Today was a massive day for me in Canberra. During the day I met with and presented our petition of 60,000 signatures to: Senator Bob Katter - Independent Senator Bill Shorten - Leader of the Opposition Senator Stephen Conroy - Opposition minister for Defence Gai Brodtmann - Opposition Assistant Secretary for Defence Senator Jacqui Lambie - Independent Senator Stuart Robert - Government Assistant Secretary of Defence (Private meeting) Senator Christine Milne - Leader of the Greens Senator Scott Ludlam - Greens Senator - Defence Senator Peter Whish-Wilson - Greens Senator - Competition policy, fisheries & marine This morning Prime Minister Abbott announced that the decision to remove 6 days leave plus other entitlements had been reversed and these changes would not now occur. So what he was saying is that the Government are giving the ADF back, what they had proposed to remove.i.e. back to status qou.. !! In reality the Government have not improved anything. So we continue to fight. Bob Katter, Senator Lambie gave unconditional support for our petition and will do everything they can in the final week of the parliament sitting this week to get a motion or Bill moved in the Senate. The Labour party also committed to support our petition through until the government made a more appropriate pay offer to the ADF. Mr. Shorten tabled the petition in Question time and the government agreed to accept it. This means that the copy our petition (plus comments) is now an official Government document. Senator Conroy and Gai Brodtmann were very vocal in their support and offered whatever help they could provide to assist us. The Greens lead by Senator Milne gave further unconditional support for the petition and ADF, and will work on presenting a Bill in the Senate this week before Parliament retires for the Christmas break. Senator Milne commented that although the Greens do not always support specific deployments, they will always support the SDF members. As expected Stuart Robert totally towed the Government line of no money to make an improved offer. I presented the petition to him and asked if he would please forward to the Prime Minister to ensure that he was fully aware of the support and feeling from within the Australian population we had. I explained that we were now looking towards having in excess of 250,000 by Christmas. Mr. Robert commented that the two biggest petitions recorded in Australia that have resulted in the Government changing policy were : (i) Should GST be applied to beer (1.3 million signatures) (ii) Should community pharmacy's be allowed to operate from Coles/Woolies (1.1 million signatures) We (our ADF) are being compared to beer and Asprin. How arrogant.How insulting!! According to numbers he provided on the value of the proposed 1.5% for three years, we already have some millionaire members of the lower ADF ranks. He tried to suggest that the cost over three years of the 1.5% was $634M. This means that the average annual pay for the 57,000 ADF members is around the $247,000pa (trust me I have done the math). So here is the rub, Stuart Robert thinks that 60,000 is a pretty insignificant number by his inference that the two biggest petitions were in excess of a million signatures, and they are the only ones he could refer to that affected Government policy, and that the ADF on average have a pay level of $247,000 per year. I challenged this number, but he said he stood by the numbers that his department had provided him with. (if anyone has a year 8 child that can do basic math, I know where there is a weekend job for them). So guys there is the challenge, from this arrogant, ill informed, idealistic and self centred Government we need to get this petition up to the million plus mark. Sounds like a big challenge eh.! Not so, it is totally doable. There are over 3 million people within the wider ADF family. Add to this number friends and associate who can see and understand what this Government offer really is, and we are all above the 5 million level. This is doable and through each and every one of you continuing to share and circulate this petition and make noise, we will get the numbers. Get it on as many FaceBook and other social media sites and locations as possible, raise in coffee morning discussions, email every person in your email contacts folder, just get the message and the link out there. Feel free to circulate this message if you think it will help. We will not go away, and we will be heard. The Government will ignore us at their peril. Tony