Australian military seeks UK soldiers facing redundancy

In Britain, thousands of defence jobs are being axed because of public spending cuts.

In Australia,things are different, the armed forces are struggling to maintain staffing levels as they compete with the booming mining industry.

Now British service personnel earmarked for redundancy are being targeted by Australian recruiters offering the sweetener of a fast-tracked path to citizenship.

The Royal Australian Navy (RAN), which is desperately short of engineers, is understood to be particularly keen to recruit from overseas. According to a report in The Australian yesterday, it sent a delegation to Britain recently to investigate the skills sets of the sailors and officers being laid off as part of the Government's plans to cut 17,000 Armed Forces jobs by 2015.

Many engineers have been lured away from the Australian military by the mining industry, which offers better pay and conditions.

The Australian Defence Force (ADF) is also looking to the US, Canada and New Zealand as potential recruiting grounds, and will reportedly offer those joining from overseas the guarantee of an Australian passport within three months of them being granted permanent residency. Usually permanent residents have to wait two years before applying for citizenship.

Special forces officers, fighter pilots and submarine crews are among the specialised personnel sought by the country's three services. The latter are in particularly short supply, with the Navy able to operate only two of its six Collins-class submarines at any one time.