The Howard Government will hire an extra 3000 soldiers to reinforce the army as it fights a growing number of campaigns around the world. Defence Minister Brendan Nelson will next week ask his cabinet colleagues to approve the expansion as a matter of urgency. He will also seek approval to completely overhaul the methods used to hire troops and their pay and conditions in a bid to attract new members and to keep those already in uniform. It is understood the extra troops will be based at either Townsville or Darwin.

More than 4200 military personnel, or 8 per cent of the 51,000 strong force, will be posted overseas by November. That will include 2000 in East Timor, 1400 in Iraq and the Gulf and 650 in Afghanistan. In addition, more than 430 Ausralian federal and state police are also working in overseas trouble spots.

A total of 1500 soldiers will be hired as part of the program to "harden" the army and up to 2000 further soldiers will be recruited to fill operational shortfalls. Dr Nelson, who has taken direct responsibility for recruiting, wants a complete overhaul of the system used to hire military personnel. Extra pay is only part of the equation and according to well placed sources other issues such as longer postings, educational facilities, spouse employment and more relaxed health requirements will also be implemented. "We are very busy and one of the things that I'm looking at, along with the Prime Minister at the moment, is the size of the Australian Defence Force and whether we need to increase it, but I can assure you that we still have additional troops to send to our region or our borders or other parts of the world if we need to do it," Dr Nelson said.

The army has an infantry company on permanent 24 hours' notice to move, with another on a week's notice. About 10 per cent of the army's 25,000 personnel are deployed offshore. Given that 10 per cent will replace them and another 10 per cent are getting ready, that means 30 per cent of the nation's Diggers are tied up with offshore deployments

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