Australia, explained.
The Royal Australian Navy must clearly define the roles it expects its reserve force to perform (Susan Mossop/Defence Images)
A reserve force that served its purpose during more peaceful times no longer meets Australia's mobilisation needs.
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Reinvigorating Australia’s Naval ReserveReinvigorating Australia’s Naval Reserve
Australian maritime security is entering a period of profound change. The planned expansion of the Royal Australian Navy’s surface combatant fleet, the introduction of nuclear-powered submarines, and the reality of having no strategic warning time are forcing a hard look at how the Navy generates and sustains its workforce. Yet one element remains under-examined: the Naval Reserve. Long treated as a mechanism for individual backfill rather than operational effect, the Naval Reserve has the potential to play a far more important role in Australia’s maritime defence, if it is properly re-imagined.
The 2023 Defence Strategic Review was explicit that the ADF Reserves must provide the expansion base for the force in times of crisis, calling for a comprehensive review of reserve service, including consideration of a Ready Reserve Scheme. The Department of Defence delivered with its December 2024 Strategic Review of the Australian Defence Force Reserves, but its recommendations lacked ambition and stopped short of defining a clear strategic role for reserve forces. Instead, the Review leans heavily on centralisation while sidestepping the harder question of how reserves should be structured to deliver operational effect.
Navy and Air Force reserves are overwhelmingly drawn from former permanent members.
As the 2024 Strategic Review notes, with limited specialist exceptions only the Army Reserve recruits directly from the civilian workforce at scale, while Navy and Air Force reserves are overwhelmingly drawn from former permanent members. For the Naval Reserve, this is a strategic limitation and constrains the size and diversity of Australia’s mariner pool at a time when Australia should be actively building mechanisms to enable future mobilisation of this workforce, a marked departure from past practice. Historically, the Naval Reserve was explicitly conceived as a mechanism to expand Australia’s mariner base for mobilisation, a role it fulfilled decisively in the Second World War.
During this period, the Royal Australian Naval Reserve played a central role in enabling Australia to expand its naval power at speed and scale. Reservists were mobilised in large numbers to crew auxiliary and patrol vessels, operate harbour and coastal defences, and provide essential seamanship, engineering and logistics skills across the fleet, forming the backbone of wartime mariner generation. This effort was enabled through port-based reserve organisations in major ports, which recruited, trained, administered and mobilised reservists, a system formalised after the war period as Naval Reserve Port Divisions. These structures allowed the Navy to draw directly from the civilian population, expanding the mariner base in peacetime and allowing for the rapid mobilisation of trained personnel in war.
The Naval Reserve was explicitly conceived as a mechanism to expand Australia’s mariner base for mobilisation, a role it fulfilled decisively in the Second World War (Australian National Maritime Museum)
This shift supported a deliberately slimmed down force shaped by Cold War peace dividends and the assumption that major conflict was remote. That context has changed, and the Naval Reserve must change with it, including a return to directly recruiting reserve members from the civilian workforce into formed units designed to deliver clear operational capabilities.
As the 2024 Strategic Review notes, the Naval Reserve is almost entirely comprised of former permanent force personnel who fill individual “backfill or round-out” roles within existing Navy structures or Defence groups. The Review is equally blunt about the consequences, observing that “further training opportunities are generally not afforded to Navy reservists and career progression is limited”, resulting in an inability to maintain currency or attain the qualifications required for promotion. By contrast, the US Navy Reserve recruits from scratch, trains to active duty standards, and provides a standing mobilisation and surge capability.
When it comes to the Naval Reserve, Australia must learn from its own history.
So what is the solution? The starting point must be to clearly define the roles the Royal Australian Navy expects its reserve force to perform. Initial priorities could include port and critical infrastructure protection, including the operation of uncrewed surface and undersea vessels; underwater battle damage inspection and repair; the provision of maritime security for Australian and allied merchant vessels; and the crewing and sustainment of coastal and auxiliary craft. Framing the Naval Reserve around defined operational tasks rather than ad hoc supplementation would allow it to function as a credible contributor to maritime security and mobilisation.
Restructuring the Naval Reserve around defined capabilities and regional commands would enable from-scratch recruiting and give the reserve force a clear strategic purpose. Such a model would also support coherent training pipelines, the maintenance of professional currency, and meaningful career progression, while allowing broader skill sets to be managed deliberately to supplement capability gaps across the fleet.
When it comes to the Naval Reserve, Australia must learn from its own history. The Reserve delivers its greatest value when it is designed as a strategic capability, not when it is confined to individual supplementation in predominantly administrative roles. The current Naval Reserve structure is a product of an era in which major conflict was seen as remote. That assumption no longer holds. As I have argued elsewhere, the Navy will be unable to grow the mariner base required for its future roles or to support broader mobilisation through recruitment and retention alone. A structural rethink is required, and the Naval Reserve is the obvious place to begin.
About the author
Jennifer Parker
Jennifer Parker is a Nonresident Fellow at the Lowy Institute and Adjunct Fellow in Naval Studies at the University of Western Australia.
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