This Opinion piece is written by Alexander Bates, Chairman 3rd Battalion Royal Australian Regiment (Old Faithful) Corporation
“Our home to us is the most expensive thing that we will ever purchase.
It is vital that we insure it against perceived risks and we all accept that a reasonable premium must be paid to cover the risk.
So we approach an insurance company and take out a policy.
If a thief breaks in and steals property or an arsonist burns the place down, then the insurance company will pay the losses we suffer.
However, protection is better than reaction.
If we have police on the beat, will a criminal risk breaking in?
That is to us as an individual or a nuclear family group.
What happens when the Family is Out Nation?
The Insurance is the ADF, a competent force that can respond to an emergency of which we may not even conceive.
The premium that we ought to be prepared to pay is the cost of keeping the ADF effective.
To keep the ADF effective we must be able to attract persons to the ADF (and retain them) who have the capacity to react to such emergency even though it may cost that member his or her life. Such persons will, sooner or later have families for whom they have tender feelings but whom they do not want to see live in poverty.
The members of the ADF must be competent and highly skilled. Skills that are not necessarily exclusive to the ADF. This means that if they see that their employer, that is, the government, do not value their service even to the inflation rate, they may opt to take their skills and services elsewhere.
By our government arguing for an alleged pay-rise lower than CPI is this government refusing to pay the premium that is required to keep our Country safe?
Write to your local member of Parliament and DEMAND the premium be paid to keep us safe.