Women in the Australian military Women have served in Australian armed forces since 1899 . Until World War II women were restricted to the Australian Army Nursing Service . This role expanded in 1941 – 42 when the Royal Australian Navy ( RAN ) , Australian Army and Royal Australian Air Force established female branches in which women took on a range of support roles . While these organisations were disbanded at the end of the war , they were reestablished in 1950 as part of the military ' s permanent structure . Women were integrated into the services during the late 1970s and early 1980s and can now serve in most positions in the Australian Defence Force ( ADF ) , including combat roles . History . Separate branches . Female service in the Australian military began in 1899 when the Army Nursing Service was formed as part of the New South Wales colonial military forces . Army nurses formed part of the Australian contribution to the Boer War , and their success led to the formation of the Australian Army Nursing Reserve in 1902 . More than 2000 members of the Australian Army Nursing Service ( AANS ) served overseas during World War I as part of the Australian Imperial Force . At the end of the war the AANS returned to its pre - war reserve status . In addition to the military nurses , a small group of civilian nurses dubbed the " Bluebirds " were recruited by the Australian Red Cross Society and served in French hospitals . Australian women played a larger role in World War II . Many women wanted to play an active role , and hundreds of voluntary women ' s auxiliary and paramilitary organisations had been formed by 1940 . These included the Women ' s Transport Corps , Women ' s Flying Club , Women ' s Emergency Signalling Corps and Women ' s Australian National Services . In Brisbane alone there were six different organisations providing women with war - related training in July 1940 , the largest of which was the Queensland - based Women ' s National Emergency Legion . The Federal Government and military did not initially support women being trained to serve in the armed forces , however , and these organisations were not taken seriously by the general public . A shortage of male recruits forced the military to establish female branches in 1941 and 1942 . The RAAF established the Women ' s Auxiliary Australian Air Force ( WAAAF ) in March 1941 , the Army formed the Australian Women ' s Army Service ( AWAS ) in October 1941 and the Australian Army Medical Women ' s Service in December 1942 and the Women ' s Royal Australian Naval Service ( WRANS ) came into being in July 1942 . In 1944 almost 50 , 000 women were serving in the military and thousands more had joined the civilian Australian Women ' s Land Army ( AWLA ) . Many of these women were trained to undertake skilled work in traditionally male occupations in order to free servicemen for operational service . Women were also encouraged to work in industry and volunteer for air raid precautions duties or clubs for Australian and Allied servicemen . The female branches of the military were disbanded after the war . Manpower shortages during the Korean War led to the permanent establishment of female branches of the military . In 1951 the WRANS was reformed and the Army and Air Force established the Women ' s Australian Army Corps ( WAAC ) and Women ' s Royal Australian Air Force ( WRAAF ) respectively . The proportion of women in the services was initially limited to four percent of their strength , though this was ignored by the RAAF . The quota was lifted to 10 percent in the RAAF and RAN during the 1960s and 1970s while the Army recruited only on a replacement basis . Integration . The role of women in the Australian military began to change in the 1970s . In 1975 , which was the International Year of Women , the service chiefs established a committee to explore opportunities for increased female participation in the military . This led to reforms which allowed women to deploy on active service in support roles , pregnancy no longer being grounds for automatic termination of employment and changes to leave provisions . The WRAAF and WAAC were abolished in 1977 and 1979 respectively , with female soldiers being merged into the services . Equal pay was granted to servicewomen in 1979 and the WRANS was abolished in 1985 . Despite being integrated into the military , there were still restrictions on female service . The ADF was granted an exemption from the " Sexual Discrimination Act " when it was introduced in 1984 so that it could maintain gender - based restrictions against women serving in combat or combat - related positions , which limited women to 40 percent of positions in the ADF . As a result of personnel shortages in the late 1980s the restriction against women in combat - related positions was dropped in 1990 , and women were for the first time allowed to serve in warships , RAAF combat squadrons and many positions in the Army . Women were banned from positions involving physical combat , however , and were unable to serve in infantry , armoured , artillery and engineering units in the Army and clearance diving and ground defence positions in the RAN and RAAF respectively . The ADF was not sufficiently prepared for integrating women into all units . Integration was hindered by entrenched discriminatory attitudes , sexual harassment and a perception that less demanding standards were applied to women . This led to a number of scandals , including allegations of sexual harassment on board HMAS " Swan " , and the RAN ' s mishandling of these complaints . These scandals did great harm to the ADF ' s reputation at the time when it most needed servicewomen . The Defence Equality Organisation was established in 1997 in response to these problems , and it developed frameworks to facilitate the acceptance of women throughout the ADF . Women have formed part of ADF deployments around the world since the early 1990s . Female sailors were sent into a combat zone for the first time on board HMAS " Westralia " in 1991 , female medical personnel were deployed to Iraq , Western Sahara and Rwanda during the early 1990s and 440 of the 5 , 500 Australians deployed to East Timor in November 1999 were women . Women also began to be promoted to command units in the late 1990s , and Air Commodore Julie Hammer became the first woman to reach one - star rank in 2000 . In 2001 , the Royal Australian Navy allowed female clearance divers for the first time . Despite the expansion in the number of positions available to women , there has been only limited growth in the percentage of female permanent defence personnel . In the 1989 – 1990 financial year women filled 11 . 4 % of permanent ADF positions . In the 2005 – 2006 financial year women occupied 13 . 3 % of permanent positions and 15 . 6 % of reserve positions . During the same period the proportion of civilian positions filled by women in the Australian Defence Organisation increased from 30 . 8 % to 40 . 3 % . The percentage of female members of the Australian labour force increased from approximately 41 % to 45 % between June 1989 and June 2006 . In 2008 defence minister , Joel Fitzgibbon instructed the ADF to place a greater emphasis on recruiting women and addressing barriers to women being promoted to senior roles . On 27 September 2011 , Defence Minister Stephen Smith announced that women will be allowed to serve in frontline combat roles by 2016 . Women became able to apply for all positions other than special forces roles in the Army on 1 January 2013 ; it is planned that this remaining restriction will be removed in 2014 once the physical standards required for service in these units are determined . Women will be directly recruited into all frontline combat positions from late 2016 .