http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/latest/5095439/returning-soldiers-hit-30000/
Returning soldiers hit by $30,000 bill
October 22, 2008, 11:32 am
Australian special forces soldiers returning from Afghanistan have been stung with a $30,000 debt because of a change in their allowances, a Senate committee has been told.
Opposition defence spokesman David Johnston says he is upset and outraged that soldiers returning exhausted, but alive, from Afghanistan will confront this in their first pay packet.
"Very large numbers of those enlisted personnel, upon their return from a rotation in 2008, have been informed that because of a pay determination they are now indebted to the commonwealth in the sum of $30,000," he told a budget estimates committee hearing on Wednesday.
That amount comprised up to $8,000 on one particular allowance and up to $20,000 on another.
"For the pleasure, courtesy and privilege of dodging bullets in Afghanistan we bring them home and then we in one line in their pay have put in there that they are ... indebted to the commonwealth," Senator Johnston said.
A back-dated tribunal determination had taken away the allowances, paid to soldiers since 1999 and 70 per cent of one SASR squadron were affected by the change.
Some had been repaying the debt, with interest at 7.2 per cent, whilst allowances continued to be paid.
"It just gobsmacks me that some of our elite troops, some of them are now taking home $250 per fortnight because of this," Senator Johnston said.
He demanded defence chief Angus Houston fix the problem immediately, saying the soldiers should have no debt and money taken from them should be returned.
Air Chief Marshal Houston said it was the first either he or Army chief Lieutenant General Ken Gillespie had heard of it.
"I will make it my business to look very closely at that," he told the committee.
Returning soldiers hit by $30,000 bill
October 22, 2008, 11:32 am
Australian special forces soldiers returning from Afghanistan have been stung with a $30,000 debt because of a change in their allowances, a Senate committee has been told.
Opposition defence spokesman David Johnston says he is upset and outraged that soldiers returning exhausted, but alive, from Afghanistan will confront this in their first pay packet.
"Very large numbers of those enlisted personnel, upon their return from a rotation in 2008, have been informed that because of a pay determination they are now indebted to the commonwealth in the sum of $30,000," he told a budget estimates committee hearing on Wednesday.
That amount comprised up to $8,000 on one particular allowance and up to $20,000 on another.
"For the pleasure, courtesy and privilege of dodging bullets in Afghanistan we bring them home and then we in one line in their pay have put in there that they are ... indebted to the commonwealth," Senator Johnston said.
A back-dated tribunal determination had taken away the allowances, paid to soldiers since 1999 and 70 per cent of one SASR squadron were affected by the change.
Some had been repaying the debt, with interest at 7.2 per cent, whilst allowances continued to be paid.
"It just gobsmacks me that some of our elite troops, some of them are now taking home $250 per fortnight because of this," Senator Johnston said.
He demanded defence chief Angus Houston fix the problem immediately, saying the soldiers should have no debt and money taken from them should be returned.
Air Chief Marshal Houston said it was the first either he or Army chief Lieutenant General Ken Gillespie had heard of it.
"I will make it my business to look very closely at that," he told the committee.
