Defence Force Tells Govt Enough is Enough

The Defence Force has said “enough is enough” over the way it’s been trying to meet Government saving targets.
Previously uniformed roles have been turned into civilian jobs in the quest for savings, but a top defence official says that process has wrecked morale within the armed forces.
Rear Admiral Jack Steer says defence force personnel “felt like we’d let them down, that we weren’t looking after them, that we had broken a social contract”.
That was the first stage of ‘civilianisation’. A second stage, affecting 130 military specialists, has been axed.
Instead they’ll be phased out through attrition, because Rear Adml Steer says the civilianisation process is “just too damaging”.
Minister of Defence Jonathan Coleman was unaware of what his defence chief was telling MPs – he thinks it’s “actually gone through pretty smoothly overall”.
However, the civilianisation process has gone far from smoothly – two senior ranking naval officers culled in the process had to be brought back into uniform a couple of months later, having already banked their $50,000 redundancy cheques.
Nearly 900 people have left the Defence Force since last year, and morale is the lowest on record – Rear Adml Steer says the armed forces are “into the fourth year of basically a pay freeze”.
This financial year the force expects to save $142 million, and in the financial year after next the savings are expected to have added up to $350 million.
Civilianisation was one of the main ideas in the white paper – it’s the Government’s plan for the defence force’s future – but the