RDFWA Regulars Updates

The Regulars Update is a monthly newssheet (except for January) containing items which are of interest to the Service and ex-Service community. It is distributed to politicians, media outlets, senior Service officers and RDFWA branches. Branches are encouraged to distribute Update further, such as by email, to Association members and other interested people or organisations. Update is also posted on the RDFWA website.

Able-bodied military pensioners, like most other Commonwealth pensioners, will welcome the recommendations of the Senate Economics Committee’s report into the Simplified Super legislation. The Committee recommends that Commonwealth pensions (with their 10% tax offset after age 60) be separated from other taxable income. If accepted by the Government, this recommendation would be of great benefit to most military as well as public service pensioners.

However, and of great concern to the Association, the report leaves the position of the most disadvantaged service personnel - those who have been compulsorily retired on a full invalidity pension, and who can never work again - even more neglected by this legislation. Under the legislation, military personnel who have been compulsorily retired on Category A Invalidity Pensions, at perhaps quite young ages, are forced to struggle on for possibly decades paying full tax on their invalidity pension until they turn 60 when they will receive a 10% tax offset. Those former defence personnel are unable to develop second careers or undertake any paid employment. Even if the Government accepts the Committee’s recommendations for Commonwealth pensions, military invalidity pensioners are unable to take advantage of them, and will remain severely disadvantaged.

The Committee has recommended that a review of the military pension schemes now be undertaken to try to resolve these compulsory retirement issues. The Association’s view is that the issue is not the applicability of the military pension schemes to these people; it is, and remains, the superannuation tax treatment of the most disadvantaged.

The current Defence Home Owner Scheme (DHOS) arrangement with the National Australia Bank (NAB) expires at the end of 2007. In May 2006, three broad ideas for a new scheme were publicised in the Service newspapers and a message was also released advising personnel of the DHOS review and directing members to a website and a 1800 number for further information.

Individuals and agencies were invited to submit comments on the three ideas. The team received nearly 300 submissions from individual ADF members and organisations. In addition a structured survey of 1,700 members was conducted. The review concluded that the current scheme is largely ineffective from both the perspective of the individual member and Defence's objectives and as a result of the review a proposal for a new scheme has been considered by Defence and is expected to be put to the Government in the next few months. Details of the new scheme are currently classified pending a decision by the Government. Given the Government's current priority of resolving Defence's recruitment and retention difficulties, the proposal places an enhanced focus on retention by making home ownership more affordable for ADF members the longer they serve.

The Vietnamese Government has given its approval for further work to commence in search of Australian MIA's from the Vietnam War. Ongoing diplomatic efforts, greatly assisted by the support of the Vietnamese Embassy in Canberra, has secured approvals for the private, Australian Government backed group Operation Aussies Home and a specialist civilian team, coordinated by Army, to conduct further examinations of sites in Vietnam where the remains of Australian soldiers could be located. Ground penetrating radar will be used in this work in search of the graves of Lance Corporal Richard Parker and Private Peter Gillson, who were killed during fighting in Bien Hoa Province in 1965.

The Army team, supported by the Operation Aussies Home group, will seek to establish whether remains of Lance Corporal John Gillespie can be located from a helicopter crash site in the Minh Dam Mountains (formerly the Long Hai Hills) of southern Vietnam. Army is currently making preparations to support the expert team to go to Vietnam at the earliest opportunity.

The Defence Security Authority audit of the security policies and practices applying to Defence weapons, munitions and explosives has completed the initial phase of its review. This phase of the audit focuses on the M72 munition, a single-use, expendable rocket launcher designed for infantry use against armoured vehicles. On 5 January 2007, the Australian Federal Police and New South Wales Police charged an individual with several offences, including receiving and disposing of seven rocket launchers from the Australian Defence Force (ADF). The police currently hold one of those munitions.

The audit team sought to ascertain the origin and source of the M72 held by the police. The team found that the M72 in question is an old variant, probably produced in Australia around 1990, and that Defence records indicate that the variant was removed from Defence stocks some years ago. The audit team was not able to identify conclusively when and where this munition was stolen from Defence. Police investigations continue with the aim of establishing when the munitions were stolen from Defence.

The audit team confirmed the findings of earlier reviews and investigations that accounting and security practices for weapons and munitions before 2000 were less stringent than those currently in place. Accounting and recording procedures resulted in vulnerabilities that could have been exploited by criminal elements.

In relation to the current weapons and munitions management system, the team found that the accounting procedures provide a significant degree of confidence that Defence assets can be tracked. The Audit Team checked both conformity to procedures and M72 stocks at sites around Australia. In all cases, the full stock of the current M72 variant held by Defence was accounted for with no discrepancies.

Although all current stock was accounted for, the audit has made recommendations to further improve and tighten the procedures for accounting and tracking M72s throughout Defence. These include individually identifying and tracking each munition, more frequent stocktaking of the inventory and tightened procedures for reporting and investigating discrepancies.

The second phase of the audit will examine all security aspects of the policies and practices for the management of all weapons, munitions and explosives across Defence.

Media Contacts:

Editor: Mr L J Bienkiewicz

02 6265 9496

RDFWA National President: Commodore H J P Adams (Retd)

02 6265 9530