Australian officials warned in 2021 about possible recruitment of ex-ADF members by Chinese military

Australian government officials were first warned a year and a half ago about alleged attempts to recruit former defence force personnel to train the Chinese military, the defence department has revealed.

But it is unclear what action, if any, the then defence minister, Peter Dutton, took at the time. The current defence minister, Richard Marles, appeared to have been spurred into action when the issue hit the media about two months ago.

Marles announced in mid-October he had asked his department to investigate claims that some Australian pilots may be among westerners to have been approached through a South African flight school to help train the Chinese military.

But his department has now revealed it was aware of the issue more than a year before those reports surfaced.

The same month, Daniel Edmund Duggan, a former US fighter pilot who is now an Australian citizen, was provisionally arrested in New South Wales on request from the FBI, shortly after he returned to Australia from China.

Perkins was in charge of a review with a new reporting deadline of 14 December. Her team was to focus on policies concerning employment after ADF personnel leave the force.

Defence last week did not respond to direct questions about whether it had now updated any of its policies, or advice provided to ADF personnel, in order to make clearer the ongoing obligations on them when they leave the military.

Asio is one of the key agencies responsible for alerting the government to major security threats.