Editing Australian Defence Force (section)

===Ethnic and religious composition===
[[File:RAAF airman constructing a Joint Direct Attack Munition in February 2017.jpg|thumb|alt=A man wearing a blue T-shirt with a military logo working on a green bomb|A RAAF airman assembling a bomb]]
A high percentage of ADF personnel are drawn from the [[Anglo-Celtic Australian|Anglo-Celtic]] portion of Australia's population. In 2011 the proportion of ADF personnel born in Australia and the other predominately Anglo-Celtic countries was higher than this population group's share of both the Australian workforce and overall population.{{sfn|Thomson|2017|pp=77–79}} As a result, analyst Mark Thomson has argued that the ADF is unrepresentative of Australia's society in this regard and that recruiting more personnel from other ethnic backgrounds would improve the ADF's language skills and cultural empathy.{{sfn|Thomson|2009|pp=47–49}} In 2013, the ADF launched the ''Defence Diversity and Inclusion Strategy 2012-2017'' to recruit more volunteers from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds and to improve statistics collection.{{sfn|Defence People Group|2014|pp=18–19}}

On 30 June 2020, 3.2% of ADF permanent personnel and 2.6% of Reserves were [[Indigenous Australians]].{{sfn|Department of Defence|2020|p=107}} The ''[[Reconciliation Action Plan|Defence Reconciliation Action Plan 2019-2022]]'' aims to increase the number of Indigenous Australians the ADF recruits and to improve their retention rate, and has set a target of 5% Indigenous representation by 2025.{{sfn|Department of Defence|2020|p=105}} Restrictions on Indigenous Australians' ability to enlist in the military existed until the 1970s, though hundreds of Indigenous men and women had joined the military when restrictions were reduced during the world wars. By 1992 the representation of Indigenous Australians in the ADF was equivalent to their proportion of the Australian population, though they continue to be under-represented among the officer corps. Two of the Army's three Regional Force Surveillance Units ([[NORFORCE]] and the [[Far North Queensland Regiment|51st Battalion, Far North Queensland Regiment]]) are manned mostly by Indigenous Australian reservists.{{sfn|Dennis et al|2008|pp=3–5}} In 2015 Indigenous Australians made up around 2% of ADF personnel, which was smaller than the Indigenous share of the total Australian population.{{sfn|Thomson|2017|pp=78–79}}

In line with trends across the broader Australian population, the proportion of ADF personnel who are not religious has increased considerably over recent years. The proportion of ADF personnel who reported that their religion was Christianity in service censuses and human relations databases decreased from around 66% in 2003 to just over 52% in 2015. Over this period, the proportion who stated that they do not have a religious affiliation increased from 31% to 47%. Only 1% of ADF members reported having a non-Christian religious affiliation in 2015.{{sfn|Hoglin|2016|pp=20–23}} In 2023 it was reported that 80% of new ADF recruits did not have religious beliefs.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Shepherd |first1=Tory |title=ADF has 108 evangelical chaplains with each representing just 15 members |url=https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jul/30/adf-has-108-evangelical-chaplains-with-each-representing-just-15-members |access-date=30 July 2023 |work=The Guardian |date=30 July 2023}}</ref>