This blog post forms part of a series in which I document the history of partner employment advocacy and support in Australia
“In 2017 the Prime Minister of Australia established the Industry Advisory Committee on Veterans’ Employment which included the identification of ADF spouse employment as one of five priority areas”
– Churchill Fellowship Report, 2018
This line in my Churchill Fellowship Report was accompanied by a footnote: “to date, the committee has not released any findings or recommendations on the topic”. Yet, we remained hopeful (even if not optimistic) that partner employment may receive the attention it deserved after 40 years.
The establishment of the VEP and the Veterans Advisory Committee
Ahead of the 2016 federal election, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull shared that a re-elected coalition government would establish a veterans employment initiative. Prime Minister Turnbull had been “very influenced” by his association with his son-in-law, veteran James Brown and his work with the RSL. From this, grew the VEP. On November 17, 2016, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced a package of initiatives as part of the Prime Minister’s Veterans’ Employment Program. These initiatives included transition assistance, a feature on the JobsActive website, and the encouragement of businesses to partner with ex-service organisations to develop strategies for driving veterans’ employment.
The Prime Minister also announced the government would establish an Industry Advisory Committee (IAC) to help develop veteran recruitment and retainment strategies.
The IAC met for the first time on 31 March, 2017.1 The areas of focus established at that meeting included: the availability of data on the employment profile of veterans, improving the transition process from the ADF, translating skills and raising awareness of the value that former members of the ADF offer to Australian businesses. It was decided working groups would be established to progress the work in these areas.
The inclusion of partners
The IAC then met again on the 16 June 2017. At that meeting, the Committee “also discussed the importance of improving employment opportunities for spouses of serving members.” 2 The eight focus areas of the IAC were condensed to five and included spouse employment of serving ADF members. The terms of reference of the IAC included item 7: Examine whether there is scope to encourage business to employ the spouses of serving Australian Defence Force members.3 The terms of reference for the IAC included item 7: examine whether there is scope to encourage business to employ the spouses of serving Australian Defence Force members. This is despite that back in 2000 Defence liaised with employers who expressed interest in searching for ADF partner applicants on the DCO job board.
In their 2017 Agenda and Year in Review, Defence Families of Australia reported that they had “connected with the partner employment sub-committee of the Industry Advisory Committee to the Prime Minister’s Veterans’ Employment Initiative and will be reviewing their recommendations when released”. 4
At the June 15, 2018 meeting the Hon Darren Chester MP, Minister for Veterans Affairs addressed the Committee, laying out his priorities for improving the employment outcomes for veterans and ADF spouses.
By 2021, the terms of reference had been updated and item 7 became “strategies to encourage the employment of partners of serving Australian Defence Force members”