David Johnston (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Defence, upon notice, on 22 March 2011:

For the period 1 July to 31 December 2010:

(1) (a) How many training days have been allocated to Reserves in each State and Territory; and (b) what is the budget allocation to provide these training days.

(2) (a) How many training days were actually used by Reserves in each State and Territory; and (b) what was the actual expenditure to provide these training days.

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

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

(a)-(b) For the period 1 July to 31 December 2010 the Navy and Air Force allocation of Reserve training by State and Territory and the budget allocation to provide these days is as follows:

Army

(a) Army is unable to produce an accurate figure as it does not allocate training days, it only allocates an annual budget and is unable to accurately forecast the number of training days that will be used until those days are consumed. It is the responsibility of Commands within Army to assign Reserve salary funding to groups and units for Reservist training.

(b) Approximately $61,000,000 for the period 1 July to 31 December 2010 based on 50 per cent of the total Reserve salary budget.

(2) (a) The amount of Reserve training days that were actually used by Reserves in each State and Territory are as follows:

Navy

Navy allocates training days to individual Funded Reserve Commitment (FRC) positions. These FRC positions are allocated to establishments, units and departments across Navy and non-Navy groups. These days can be used any time during the training (financial) year, and are not allocated on a half yearly basis. Navy can supply training day and budget allocation by state, but actual training day and budget expenditure can only be provided on a national basis. A total of 74,923 training days have been used across Navy between 1 July to 31 December 2010. While this represents an underspend against the approximately 95,000 days allocated for this period, Navy intends to re-allocate the unused days for usage in the second half of the year.

Army

Approximately 384,018 days have been used by Army on a national basis. Given that many units are spread across state borders, determining a breakdown of training days for each state is difficult. An approximation based on a pro-rata calculation of the number of Reserve personnel active in each state as at 31 December 2010, is as follows:

Air Force

(b) The actual expenditure to provide the training days detailed above are as follows:

Navy

A total of around $19,983,000 has been expended across Navy between 1 July to 31 December 2010 on Reserve salaries.

Army

The table below is the approximate expenditure of Army funding on Reserve salaries by state for the period 1 July to 31 December 2010. Due to the way in which Army allocates funding for Reserve salaries to formations to manage, it is not possible to determine the exact figure for each state without interrogating the exact number of days paraded by each individual within their specific state. The table below is based on a pro-rata apportionment of the expenditure of Reserve salary for the period in question based on the number of Reserve personnel active in each state as at 31 December 2010.

Air Force