Army ‘ban’ on marriage

Press, 19 April 1982, Page 29

Army ‘ban’ on marriage

PA Wellington The Ministry of Defence has issued a warning to its personnel in Singapore: get married and you will have to go home. The marriage ban is aimed at saving $700,000. That was the cost in 1981-82 of putting newly-weds in homes of their own and increasing allowances from single to married rates. The Minister of Defence (Mr Thomson) said the decision to bring home single servicemen from Singapore who married during their two-year tour of duty was not a cost-cutting measure alone. Accommodation was also a major factor. Both single men’s barracks and married quarters were available, but in restricted numbers, and to rent private accommodation was expensive. “There can be an occasion," he said, ‘‘where a single serviceman is posted to Singapore to the Force there, on an understanding that he is a single serviceman accommodated in Dieppe Barracks.” "If he decides to marry, he embarrasses the administration by his need to have accommodation for his wife.” The situation had caused concern for some time, the Minister said. The decision to enforce the rules more strictly had been taken now because of the greater pressure on costs and the need to reduce spending. The Ministry was not saying that single servicemen posted to Singapore could not marry. “But what is being said is that they will be posted on the basis that they are single.

If during a two-year posting they marry, they will come home to serve on here." The Ministry of Defence had looked carefully at the appropriate Parliamentary acts, which covered its decision, including the Defence, State Service?, and Human Rights Acts. Men and women from all three services are posted to New Zealand Force, SouthEast Asia, in Singapore. There are 57 in Force headquarters, 560 in the Army’s Ist Battalion, Royal New

Zealand Infantry Regiment, 79 in the R.N.Z.A.F. helicopter unit, and 176 other support personnel. The Ministry of Defence director of public relations, Wing Commander Geoffrey Clarke, said that about 350 houses and flats were available to service families in Singapore. Of the R.N.Z.I.F. soldiers, 25 per cent were married, while 65 per cent of the others were married. The rest lived in barracks. The ruling comes into

force next month when about half the personnel change, and does not affect people already there. Wing Commander Clarke said he did not think there was any precedent for the ruling. Some posts, such as Singapore. are “accompanied,” which means servicemen can take their families, while others, such as the Sinai peace-keeping force, are “unaccompanied,” because they are only for six-month stints.