Mr Barrie has been retired from the Navy for about five or six years now, but listening to him speak showed that forty years of service still manages to shape his words a certain way. In the first part of his talk, there was mention of all manner of statistics and numbers drawn from various reports, to support a somewhat bleak view of what Australia could be like by 2050 if we go on about our merry way. That way being the maintenance of voluntary participation in military, emergency, and community service jobs, and addressing the lack of skilled workers in civilian employment by hiring appropriate employees from overseas. While our Asian neighbours continue to increase in population and improve their standards of living through increased industrialisation and our old pal capitalism, Australia will struggle under the increasing burden of an ageing population and a lack of production from the nation's brood mares, neigh, women.
So I guess what Barrie was trying to say (to the predominantly older middle-class white intelligentsia gathered in the Utzon Room at the Sydney Opera House on NRL Grand Final day) is something along the lines of we're going to hell in a handbasket unless we sort out today's young people with a good dose of national service. For every old person in the Australian community some time in the frightening pre-apocalyptic future, there'd only be 2.4 young people in the workforce that would be able to provide some sort of care or service. Clearly not enough slaves to do the bidding of all the pensioners of Australia! But I digress. The question of whether China is a real threat to us and our way of life, or if we're really going to be okay with Indonesians having a better lifestyle than us in the future, or the possibility that Australia will lose its identity amongst a mass of immigrating cultures, is swept aside and rolled up into the phrase Australia's positioning in the Asia-Pacific region by 2050. Or something like that.
How does Barrie's AUSSIE (Australian Universal Service Scheme - Individual Experience?) conscription program intend to address this? Well, the idea is that by taking part in various tasks of a community/nation serving nature, Australia's young people will gain points towards the completion of the scheme. For example, every young man and woman will be required to sign up and work towards 1000 points of 'service' within ten years. This service is not necessarily military, and the jobs that are available will be flexible and varied enough so that some Australians may wish to continue employment in various fields, even once their 1000 points are completed. Rewards and incentives such as gaining a passport (true citizenship à la Starship Troopers, anyone?), wiping off HECS debts, or achieving advanced standing within public service and military career paths could also be incorporated with the scheme.
I agree with Barrie that Defence is always going to have a problem with recruiting the numbers it requires to make up for natural attrition, as well as to expand in the areas it needs to as the forces grow in the future. There will also be no doubt that the strain on resources required by the ageing populous will only continue to increase. The idea of implementing a universal conscription scheme that incorporates services to the community in multiple forms other than in merely a military environment is definitely worthy of public debate. I appreciate that by making 'conscription' universal rather than selective is quite different to how troops were signed up in the past, and I also believe that by offering a range of jobs to suit people's varying preferences and aptitudes, most people can be accommodated for.
However:
- I believe there is an inherent danger in employing people in the military if it is not entirely of their own volition.
- I question the effectiveness of a group of young people that have been coerced in any way to serve in such positions, and I worry about the consequences of trying to get AUSSIE troops to work alongside people that have voluntarily chosen military jobs.
- Instead of throwing $500 million at Defence Force Recruiting to figure out how to entice more people to enlist in the forces, why can't the ADF work on retaining as much staff as possible, and taking constructive steps towards making it an appealing enough workplace that people actually might want to work in without all the flashbangwaheynowwhizzery?
- Military stuff aside... why should a whole generation of young Australians be forced into service jobs that for the most part involve taking care of a generation that wasn't forward-thinking enough to find a less uh... Communist(?) way of tackling the messed up babies-to-oldies-ratio problem?
- If it takes about ten years to clock up these 1000 points of service, with the potential to keep a whole generation locked in to various jobs in the local community (especially if you can't get a passport!), will we end up with a mass of socially retarded, cultureless, unchallenged thirtysomething Australians left to write some pages in our nation's glittering history?
