Defence Jobs

The future of almost 400 public servants is in question after the Defence Department signed a $240 million deal for Unisys Australia to look after its computer support services.
Under the agreement, Unisys will take over the management, administration and support for more than 100,000 defence desktop computers at 460 bases and facilities across Australia.
The deal will affect almost 500 Australian Public Service jobs but only 388 of those are currently filled. An additional 238 Australian Defence Force positions are involved in the deal.
A Defence spokeswoman said Unisys had indicated it was willing to offer jobs to any Defence staff who were "performing functions that are in scope of the agreement".
The company has offered to match their salary and superannuation entitlements.
"Current indications are that approximately 60 per cent of staff may be interested in taking up employment with Unisys," the spokeswoman said.
ADF personnel would be redeployed within the military.
Defence deputy secretary Martin Bowles said privatisation of the department's regional information communications technology operations was expected to take about 18 months.
"Throughout this process, Defence will ensure that all personnel currently responsible for the functions transferring across to Unisys will have access to retraining, redeployment or redundancy entitlements," Mr Bowles said in statement.
Negotiations for the deal, which was initiated while the Howard government was in office, has been ongoing for many year.
A Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) spokesman said 91 of the affected jobs were believed to be Canberra-based - of which 73 are filled.
The rest are located across the country, including remote and regional locations.
"Any job loss is bad, particularly in regional areas," the spokesman said.
"The CPSU is urging the Defence Department to do everything they can to give affected staff as many options as they can in terms of redeployment with the new employer or elsewhere in public sector."
The spokesman noted that a recent Defence review had recommended against large-scale outsourcing within the department.
"It is important to note the project had begun under the previous Howard government," he said.
"Since then there had since been a Defence review and one of the key recommendations was that there would be no more large-scale outsourcing of Defence functions."
Mr Bowles indicated that the deal was unlikely to have national security implications because all Unisys staff would be required to undergo strict security checks.
"Under this agreement, Unisys and its personnel will be required to undergo the same security clearance processes as defence personnel," he said.
"Like other companies undertaking defence business, Unisys will also be required to maintain membership of the Defence Industry Security Program."