Australian Defence Force renames drones as it weeds out gender-specific language
Australian Defence Force renames its drones as it weeds out gender-specific language, with unmanned aircraft systems now known as uncrewed aircraft systems.
The Australian Defence Force has renamed its drone fleet, replacing “unmanned aircraft systems’’ with “uncrewed aircraft systems” as it seeks to eliminate gender-specific language across the armed forces.
The Australian has obtained documents under Freedom of Information showing the tortured exercise the ADF went through to eliminate gender-specific language throughout 2021-22, including in its drone program.
A “gender neutral project’’ was set up and senior officers across the ADF were told to scour policy documents and regulations to find and replace gender-specific language, including around the drones, which were previously known as UAS, or unmanned aircraft systems.
The process took six months, and caused a degree of concern among staff, with one pointing out a change from “man-hours’’ to “staff-hours’’ would cause ambiguity and concern because “staff’’ had a special military connotation and “staff-hours’’ did not exist in the Defence dictionary nor the Macquarie Dictionary.
Drones tend to be known as UAS (unmanned aerial/aircraft systems or UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles).
The drones went gender-neutral at the same time as Defence was eliminating he/she and man-hours. “Some instances required a bespoke approach to avoid ambiguity. Also, we almost got caught out by a couple of things, namely ‘Aircrewman’ which will remain as it’s an army employment category … and the use of ‘Unmanned’ in reference to a US Army doc,’’ one defence staffer wrote in 2022.
The heavily redacted emails provided by the Department of Defence showed the first directions about the drones appeared to come from Joseph Medved, Air Commodore, Director General Defence Aviation Safety Authority. In an email sent at 7.07am on October 22, 2021, under the subject line “UAS term – replacement of Unmanned with Uncrewed”, he wrote: “Directors, as we move forward on significant policy and organisational changes please ensure that all of your teams adopt contemporary terminology for UAS – Uncrewed Aircraft Systems from this point forward. This applies to all policy, positions, organisations, regulations, forms etc … I acknowledge that this will take some time to flow through all of our policy and regulation suites.’’
Air Commodore Medved’s instructions bounced around various arms of the ADF for several days, and staff came up with a spreadsheet for people to add offending gender-specific terms to, in order for them to be replaced.
In an October 25, 2021 email, a person whose name has been redacted wrote: “Hello Team. Note the TERM UAS now means “Uncrewed Aircraft Systems’’ – please use this terminology from this point forwards if you need to discuss UAS – this applies to all policy, positions, organisations, regulations, forms etc.’’
A March 2022 email, which originated from someone whose name has been redacted from the Royal Australian Navy, noted that an aerospace contract had showed there were other examples relating to UAS approvals and authorisations where the terminology had not been changed.
On March 4, 2022, a Defence member wrote, under the subject line: “Removal of gendered terms from DASR”: “Asking them for endorsement by the following Wednesday to replace text:
“He/she with they.
“Man-hours with staff hours.
“Unmanned with uncrewed.’’
The renaming of the drones and the banishment of gender-specific language happened under the Coalition government, when Peter Dutton was defence minister. In May 2021 he had ordered the department to stop pursuing a “woke agenda”. The instruction was overturned when Labor won office in May 2022.
A spokesperson for Defence Minister Richard Marles said: “This is a decision made under the former government and for them to explain.”
In August, the army also renamed its “combat-ration-one-man’’ ration pack as “combat-ration-one-person’’, a decision criticised by veterans’ groups.
Opposition defence spokesman Andrew Hastie sought to put the focus back on Labor, saying “the Albanese government is more focused on gender-neutralising the ADF rather than building a robust defence strategy grounded in reality”.
“Richard Marles keeps telling us that we find ourselves in grave strategic circumstances, and yet Labor is more concerned about feelings that facts,’’ he said.
“It’s time Richard Marles started to lead and focus on the massive recruitment and retention problem we have in the ADF.’’
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