government has time and time again sided with corporations over the very people and planet they were elected to stand up for.

“In the three months since the election – and despite Labor claiming Australia voted for climate action and protecting the environment – they’ve approved the climate-wrecking extension of the dirty gas North West Shelf facility to 2070 and are now pushing the Earless Dragon towards extinction.

“Our national environmental laws have been failing for years – Labor threw in the towel last term to reform our systems and genuinely put people and the planet ahead of vested interests.

“Now we’ve seen the Canberra Earless Dragon added to their failures of no new extinctions, right behind Tassie’s Maugean Skate casualty thanks to Labor backing the dirty salmon industry.

“The ACT Greens are calling on the Federal Government to fix broken environmental laws before we see more native animals lost to Labor constantly choosing business over people and nature.”

BACKGROUND:

• The Northern Road Development was granted approval in 2009 under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, subject to varied conditions. These conditions were set without any consultation with the ACT Government. A Grassland Earless Dragon Recovery Team was responsible for implementing a Recovery Plan at that time. They advised the road would have minimal impact on the population if it went around the core habitat area.
• In 2023 the Canberra Grassland Earless Dragon was uplisted to ‘critically endangered’ – the last stop before extinction. The former ACT Greens Environment Minister and community secured a commitment from Federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek to reconsider protections for the earless dragon before this road progresses.
• The ACT Government 2024-25 budget included funding for emergency response measures to rescue the Canberra Earless Dragon from extinction.
• Construction was first reported by the media on Monday 24 February 2025. In these articles, Canberra Airport Group are reported to have agreed to pause a section of road construction that bisects the largest area of intact grassland habitat.
• Following news coverage, the ACT Greens contacted both Minister Plibersek’s office and the Canberra Airport Group on 25 February 2025. This was followed up with a formal letter to Minister Plibersek on Wednesday 5 March 2025. To date, there has been no response.
• The ACT Greens formally wrote to the ACT Chief Minister and ACT Environment Minister on Sunday 2 March 2025 seeking urgent action to elevate the issue with their Federal counterparts and ensure the Canberra Airport Road does not make a species extinct.
• The Australian Greens wrote to Minister Plibersek on Thursday 6 March 2025 calling for the Minister to intervene and revoke the road development.
• The ACT Greens were alerted on Thursday 13 March 2025 that construction has recommenced on the road. Ms Clay visited the site and confirmed construction vehicles operating on Friday 14 March 2025.
• The ACT Greens met with the Canberra Airport Group on Thursday 1 May to hear their plans for the road, its purpose and review their environmental studies on site. Following the Greens meeting, the Canberra Airport Group also met with local ecologists.
• The 2025-26 ACT Budget invested $4.5m into breeding programs for the Canberra Earless Dragon and temperate grassland habitat restoration.
• On 22 May the ACT Greens wrote to the new Federal Environment Minister Murray Watt expressing the community’s grave concerns about the proposed development of the Northern Road at the Canberra Airport precinct and urged him to uphold his government’s commitment of no new extinctions and ensure no further work is undertaken on the site until there is evidence showing the proposed mitigation measures work. A response was received on Tuesday 29 July.
• The approval decision is dated Wednesday 30 July and was uploaded to the EPBC Act Public Portal on Friday 1 August.