Australian forum attended by top

soldier, sailor and aviator

The 2022 Soldier of the Year (runner up) Corporal Jack Dowdle attended the Australian Defence Force Chief of Defence Force Leadership Forum in Canberra recently.

He was accompanied by the NZDF Sailor and Aviator of the year. Personnel from Singapore, Tonga, and Malaysia also attended.

The forum is a tri-service event involving 130 NCOs from all ADF units and services along with invited international personnel.

The purpose of the forum was to bring together a wide representation of ADF NCOs and provide them with direct access to senior leadership to discuss current issues from the ground up. The forum covered an array of topics from leadership to culture and ethics. The New Zealanders were given topics to present to the group, and through doing so quickly realized that the difficulties faced by the ADF are remarkably similar to those the NZDF are struggling with – retention and recruitment being their biggest ones.

Personnel were also given the opportunity to directly pose questions to not only service chiefs and representatives, but also directly to the ADF CDF. Previous forums proved to be successful and popular platforms for NCOs to voice their valuable opinions.

CPL Dowdle said one of the most positive aspects of the forum was having the opportunity to network with Australian counterparts.

“Often from our respective trades which we expect to work closely with in the future. Learning the importance that the ADF puts into training ethics at all rank levels was an eye opener and we noticed both similarities and differences in what’s important to each military, what we teach and even how each Service operates.

“In addition to the Leadership Forum, we were fortunate to be hosted by the New Zealand High Commission for a day where