SYDNEY - Women in the Australian Defence Force (ADF) should be allowed to fight on the front line alongside men, a member of parliament said on Monday. Suitability for ADF roles should be entirely competency-based, the ruling Liberal Partys Mitch Fifield said. Merit should be the only criteria.
Fifield urged Prime Minister John Howard to drop rules that allow women to kill people from a jet-fighter but not from a tank, to patrol a civilian airport but not a military one.
Under changes brought in this year, 87 per cent of ADF posts were opened to women. They can to serve in support roles on the front line, driving trucks for instance, but are still excluded from actual combat and serving in the elite Special Air Services regiment.
There are 52,000 people in the ADF, but only 7,000 of them are women. To try and boost numbers to 55,000, women have been urged to join, recruitment standards have been lowered and provisions for same-sex couples introduced.
| Australia is a nation of over 20 million people. It has a per capita GDP within spitting distance of the US. I'm all for having women serve in the military, but they can't find 3,000 soldiers? |
Soon, overweight, asthmatic, tattooed, former-cannabis-smoking men may be eligible for ADF service, while women will remain ineligible for combat roles, Fifield said. Its not the lack of women in combat roles that should be troubling, but the denial of opportunity. 
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