Page 4128 - Week 11 - Thursday, 21 September 2017
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for those who have been in the ADF for a long period of time, particularly those who joined the ADF at a younger age, the process of applying for either private or public sector jobs may be unfamiliar or one that they have not undertaken in a long time.
Like many highly skilled individuals who are specialists in their field, ADF personnel can also sometimes speak a different dialect to those of us in the civilian workforce. So the ACT government is working to build resources to assist. We are doing this by looking to the experience of my Veterans Advisory Council, the Defence Industry Advisory Board and various ex-service organisations, as well as the lived experience of veterans who now work in the public service.
By learning from these people’s experiences, our public service can seek to create the best practice model in the recruitment and retention of former ADF personnel and from there we can, I hope, encourage the private sector to follow suit and tap into this rich, talented resource. As I announced last week, the first practical step on this journey is an all-staff survey of ACT public servants by the end of this year to determine the number of veterans who are already part of the service and to gain an understanding of their experience of entering public service life. The human resources system will also be updated to enable self-identification by veterans.
Based on this information, we will be looking at things like flagging job vacancies as “Defence Force experience desirable”; implementing a rank-level matching matrix to compare levels of ADF experience with ACT public service role expectations; establishing mentoring support for veterans in the initial phase of their employment; and engaging with ADF transition seminars to provide background on the variety of work undertaken within the ACT public service and to raise awareness of employment possibilities.
From there, we can also aim to develop pathways for veterans into specific areas of need in the private sector, such as into the ACT-based defence industry. This important work is assisting our veterans into civilian employment. It is something that the appointees to my new and expanded Veterans Advisory Council have agreed is a high priority for them. I look forward to working with them, as well as the ex-service organisations and my state and federal counterparts, to continually serve the veterans of our community through ensuring their inclusion, their participation and their wellbeing.
I am pleased to have met twice this year with the federal minister to discuss how it is that we can best support veterans who are transitioning and how the territory and the federal government can work together on this. I look forward in a few weeks to attending the annual defence ministers round table, where veterans ministers from all jurisdictions will come together to share information and experience, with this year’s theme of “transition”.
I also met recently with my New South Wales counterpart, veterans minister David Elliott, to discuss improved cross-jurisdictional cooperation, given that many veterans living in the ACT regularly travel to New South Wales, particularly for medical appointments. Together, we are aiming to iron out some of the issues around travel concessions between Sydney and Canberra.
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