Defence personnel will be kept in aged care facilities for another two months, as staffing shortages continue amid the ongoing winter surge in COVID-19 cases.
More than a thousand aged care facilities are battling COVID-19 outbreaks, but defence support first committed in February this year was due to end in a fortnight.
The federal government said the support would now stay in place until the end of September, alongside an existing commercial surge workforce contracted until the end of the year.
Defence Minister Richard Marles said the support was an extreme, but necessary, measure.
"It's not just extending the military support to aged care, it's actually increasing it up to 250 personnel through until the end of September," Mr Marles said.
Aged Care Minister Anika Wells said ADF staff would be available in an emergency.
"Aged care providers and individual homes have a responsibility to manage staff, including surge workforce arrangements," Ms Wells said.
"When sufficient staff can't be found during an outbreak, they will be able to ask the Department of Health and Aged Care to deploy a surge workforce, or ADF team, to support them through their immediate crisis.
"The ADF had been attempting to step down and withdraw from aged care because obviously this is a desperate, extreme measure."
Ms Wells told the ABC people were working double shifts and without breaks in an "incredibly stressful environment".
"These shortages are not new," she said.
"These shortages are endemic and speak to years of neglect by the previous government.
The government has warned the impact of Omicron sub-variants is expected to increase over the coming months, which will intensify workforce pressures in aged care.
Defence personnel were first sent into aged care facilities by the former government at the beginning of the year, after the Omicron variant of COVID-19 hit the sector.
At the time, aged care royal commissioner Lynelle Briggs said the crisis was "completely unacceptable", and the government should have fixed its strategy after COVID-19 first entered aged care facilities in 2020.
