Victoria Division Comments

National Naval Museum. -
A National Naval Museum must be multi-campus embracing existing naval museums around Australia, to overcome the present isolationist attitude of the 'National' Maritime Museum which is in reality only a Sydney Maritime Museum.

Navy League Centenary 2000 -
That Federal Council celebrated its Centenary of the Navy League in Australia in Launceston Tasmania on 23 - 25 November 2000.

Defence Committee -
The Victoria Division considers that a Defence Committee comprising Senior members of the Cabinet and shadow cabinet be formed and regularly briefed by senior members of the three services on the policy and implementation of the Defence of Australia. This committee should always be chaired by the Prime Minister of the day and should recommend to Parliament
* the % level of GNP that should be allocated to Defence,
* the state of defence readiness and
* the ultimate direction of Defence and defence Industries.
Victoria Division believes that a new direction in Defence Policy formulation through the introduction of a permanent new Parliamentary Defence Committee, as outlined above, is absolutely vital in ensuring an ongoing total parliamentary effort in planning for the defence of Australia's interests.

Defence - Royal Australian Navy: Retirement Age:
The Victoria Division believes that armed services, in general terms, can only efficiently use personnel up to the age of 50 and beyond that age they be retired or placed on the inactive Reserve list where they could be reactivated under special emergencies.
18 - 50 year olds as trained personnel are better equipped to operate and control the various high technology land, sea and air equipment and weapons systems. Their service training should include infantry training so that all Naval personnel are completely adaptable in all conditions land, sea and air. By allowing for a service training with the other two services whilst maintaining an ongoing basic training role within its own service will ensure joint understanding and co-operation and co-ordination between all three services.
It is suggested that the previous arrangement whereby retirement was linked to rank and age should be more rigidly enforced for today's defence scene e.g say 35 for Leut, 40 for LCDR, 43 for CMDR and 45 for Captain, and 50 for ADM, with the rank of Commodore reverting to temporary honorary rank for Task Force controllers.
Each age level of retirement should receive reasonably paid pensions immediately on retirement. The promotion guidelines for officers should allow for accelerated promotions based on individual ability, skills and training and performance in all areas.

Royal Australian Naval Reserve
The civilian direct entry recruitment for the RANR seems to have all but ceased to exist in the local communities as an identifiable part of the Defence Navy structure. Indeed, in the Defence Internet pages, the Naval Reserves hardly exists at all and references to past RANR historical performance and honours appears to be claimed as RAN only.
Whilst the RANR are considered an integral part of Defence Navy the current policy, with respect to the RANR, seems to focus only on recycling ex RAN into the RANR with very little direct entry civilian recruitment.
This new policy is a major shift with respect to the RANR which, in the past, was primarily a Citizens' Naval Force comprising direct entry civilians from the civilian workforce, who brought their refreshing attitudes and experience from the industry and the professions direct into the Naval service.
The Victoria Division believes that the Federal Government needs to clarify the following issues -
· What are the Government's policy guidelines with respect to the Royal Australian Naval Reserves and are these guidelines being realised?
· What formal consideration has been given to the economic and practical benefits arising from using civilian educated and trained direct entry RANR recruits?
· With the removal of State based recruitment for RANR personnel and the loss of local state administration in centralised State Naval Reserve depots and the loss of their historic RANR identity how has this resulted in better Reserve recruitment, training and management and RANR recruitment?
· What official reports exist that compare previous RANR policy with the results from the adoption of these new RANR policies?