Tags: australia, East Timor, Military, pay, politics,

For those that have been living under a rock the past few weeks, things got bad in East Timor recently with sacked soldiers causing havoc and gangs roaming the streets fighting each other, looting and burning. All in all a bad state of affairs and as a result forces from Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and Portugal moved into East Timor to stop the slaughter and the destruction. Its a fluid and dangerous situation that those forces have found themselves in and to say its potentially dangerous is an understatement.

Controversy has understandly broken out here in Australia after a ruling by Defence Minister Brendan Nelson that they will not be paid as much as counterparts in Iraq because its been decided their service is not warlike.

I think its a deplorable state of affairs. Our forces are in real and present danger in the performance of their duty. They are faced with armed individuals whose goal is not peaceful. In one simple act the Minister has gone to visit them and shot their morale down in flames. They don’t get to decide where they go for their country, at least those elected can look out for the troops rather than petty penny-pinching.

Fair go for our diggers.