Call for more help for A.T.C. units

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33381, 13 November 1973, Page 12

Call for more help for A.T.C. units

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON. Some Air Training Corps units may soon have to be disbanded if alternative accommodation could not be found, the president of the Air Cadet League (Sir Arthur Nevill) told the national council of the league on Saturday.

The act which constituted the New Zealand cadet corps, he considered, placed the Ministry of Defence under an obligation to provide facilities. The Air Cadet League, helped by local communities, was doing a great deal in financing repairs and additions to buildings, but the division of responsibility should be clear, he said. The 41 A.T.C. squadrons occupied 36 different premises. The A.T.C. owned 10 of these, 12 were army drill halls with insecure tenure for cadets, and the balance were a variety of Ministry of Works, municipal or privately-owned buildings. Nearly all were unsatisfactory, some to the point of falling down, Sir Arthur Nevill said. The Ministry of Defence had been asked to draw up a long-term policy for cadet accommodation, but although departmental officers were helpful it remained a question of money and priorities. ‘NOT IMPORTANT’ The Government should treat the financial needs of the cadet forces separately from those of the armed forces, Sir Arthur Nevill said. Under the present system, where cadet forces were allocated one third of 1 per cent of the Defence vote, it was obvious that the Ministry of Defence did not see them as being of any great importance to the national welfare, he said. “This is an attitude we are challenging and we hope for the support of a Government which is now so much concerned with youth welfare and training. “There should be no priorities,” he said. “The Defence Council should not be required to balance their short-term needs and commitments for the armed forces against an issue such as the future of the cadet forces, which is a matter of national long-term welfare.” SPECIAL COMMITTEE Sir Arthur Nevill suggested that a special cadet forces committee be established by the Defence Council, a committee which would include civilian representation. Emphasising the place of each A.T.C. unit within its home community, Sir Arthur Nevill said he would like to see every squadron embodied

as a unit in the civil defence organisation. Cadets were more widely dispersed than other armed forces, and hence more readily available for community service, he said. “We want the local authorities to recognise that they are their own boys, and at the disposal of the community,” he said.