Australian Navy Rolls out New Council

 

 The Council, launched by Deputy Chief of Navy will provide leadership as Navy’s peak decision-making body for guiding and monitoring the implementation of the Navy Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (2014-19). 

 

It will provide strategic guidance on priority areas and ensure that diversity and inclusion programs are aligned to critical workforce requirements that will deliver a capability edge for Navy.

 

Navy is striving to become an employer of choice as a modern, inclusive workforce across ships, bases and training establishments.

 

This includes raising awareness of how inclusive working environments enhance capability and enable sustainability.

 

"Navy has already achieved a great deal through the pioneering work of the Navy Strategic Advisors,” Commander Jenn Macklin, Director of Navy Diversity and Inclusion said.

 

"The Council will enable us to take build on their work to drive innovation and progress the diversity and inclusion agenda. The Council will be focusing on inclusion – not on difference." 

 

At the launch, Deputy Chief of Navy Rear Admiral Mike Noonan, said the Council had the brief to think in terms of “art of the possible".

 

"Everyone has to consider and ask 'what capability we are missing out on due to old norms and approaches'?" he said.

 

"Imagine the opportunities if we take the blinkers off and shape our workforce to meet emerging challenges."

 

Rear Admiral Noonan said the Council would provide another lens for addressing the workforce challenges facing Navy over the next 20 years.

 

"We cannot wait to be told on this issue; we must lead and build the Navy workforce we need for the future - now."

 

“We can be justifiably proud of what we have achieved so far. We have evolved to a new understanding of diversity and inclusion and the capability edge it can give us." 

 

"The challenge is to normalise that more broadly and the Council will have a central role in driving that change."

 

The Council will play a central role in achieving Plan Pelorus’s vision of an integrated, diverse, resilient and deployable workforce that can deliver Navy’s war fighting effect.

 

"Diversity and inclusion is ultimately about mission readiness, operational effectiveness and sustainability – the Diversity and Inclusion Council is a key enabler for achieving this end state," Commander Macklin said.