Australia is expanding its military role in Iraq, with the Government approving a plan to send another 300 soldiers to help train forces fighting Islamic State militants.
Some 200 Australian special forces are already in Iraq helping train Iraqi government forces.
Federal Cabinet has agreed to send up to 300 more troops as part of a joint training mission with New Zealand.
Air Chief Marshal Binskin said the training would include how to use intelligence, not just in planning but whilst in the midst of an operation, as well as how to use air power to the best effect.
"That is the sort of capacity that we are talking about building up. It is not the ability to point a rifle and shoot; it is that joint-force way of doing business," he told Senate estimates last week.
Defence Department secretary Dennis Richardson has also sounded a warning about the size of the task.
"It is important also to appreciate that Daesh or ISIL [Islamic State] is well led," Mr Richardson said last week.
"It is not a rabble of immature foreign fighters running around at the back of utes.
"It is led by experienced former Iraqi generals and others with substantial military experience.
"So as an enemy, as brutal and as nasty and as terrible as they are, you should not underestimate their capability."
Months of US-led air strikes, backed up by the Shiite militias, Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and Iraqi soldiers, have contained IS and pushed it back from around Baghdad, the Kurdish north, and the eastern province of Diyala.
Australian warplanes have also taken part in the campaign of air strikes against IS fighters.
