As we are only a recently established association, we have not yet been in a position to conduct our advocacy activities with Defence. However, our members come with a great deal of experience, and it is our intention to establish working groups that will focus on specific issues that we will then represent in meetings and briefs to Defence and the wider Australian Government.

Through several individuals in the association we already have established connections to a number of civilian professional bodies, both in Australia and internationally. We are actively engaging with these organisations with the aim of gaining access to additional resources and training material for use by our members. This will assist Defence linguists in upskilling and gaining a greater appreciation of the wider translating and interpreting industry.

This will be through a combination of providing members with access to material produced by our partner associations, as well as through material produced by veterans. Before this can occur, we will need to first work towards developing a secure member portal via which this service can be facilitated. Precisely when we’ll be in a position to offer this to members will depend on a number of variables, such as the financial position of the association, whether our members have the required skillsets to create this, or whether a private firm is required. If you have skills in building secure member portal systems, then please let us know via admin@avla.org.au.

We will also be considering options to provide members with access to portals managed by our partner organisations. There will be some overlap with some of our other services, such as the mentorship network, state branch activities, and the publications made available to our members.

The association operates externally to and independently of Defence, therefore we have no direct influence over the decisions of Defence in this regard, or that of the individual Service Language Managers. What we can do, however, is help you to improve your connections and experience through our various services, and this may ultimately help to improve your competitiveness to get tested – assuming Defence completes testing for your known language. However, it is important for members to recognise that involvement within our association does not guarantees that you will be selected for formal Defence testing.

The association externally to and independently of Defence, therefore we have no direct influence over the decisions of Defence in this regard, or that of individual activity planners. However, if you are a current Defence qualified or ‘claimed’ linguist, we may be in a position to provide you with guidance and connections that may be of assistance in your efforts to get assigned to an activity. It is important to understand there are no guarantees with this, and decisions will ultimately reside with others in Defence.

With Australia being a very multicultural country, not everyone in Defence are native English speakers. Some of these individuals are actively seeking opportunities to undertake quality English language training.

The ability to improve ones English proficiency has benefits for general life and military contexts, as well as for work as a linguist. The role of a linguist is not to just operate in languages other than English, but also to be able to convey the non-English language back into English for the benefit of other English-speaking personnel involved in an exchange. As such, this program will assist members to improve the capabilities they can provide as a linguist within all languages they operate in.

This is something that we will actively start developing when we’re a little bit further established, but we currently envisage this as being opportunities for members to attend one or more members only events, likely at the national level, though the state branches may be keen to facilitate further opportunities at the local level as well. At the national level, this will likely be offered in conjunction with other activities, such as our national conference (when running). We will keep members updated as we get to a position of being able to facilitate these events.

The association will achieve knowledge preservation, in part, through retaining the linguist community even after members move on from Defence. By attracting those who are no longer with Defence into the association, this will allow their often-hard-won knowledge and networks to once again be available to Defence personnel and the wider association. This will also benefit members when these individuals participate in our mentoring or professional development activities.

In all instances, those involved with knowledge preservation activities are well versed in security classification requirements, including what information can be produced and accessed outside the Defence system vs what must only be produced and accessible within the Defence system. Every resource creation activity that the association conducts will first commence with an assessment to determine this, and steps will be taken accordingly. Only resources that are classified at the UNOFFICIAL classification will be accessible by our non-serving members.

At this current time, we expect this will be something that starts getting developed in 2027. However, the exact timeline will be influenced by a number of factors, such as the financial position of the association, whether our members have the required skillsets to create this, or whether a private firm is required. If you have skills in building secure member portal systems, then please let us know via admin@avla.org.au.

No. All association members need to be mindful of their legislative requirements to not openly discuss the specifics of Defence business with those who do not have a need-to-know/hold. All discussions must be held at the appropriate classification level – which will be informed by variabilities including (but not limited to):

• The people involved in the conversation or within hearing distance (ie if there are civilians or ex-serving and/or foreign members present)

• The need-to-know/hold of those present

As a general rule, the association supports the discussion of language and culture capability that is general in nature, or if military focused that it is at the UNOFFICAL classification level. Any discussions above UNOFFICIAL should only occur within the Defence environment.

Our current initial plan is to partner with Defence to complement their planned Canberra based conference that is held every two years. Once our association is sufficiently established, it is our hope to commence running an annual conference. These will rotate around the country, being facilitated by the various state branches when the conference is taking place in their state, with support provided by the national HQ team. These conferences will be open to all association members, regardless of the language or background of each member, and foreign military personnel will also be able to join.

No. Our civilian accreditation support service offering provides guidance around how members can best bridge the gap between their level of experience and proficiency to obtain civilian qualifications and training that can progress them towards being able to complete NAATI accreditation testing.

We are more than happy to accept expressions of interest to assist with the production of our publications. Unlike other volunteer positions, however, people who work on our publications will be required to go through a trial process to assess where your skills are at. While you do not necessarily need to be a professional in this area (and many of our publication volunteers are not), we do need to confirm at you at least have a certain level of aptitude, or if you are at a level of proficiency that we feel we might be able to get you up to speed relatively easily.

If you are interested in assisting us with our publications, then please get in touch via admin@avla.org.au.

No – Yarning: The language and culture magazine is the property of Defence Australia. This association merely promotes the magazine given its relevance to our members and the work that we do.

The locations for our planned state/territory branches have been earmarked for all capital cities (except Hobart), in addition to sub-branches located in Newcastle and Townsville. The precise location where the branches will operate out of will be determined at a later point, with this information to be provided directly to our members.

Many of our members and executive management are current and former Defence Attachés, Commanding Officers from the Defence Force School of Languages or the Defence International Training Centre, diplomats, and very experienced international engagement linguists – all bring with them extensive international networks built over decades. In addition to this, we also have established relationships with key language capability contacts within militaries across NATO, ASEAN, and African Union countries.

Some of the conversations that we’ve had with these countries indicate that they are eager to see the success of our association before they commit to implementing their own equivalent. Given this, our main focus at this time will be to ensure our association is able to become sustainable and of great benefit to our members.

We will also be working on the development of resources that will assist linguists in other militaries to benefit from the lessons we’ve learned while establishing the Australian Veterans Linguist Association to potentially be able to avoid any of the barrier we faced and achieve positive outcomes within their own efforts.

Separately from the above, through allowing foreign military personnel who are living in Australia – be that due to a posting to their embassy (or similar), embedded within the ADF, attending one of our colleges, or some other circumstances, will provide these individuals with front row seats to many of our initiatives. When they leave Australia, the knowledge they have gained from their time within our association and their continued networks forged will likely be of great benefit in the endeavour of establishing a similar association in their country.

As other countries begin to form their own associations, we will consider options to develop agreements or partnerships, and then also externally to our association, an independent project will commence to establish the international federation of military linguist associations – which will provide even further benefits to all associations involved once established.

We are in the process of establishing partnerships with a range of agencies. Please get in touch with us via admin@avla.org.au and we can organise to give you a call and walk you through how this service offering is expected to be facilitated once available.

Yes. While we are not yet ready to rollout our plans for a professional development portal, it is our intention to make it possible for our members and broader Defence community members to produce training material for our members. It will be up to the discretion of members whether they wish to offer this training for free or for a fee. If opting to include a fee, this will need to be negotiated with the association management. Any resource or training material that is promoted within the associations educational portal will first be subject to review by an appointed panel who’s job it will be to certify the material meets set quality standards.