Defence ministers Richard Marles and Matt Keogh in recruiting blue

Richard Marles slaps down junior colleague Matt Keogh after claims all foreign residents would soon be eligible to join the ADF.

Defence Personnel Minister Matt Keogh, left, and Defence Minister Richard Marles.

Richard Marles has slapped down junior colleague Matt Keogh after the Defence Personnel Minister declared all foreign residents would soon be eligible to join the Australian Defence Force.

The government announced on Tuesday that New Zealand citizens living in Australia will be allowed to serve in the ADF from July 1, with the eligibility extended from January 1 to Americans, British and Canadian applicants, and later to Pacific Islander recruits.

But Mr Keogh told reporters the net would be widened further to include “permanent residents from any other countries” who had lived in Australia for a year and met security checks.

His comments, repeated in multiple radio interviews, opened the prospect that Chinese citizens living in Australia could be accepted to serve in the ADF – a possibility the Defence Minister left hanging until he repudiated it in question time.

“We are, in walking down this path, doing so in a careful and a slow and a calibrated way,” Mr Marles told parliament, confirming the policy was restricted to New Zealanders and citizens of other Five Eyes countries.

Peter Dutton said the government’s handling of the policy had been a “dog’s breakfast”, and followed Immigration Minister Andrew Giles’ “disastrous performance” in releasing criminals into the community.

“What we see at the moment is a government in chaos and they’re lurching from one disaster to the next,” the Opposition Leader said.

Opposition defence spokesman Andrew Hastie said: “Just hours into an announcement and Labor can’t keep their story straight.”

He said morale in the ADF had plummeted to “rock bottom” under Labor, and vowed further scrutiny of the policy in Senate estimates this week.

The government hopes the foreign recruiting plan will add 350 personnel to the ADF’s ranks in 2024-25, which represents almost all of the forecast growth in the force for the coming 12 months.

Non-citizen recruits will have to have lived in Australia for at least 12 months, and not have served in a foreign military in the preceding two years.

They will face security checks going back a decade, and must apply for Australian citizenship within 90 days of joining.

The ADF faces a record 4400 shortfall in uniformed personnel – a deficit forecast to grow to nearly 5000 this financial year.

The workforce crisis comes amid harrowing findings by the royal commission into defence and veterans’ suicides, which laid bare a culture of bullying, silence and cover-up in the ADF.

The royal commission interim report found the mistreatment of defence members during their service included “physical and psychological abuse”, and threats of further violence, punishment, demotion, or the downgrading of a person’s medical status.

Julie-Ann Finney, whose son, Petty Officer David Finney, took his own life in 2019, said Australians didn’t want to serve in the ADF because of its “bad culture”.

“They just don’t look after their personnel. And until you look after people, you’re not going to get what you need,” she told The Australian.

“People want a work-life balance and a good workplace. But they take over their lives. It’s the only workplace that you can’t leave if things go wrong, but you can be kicked out if things go wrong.”