Australian Army pay cut disgrace

Air Chief Marshall Binskin

The Defence Remuneration Tribunal confirmed on Monday that Defence personnel would get a pay rise of 1.5 per cent a year for three years. With inflation running at 2 per cent, this amounts to a wage cut.

It's just another sign of just how out of touch Tony Abbott and his government really are.  After Joe Hockey's shock budget which penalises the unemployed, the working poor and the elderly, they now want to penalise the people prepared to die for our country.

And we all know what happens when the government awards themselves a hefty pay increase.   Absolutely nothing.

Assistant Defence Minister Stuart Robert described Defence personnel's current salaries as "generous", citing an "enormous
number of allowances," subsidized housing and health care benefits.

In defence of the pay offer, Tony Abbott said "We'd all like to pay our serving Defence personnel more but there's going to have to be a very tight pay restraint across the public sector, including the Defence personnel.  I regret that."

Cuts to leave is also a sore point.  Christmas leave will continue but will now come off their annual leave and extra recreational leave will also be cut.

Corporal Daniel Keighran

Air Chief Marshall Binskin wrote in an email "As you will be aware, we are in an economic and budgetary climate where government has indicated the need for managed reduction in costs.... and the inequitable way that ERL (extra recreational leave) has been applied across the ADF workforce in the past, these offsets are reasonable."

Corporal Mark Donaldson and Corporal Ben Roberts-Smith 

Well Air Chief Marshall Binskin you thought wrong.  We think our soldiers are worth more than that and your decision and your name should resonate throughout the country as being beyond contempt.

Corporal Cameron Stewart Baird (deceased)

We're not talking about Army personnel sitting on their backsides all day somewhere in Australia pushing paper around, we're talking about young men and women surrounded by crazy jihadists who enjoy chopping soldiers' heads off.

And you, Chief Marshall Binskin, need to think again.