Received this from Steve Chamarette;

Brig. Neil Weekes has forwarded me a copy of his letter to Dr. Kelly MP and this is repeated for your information.

27th July, 2011

The Hon. Dr. Mike Kelly, AM, MP

Federal Member for Eden- Monaro

House of Representatives

Parliament House CANBERRA ACT 2600

Dear Dr. Kelly,

I refer to your response to “Mr” Peter Criss of 25th July, 2011. It was recently reported by the media that our erstwhile Prime Minister and your leader, the Honorable Julia Gillard, MP, reportedly told the media that they should “..stop printing crap!” With all due respect to your position, Dr. Kelly, I would strongly recommend that you also heed the Prime Minister’s advice!

Before I respond to the content of your letter, may I also express my disgust regarding your lack of respect to a very senior retired officer of the Australian Defence Force. I notice that your letterhead shows very clearly “The Hon. Dr. Mike Kelly, AM, MP and I thought it would have been protocol for you to address this officer by his retired rank – “Air Vice-Marshal Peter Criss”! Dr. Kelly you know, as well as all members of the Defence community know, that there is a huge difference between retired members of the Australian Defence Force and the retired members of the Commonwealth Public Service. They have different employment obligations and they are not linked legislatively. To try to combine the cost of meeting any increase to their pension with the costs of a fair indexation for DFRB/DFRDB recipients, is pure hyperbole! You extol your service in the Australian Defence Force (…..”my career in many war zones came at great threat to my life in countless situations…..I was forced to fight with my rifle in every way it is possible to use it, including butt stroke and bayonet….”) therefore you know full well the huge difference that exists between Commonwealth Public Servants and Defence Force personnel.

While we do not deny the Commonwealth Public Servants may be justified in submitting their own claim for a higher pension, this is an entirely different argument. It is nonsense to lump the Commonwealth Public Servants with the Australian Defence Force – and you know it!!! You ramble on about the failures of the previous Government. We are very familiar with all this rhetoric and we could quite as easily lay the same blame against Whitlam, Keating, Hawke and all previous governments for the last twenty years! So please don’t play games with us or patronize us! It is very tiresome and we are no longer gullible fools who loyally click our heels together whenever the government tells us to so. Those days are gone, because we learnt this after the former Prime Minister, the Hon. Paul Keating, MP “stole” 1.8% of our DFRB/DFRDB entitlements during 1986 – 1989 (which has never been repaid!!!!). So please don’t lecture to us about what previous governments have done to ex-service personnel! We have had enough of this puerile argument!! Y

ou say that you can honestly substantiate the projected additional costs for the implementation of a fair indexation for DFRB/DFRDB recipients. Yet, you indicate that the alternative costings include all military and civilian personnel (i.e. all DFRB/DFRDB recipients plus Commonwealth Public Service Pensioners). Again, this is blatant misinformation, and again you know it!! Our calculations have never included the Commonwealth Public Service Pensioners and why should we? Again you are using smoke and mirrors to obfuscate the inadequacies of your government’s calculations. If you are so confident of the accuracy of the projections by the Department of Finance and Deregulation, and Finance Minister, Senator Penny Wong, please release a copy of the full financial analysis with its assumptions for public scrutiny and independent professional analysis.

Our submission has always been deliberately based on achieving a fair indexation for those members who have served our nation for twenty years or more. While we would have included those DFRB/DFRDB recipients, who are under fifty five years old, we very quickly acknowledged that this would increase the associated costs significantly. This would play right into the hands of the economic rationalists of all political parties and no one would achieve anything. Those DFRB/DFRDB recipients who are over fifty five need to have their future guaranteed as a matter of priority. To quote your own words, we are “….chipping away…..” at the multitude of injustices that have been imposed on Defence Force personnel and their families for decades. Again, you attempt to lump MSBS recipients into the same basket as the DFRB/DFRDB recipients and the Commonwealth Service Pensioners, knowing full well that the MSBS recipients operate completely differently to the DFRB/DFRDB recipients. It’s no wonder your government’s projections are astronomically higher than the real costs? To compound this, these costs are then extrapolated over an unspecified period of time to produce figures that absolutely petrify the Australian public.

Whatever happened to the Prime Minister’s assurance of “……complete transparency…. and evidence based decision making”? This deliberate obfuscation substantiates Mr Lindsay Tanner’s comments: “…misuse of government spending information is a favourite artifice………as a shadow minister and Minister for Finance I became adept at these dark arts using some of what are now the standard tricks employed to maximise political appearances: switching between cash and accrual accounting; using nominal, real or proportion of gross domestic product indicators of spending according to which indicator suited the argument better; classifying yearly spending as capital; making commitments beyond the forward estimate years……..”

Mr Tanner went on to say: “The lesson is simple: whenever a politician cites spending figures to show what a fine job he or she is doing, examine the fine print very carefully.”

Stop playing games with us, Dr. Kelly and at least have the courage and the integrity to tell us the truth.

Dr Kelly, all your posturing, all your reassurances, all your sterling efforts on our behalf will mean absolutely nothing at the next election unless the Greens-ALP Government support our demand for a fair indexation of the DFRB/DFRDB superannuation. If the Government continues to deny us this “condition of service” then you will have to follow Party lines and vote against the Opposition’s bill, or you will be sacked!! If you support the plight of our ex-service personnel so ardently, as you claim, then here’s the crux, Dr Kelly. Will you be prepared to “cross the floor” against your own Party to vote for the Opposition’s bill?

Quod erat demonstratum!!!

Failing to do that, I suggest you do as you have stated “……it would be the easiest thing in the world for me just pack this in and go and get a better paid and easier job……” In all probability, you may just have to do that after the next election, remembering there are 15,429 ex-Defence and ex-Public Service voters in your electorate of Eden-Monaro. Good luck.

Yours sincerely, (Neil Weekes, AM, MC)