Publication:Sea Talk Autumn 2008/Positive changes to reunion travel for members and families
By LCDR Ian Davies, Deputy Directorate of Navy Employment Conditions (DNEC)
The Navy has modified conditions for reunion travel making it more flexible and accommodating to the different circumstances seagoing personnel experience.
”The new entitlements recognise the impact extended separation associated with seagoing service has on families and provides greater opportunity for members to reunite with their families,” said the Director of Navy Personnel and Training, CDRE David Letts.
The entitlement to reunion travel for seagoing personnel has been broadened to allow members who have relocated their dependants to their ship’s home, access to reunion travel back to their dependants when the ship is in other ports in Australia.
For example, a member posted to a west-based ship has relocated his or her family to Rockingham and the ship travels to Melbourne for a refit. If the ship will be away from home port for greater than two months there is now an entitlement to reunion travel from Melbourne back to Rockingham. Previously members in this situation had no entitlement to reunion travel.
In addition, members who choose not to relocate their families to their ship’s home port, now have an entitlement for reunion travel from any location within Australia back to their dependants.
For example, a member posts from HMAS Cerberus to a Sydney based ship (and chooses to leave his or her dependants in Melbourne). If their ship travels to Darwin, for instance, the member has an entitlement to reunion travel from Darwin back to Melbourne. The previous entitlement was from Sydney to Melbourne only.
These changes are a significant enhancement to seagoing conditions of service and offer flexibility for commanding officers to provide the maximum down time for members to visit their dependants without undue financial burden.
Further information on Reunion Travel entitlements can be found in PACMAN at http://www.defence.gov.au/dpe/pac/ , the DNEC intranet web page at http://intranet.defence.gov.au/navyweb/sites/DNEC/, or contact your ship’s office staff.
The Navy is committed to improving the conditions of service for sea going personnel and will continue to explore avenues to improve conditions for all its people.
