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Thursday, 9 February 2012
Page: 712

Defence

(Question No. 1454)

Senator Humphries asked the Minister representing the Minister for Defence, upon notice, on 9 November 2011:

(1) What are the department's guidelines for posting of married couples who are both serving members of the Australian Defence Force.

(2) What steps does the department take to ensure that married couples are posted to a common location wherever possible, and do these guidelines vary between the Army, the Navy and the Air Force.

Senator Chris Evans: The Minister for Defence has provided the following answer to the honourable senator's question:

(1) The Department has policies in place that apply to members of the three Services where the members of the couple are from different Services. The Australian Defence Force (ADF) recognises that members who are lawfully married, or are in a recognised de facto relationship, have an expectation that they will be able to enjoy their life together. However, the staffing requirements of individual Services, and the dispersed locations of the various ADF units, can make the collocation of ADF couples difficult to achieve. These policies provide a mechanism for ADF couples to collocate where practicable, consistent with Service requirements.

(2) Service staffing requirements and operational imperatives, combined with the dispersed localities of the various Defence units and establishments, can make collocation of some ADF couples difficult to achieve. However, whenever practicable, and consistent with Service requirements, Service Career Management Agencies will attempt to collocate inter and single-Service couples. Couples are informed to recognise that there are clear limitations to the scope to achieve this, for example:

a member of another Service who forms a couple with a RAN member must accept that their partner is liable for sea duty;

a member of an Army arms corps may be restricted to those locations where arms corps units are based, which locations are often incompatible with options available to the other member;

a junior member of the RAAF is often required to serve with a specific Force Element Group for a number of years with very few location options; and

where collocation is not feasible, the ADF has a variety of initiatives to help support Service couples during such separations.