Dr Josh Healy is a Senior Lecturer in Employment Relations at the University of Newcastle and an expert in the future of work. His research spans employee well-being, labour market dynamics, and the workplace impacts of new technologies. Collaborating with a diverse range of industry partners, Dr Healy has examined enduring and emerging issues, including job quality, workforce participation, gig work, workforce ageing, workplace leadership, and organisational performance, showing how these factors …

Brad West is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of South Australia. His recent publications include Finding Gallipoli: Battlefield Remembrance and the Movement of Australian and Turkish History (2022 Palgrave) and the co-edited collections Militarization and the Global Rise of Paramilitary Culture (2021, Springer) and The New Australian Military Sociology (2024, Berghahn). He is the founding co-Director (with Cate Carter) of the Military Organisation and Culture Studies Group (MOCS), …

Australian Army Journal (AAJ):  Warrant Officer Woods, thank you for taking the time to speak with us as part of the series of interviews we’re conducting with former senior officers and soldiers to learn from the past to inform the future as the Army transitions from operations in Afghanistan, East Timor and the Solomon Islands. In order to understand the environment post Vietnam, what was the situation Army faced in the period after the withdrawal? Warrant Officer Woods:  I was a young soldier just after …

As the date of the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan approaches, it is timely to identify organisational issues the Army faced post Vietnam, via a series of interviews with former senior officers and soldiers to be published in forthcoming editions of the Australian Army Journal. The intent of the interviews is to learn from the past to inform the future as the Army transitions from operations in Afghanistan, East Timor and the Solomon Islands. The first of these interviews is with former Chief of …

Volume 9, Number 3, Summer …

Introduction A 2020 paper published in the Australian Army Journal (AAJ) outlined that the success of the Australian Defence Force Gap Year—Army (ADFGY-A) program that ran from 2007 to 2012 was not as clear as the rhetoric of the day suggested. [1] A low transfer rate into the Permanent Force coupled with ambiguity around its purpose gave reasonable cause to question whether the program represented value for money or whether it was even effective as an alternative avenue of entry. After a hiatus of three …

‘Team learning’ refers to a set of shared understandings, practices and processes that occur within a team as a collective and, fundamentally, can provide solutions to difficult operational problems. For example, when LTCOL (retired) Bruce Cameron was asked what his most important leadership lesson was, he answered: [N]ot to be predictable. Four tank squadrons were deployed to Vietnam between 1968 and 1971. Each of them trained using exactly the same tactical drills (contact, defile and mine). By the time …

This Australian Army Journal (AAJ) article started life as a themed collection of papers concerned with the topic of littoral manoeuvre. This is a priority research area for The Australian Army Research Centre after the release of the Defence Strategic Review (DSR). It is for this reason that two papers in this edition are written by AAJ Board members (Peter Dean and Rhys Crawley). This change from an edited collection of papers to an AAJ represents a return to the AAJ as a biannual publication in the …

Introduction The intersection of land and sea both defines Australia’s borders and characterises the Australian military’s primary operating environment. With 90 per cent of the global population living within 1,000 km of a coastline (including 40 per cent living within 100 km), 90 per cent of international trade traveling between ports, and 95 per cent of global communication transmitted through submarine cables, littoral environments hold significant strategic importance. [1] Nevertheless, the conduct of …

Introduction Although there are many pathways to becoming an officer in the Australian Defence Force (ADF), this essay focuses specifically on the Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA) located in Canberra. ADFA’s Charter is: To provide Australian Defence Force Midshipmen and Officer Cadets, and other international partners, a balanced and liberal university education within a military context and environment; positively develop their character, leadership and professionalism; and enable them to build a …