... From The Australian:
Push for women on defence front line
WOMEN should be able to serve in all frontline combat units of the Australian Defence Force, including the SAS and commando units, under a controversial plan that could avert a looming recruitment crisis.
The push by Defence Personnel and Science Minister Greg Combet would remove gender as a criterion for selection for specialised categories of military service.
The Rudd government wants to lift the proportion of women serving in the defence force from the current level of 13 per cent, as demographic pressures bear down on defence force recruitment over the next decade.
Removing any gender discrimination for serving in combat roles would put Australia in front of its key allies, including the US and Britain, which continue to carefully restrict where women can serve in the front line.
Mr Combet, a former ACTU national secretary, told parliament yesterday the Defence Science and Technology Organisation would develop a new set of physical employment standards for the army that would accurately measure a person's ability to perform the broad variety of jobs in the modern defence force. "A priority of the government is to improve the recruitment and retention of women in the ADF," he said. "My own view is that all categories should be open to women. The only exceptions should be where the physical demands cannot be met according to criteria that are determined on the basis of scientific analysis, rather than assumptions about gender."
Mr Combet said DSTO, in collaboration with the University of Wollongong, had established a Centre of Expertise in Physical Employment Standards, which would develop benchmarks for physical employment assessments for the ADF, beginning with the army.
"By defining a set of physical employment standards that represent the real demands of military tasks, Defence can ensure that all personnel have the appropriate physical capacity to safely and effectively carry out those tasks," he said. "The development of these new standards will also help inform the government on the appropriateness of a possible expansion of the roles that women can play in the ADF," Mr Combet said. He said the government would consider the results of the study, expected later next year.
Women are now able to serve in 92 per cent of employment categories and 81 per cent of positions across the ADF, including flying fast jets in the RAAF. In the army, women cannot join the special forces and some restrictions still apply in combat engineer squadrons and armoured units. Earlier this year, the army opened the employment category of ground-based air defence to women.
In the navy, the only restrictions are in the categories of clearance diver and mine clearance diver officer, while the RAAF continues to bar women from serving as airfield defence guards and ground defence officers.
Women can serve in combat zones in headquarters units and logistics roles within infantry and armoured units, and can also now join artillery units.
Mr Combet told parliament that adoption of new employment standards would also help guide recruits to occupations for which they were most physically suited and could also potentially facilitate access to occupations traditionally closed to particular groups on the basis of "task physical readiness".