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Salient: Victoria University Students' Paper. Vol. 25, No. 10. 1962.

Students and CMT — Are you Liable?

page 4

Students and CMT

Are you Liable?

In a letter to Salient, the Secretary of the Labour Department informs that students are not exempted from military service. They have to serve the full term under the National Military Service Act passed by the National Government.

This act provides that the minister may from time to time stipulate the age group liable to register for service. Those to whom such notice applies must register within fourteen days of its publication. At present, some 20-year-olds are already in uniform.

Minister of Labour Shand's pronounced Intention is to call up 20-year-olds each year. However, until a further notice is published in the Gazette no other age group is liable to register, states the Department.

The periods of training required under the act are:—

  • a period of whole-time training of fourteen weeks.
  • three years part-time training. This comprises 20 days each year, of which 14 days are in-camp training.
  • three years' service on reserve.

Hardship

Under the act, persons liable can apply for postponement. Grounds can include hardship. Says the Department: "Thus a person may apply for postponement to a training date more suitable to him because of his employment or studies." He may apply for indefinite postponement of his liability.

University students will generally be made available only for training camps beginning early in January each year. Special arrangements have been made by the army to enable University Students to complete their fourteen weeks training in two annual periods of seven weeks.

Those who seek postponement until the completion of their studies will have to forward their application for hearing by a Military Service Postponement Committee.

Labour's View

"If you want to know the party line on C.M.T. look in Hansard," said the Hon. A. H. Nordmeyer.

Salient's perusal of Hansard revealed that in past debates the Labour Party has consistently condemned C.M.T. It was an inefficient method of keeping up the armed forces in relation to its cost.

R. J. Tizard, writing in the "Statesman", said: "Short term training, with recalls to camp and a fairly long period on reserve, does not meet the need for a fully prepared force."

Mr Nordmeyer declined to say what the Party would do if it came into office in the next election. "At the moment, following many internal changes, Party policy is in a state of flux. I do not feel I can say with certitude what we will do."

Asked if he had any personal comments to make, Mr Nord-Meyer became less reticent. He felt that C.M.T. had become outmoded. Events had moved rapidly, he said, and C.M.T. stood nowhere in relation to the nuclear bomb.

Mr Nordmeyer emphasised that his personal feelings were naturally the same as party policy. He would not say whether this was because he subjected his own feelings to the party line, or because he had great influence in the making of the party. He felt that future party policy would follow the lines recorded in Hansard.

He would say nothing further on the subject.

On this question, the Hon. W. A. Fox, Minister of Marine in the last Labour government said:

"University students should be treated no differently from any one else." Mr Fox felt that the dispute about the requests to examine University files was purely an administrative difficulty was unnecessary, he said, and of course would not have arisen if C.M.T. had not been brought in.

Like Mr Nordmeyer, he thought that party policy on this matter would not change at the next election.

New Horizons

"I think university students will find their mental horizons broadened and their knowledge of life deepened by their training in the armed forces." This was the opinion of Mr D. J. Riddiford (Gov., Wellington Central). "This will be an invaluable supplement to what they have learnt at the university from books, lectures, and the university life generally."

Mr Riddiford said that he could not support the view that university students should be exempted from C.M.T. Further, said Mr Riddiford:

"I am unconvinced that the Government should give financial aid to students undergoing fourteen weeks military training. The pecuniary loss in such a short period would seldom be serious; in fact there will often be financial gain."

"It would be hard to justify aid to students while denying it to other classes of the population where financial loss could well be greater," concluded Mr Riddiford.